Animated Narratives - Week 4

Nursery Rhyme

There was once a tiny caterpillar

Who wanted to make threads

And learn from the tiny spider

Who weaved the perfect webs

One had eight legs and

One had eight eyes

Soon they became best friends

In the field of golden rye

They went rafting in the river

On a big maple leaf

They sang with the crickets

Counted the stars and fell asleep

As they grew older

They came to realize

They were two different species

and two different types

The poor little caterpillar

Couldn’t weave in any ways

The only relationship between them

Is the predator and the prey

The other spiders didn’t like it

They destroyed their home

They tore it into bits

And left them all alone

The caterpillar was devastated

It didn’t understand why

It turned into a chrysalis

To hide from the spider and cry

The spider stayed by its side

For ten days and ten nights

“Without my best friend,

Neither can I survive”

The chrysalis cracked one day

And the sleepy spider was surprised

The tiny little caterpillar

Is now a pretty butterfly

The butterfly picked the spider up

And then they flew away

Together they watched the sunrise

And started a new day

Reflection

This week I explored the power and beauty of friendship. The premise our group chose was ‘A butterfly wants to date the spider’, but I altered it a bit and made them become friends instead.

In the beginning I was gonna write a short story, but then I thought why not write something in the perspective of a kid, like a nursery rhyme. I think the best kind of friendship is one that you understand and unconditionally support each other, one that makes you grow and become a better person. Writing a simple and catchy nursery rhyme is a perfect way to show its pureness and the strong bond between two good friends.

My idea was inspired by ‘Tales from my Mother Goose’ (further referred to as Mother Goose), a collection of folktales published by Charles Perrault in 1697, which was later published again with popular nursery rhymes like ‘Humpty Dumpty’ and ‘Baa, Baa, Black Sheep’. Although the true identity of the author remains unknown, Mother Goose became a widely known classic collection of children’s poetries. By reading through some of the poems, I learned the structure of poetry and different rhyme schemes, which helped me write my own story.

Despite the inspiration I took from Mother Goose, I wrote a positive ending for my story, as most of its poems have rather dark themes. I also followed the three-stage model to make the story more dramatic. After writing the first draft, I went back and added a few more stanzas in the beginning to fill up the caterpillar and the spider’s back story. In addition, I weakened the external obstacle, which is the other spiders’ reaction, by making them less aggressive. This is so that the internal struggle of the main characters and how it reflects in their behaviours is more distinct. At last, I changed the ending from flying away into the sunset to watching the sunrise together, as it serves as a metaphor of a new beginning.

Reference

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/mother-goose