Week 7 EC: Microfiction
Why the Sun Rises Every Day:
One day, the sun goddess Amaterasu was spinning at her loom, when her stormy brother and enemy Susanoo burst in and killed one of her handmaidens. Grieving, Amaterasu fled to a cave, and the sun disappeared. In the darkness, the frightened inhabitants of the earth devised a plan. The Goddess of Laughter helped the humans by laughing and dancing outside the cave. Within the shadowy cavern, Amaterasu stirred and peaked outside. The people held up a large mirror. When Amaterasu saw her reflection, she thought it was a rival! She exited the cave, and the sun’s been shining ever since.
Two Sentence Version:
The sun goddess hid herself in a cave, grieving the death of a friend. Tricked by the people into peaking outside, she beheld her reflection in a carefully positioned mirror, and not wanting to be replaced as goddess of the sun, returned to her place in the sky.
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| The Rising Sun, an important symbol in Japanese mythology and art. https://www.pixelle.co/sun-japanese-art/ |
Author's Note: I adapted the story I read about earlier this week - the Japanese myth about the sun goddess Amaterasu - to exactly 100 words and then to only two sentences. The story is pretty simple when you break it down. I liked the process of deconstructing the story to only its essential elements. It forces you to understand the story at a deeper level. Since I will definitely use this story in my final project, it is helpful for me to give it some thought, especially since I will be retelling it!
Bibliography: "The Miraculous Mirror," Romance of Old Japan, Part I: Mythology and Legend by E. W. Champney and F. Champney (1917).
I really enjoyed this story. I have not read the original but you did such a great job of making the story clear and concise that I feel like I have. More so, I like your reasoning behind breaking a story down. I think it is very insightful to get to the roots of the story by retelling it in short forms. I am curious to see what was cut from the original. Overall wonderful storytelling.
ReplyDeleteHi Rachel!
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed your microfictions of the story. It was very easy to read and understand what was happening without having any background knowledge on the original story. I can appreciate the steps you took to make the retelling and hope that it will help you on your final project. I think that you had a very good title for the first story and hope that it is also applied to the two sentence version as it helps give your story some context.