Blog Entry 12: Initial (Pre-)Writing

I still have not finished reading my book but I'm about half way done. The book is called "In the Forest of the Night" and I'm going to give a brief bio of the author, then give detailed description of whats going on in the book. I will discuss the symbols in the book and focus on the heroes quest. Their is also a poem by William Blake "The Tyger" that plays an important role in the book, and I will analyze the poem and explain how it works with the book. The book is about a 300 year old vampire named Risika who lives in Concord, Massachusetts who is being hunted by a mysterious person. The mysterious person has left her a black rose but it reminds Riskia of the same rose that was left for her when she changed from human to vampire. Seeing this rose brings back memories for Risika like her family and their fate in her new world of madness.

Blog 11: My Chosen Story

The story I chose is "In the Forest of the Night" by Amelia Atwater-Rhodes. I picked it because it was a supernatural vampire story that I read when i was like 13. I'm not into the whole twilight scene because of the sparkling people but Amelia makes twilight look like a children's story. Its just a dark book to read in general. The plot is about this girl who became a vampire and 300 years later she still roams the land killing but has flashbacks of her past to better times were their was no pain. But someone is scheming to kill her in a way her brother was killed. Can she find out who in time? I will approach this essay with monomyth because it has a heroes quest to it. I will be talking about the symbols that play major roles in the main character's life. I will also talk about the poem that you read in the opening pages of the story called "The Tyger" by William Blake and the significance it plays to the story.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_the_Forests_of_the_Night

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monomyth

http://www.allreaders.com/topics/Info_17576.asp

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Tyger

Blog: 9 Hero's Quest and Film

The film I will be discussing is Blood: The Last Vampire, which is a 2000 manga directed by Hiroyuki Kitakubo. The main character Saya follows the hero's quest very well by her call to action, challenges, revelation, atonement and her disappearance from society which is like her return to never being seen again unless called upon. Each item she uses to stay alive is symbolic to getting her mission complete. Saya's background is unknown to the viewer but the only clues you get is a picture of her in the year 1892 with the word vampire next to it and being called the "the only remaining original".

Her call to action is by her human commander David, informing her on her next assignment which takes place in a high school to kill demons called chiroptra. The symbols that help guide her through her mission and high school is her school uniform which blends her into the environment, her katana which is a Japanese sword to kill the demons hidden in a backpack, a shovel, and a fake sword. Another symbol she uses is her vampire senses like sensing the demons.

Well her challenges are pretty easy to identify like killing the demons at the high school before they kill another student. Saya's other challenge is to do it without causing a scene but nothing is ever done quietly because the nurse ends up seeing Saya kill one of the demons causing her sword to break and watches the second demon transform in front of her. The demon then uses the halloween poster to disguise itself and kidnaps the nurse to try and prevent Saya from attacking it. She ends up using the broken end of the sword that snapped off when she killed the first chiroptra but merely wounds it.

Saya's revelation begins when she notices a third demon appears and the second sword she gets is a fake while trying the kill the second demon causing no damage at all. She finally kills the second demon using a shovel by decapitating its head. David her commander comes to the rescue with a brand new katana and they both hunt down the last chiroptra. With a final swing on a airfield tarmac, she mortally wounds the demon but before it dies. You can see Saya have some atonement for killing it by offering it some of her blood as an apology for the pain she caused. She then disappears with David to never be seen again by any of her associates like she just wants to be left alone or she moved on to another mission.

What the movie is trying to say is that, you should never give up on tough situation's, no matter how hard it gets. We all have to keep in are minds that we can overcome any obstacle presented in front of us. To always help, not just are self's but anyone in need of assistance. Then we all can make are hero's quest come true for others to read and hear about.

Work Cited
Blood: The Last Vampire. Wikipedia.Web. April 27, 2010.

Blood: The Last Vampire. Dir. Hiroyuki Kitakubo. Wiriter. Kenji Kamiyama. Perf. Youki Kudoh, Saemi Nakamura, Joe Romersa. Production I.G.,2000.