The original story, “Why Don’t You Look Where You’re
Going?”, was written in the 1950s, a
relatively peaceful time in world history and an era in American history during
which there was much “smooth sailing.” At least America appeared that way, on
the surface. Consider that a major concern of Fifties society was conformity,
as represented by the story you’ve just read. For most post WW II Americans,
there was no reason to question Society. Everyone wanted to belong. There weren’t too many concerns (yet) with
technology, race relations, gender issues, immigrants, the handicapped, ecology
and global warming, proper nutrition, college debt, mutant viruses like Zika,
etc. In case you haven’t noticed, these are topics of your class’s article
reports—topics that are very important today.
So here’s your assignment. You are going to write a societal
allegory—you may write the 2016 version “Why Don’t You Look Where You’re
Going?” (option 1) or you may create
something entirely new (option 2). I’m not asking for a full story, but a story
outline of sorts that will detail your writing plans.
OPTION 1--You may keep the OCEAN LINER AS SOCIETY symbol
smoothly moving along in the sea. However, let’s update the story by creating a
new adversary for the ship. That new adversary will represent a current major
issue for the 2000s, issues like the ones in your article reports.The new adversary “could be” in his/her own boat, but it
doesn’t have to be. It could be an environmental force (like the Flying Fish),
a person or group of persons on the ocean liner, another boat that rivals the
size of Society, a group of smaller
boats, or anything else that will best express something that modern Society
has to deal with. There are more
formidable problems that Society faces today, so it would be more appropriate
to have Society in conflict with something other than a man in a tiny sailboat.
I don’t want to limit your creativity, but I do want you to
include at least some essential elements to your story. So please use the OCEAN
LINER to represent Society, but feel free to change the liner’s color, structure,
size, speed, crew, etc. in any way to fit your story’s purpose. Also, you
should include at least SIX CHARACTERS in your story. You can identify your characters as the
original story does, by gender, size, shape, color, what they wear, etc., or
you can give them appropriate names. That’s up to you.
Make sure that your reader can understand the CONFLICT of
your story. Express some EVENTS that escalate the conflict to its climax and
conclusion to reveal your theme. Maybe even include some brief DIALOGUE that
reveals your theme, as the author of “Why?” did when the man in the sailboat
screamed to the people on the ship, “Why don’t you look where you’re going?”
His cry is both a cry of anger at the near accident and an admonishment of
those who don’t really care where Society is taking them.
OPTION 2—Using different symbols, write a societal allegory
that deals with a major modern issue. So
SET your story elsewhere—maybe in a school, at a local mall, at a polling
place, etc. Include CHARACTERS and a CONFLICT
that escalates to a CLIMAX and RESOLUTION that says something about the modern
world. Maybe include important DIALOGUE. This option offers you more creative license,
so I won’t burden you with any more
rules.
To repeat, I am not asking you to write an entire story.
Instead, I’d like you to write a 250+ word blog that describes your ideas for a
new story. Post before Thursday's class.
