Find a meta-plot that has been used by different cultures and/or interpreted in a more modern way. These plots can be from sources such as fairy tales, mythology, the Bible, Shakespeare, etc. Compare and contrast the original with the more modern interpretation. Suggest reasons why the more modern interpretation was changed to reflect societal differences. (E.g. the flood as cleansing in the Bible and the flood in the movie The Day After Tomorrow. While the Bible is more concerned with good and evil and religion, the movie focuses on global warming and self-inflicted “cleansing” via the flood. Also, see “The Boy Who Had Never Seen A Woman” on the pitt.edu website listed below and compare those stories to the movie Blast From the Past.)
You may want to use the modern interpretation of a story as your starting point. This source can be anything from a poem, a movie, a book, a song…anything you like. Just make sure you’ve had experience with the source material: we don’t have time for you to read a new Shakespeare play just to write this paper.
Your Synthesis will incorporate
- an original story or meta-plot (you get to decide which is the “original” since it is really difficult to know which one was “first.”), briefly described,
- (2) a discussion of the modern re-interpretation and how you know it is an ‘update’ of the ‘original’
- (3) how the alterations in the modern re-interpretation only reflect difference in societal thought. This will also require an outside source to support your points, especially if the modern version includes a re-interpretation based upon a specific perspective like feminism, racism, use of technology, etc. Don’t consider our values as being common knowledge: use sources to support and demonstrate your connections to the societal values you see in the changes to the story.
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