9/20/19 Michelle Kang Period 8

9/20/19

Michelle Kang PD8

Modern Mythology

Presentation Day 2

Rising From the Ashes

Starting with my group's presentation. Sara began the presentation by explaining our cover. The top of the cover included dust/grey clouds in order to illustrate the hopelessness and how people are losing their morals during this situation. On the bottom half of the cover was a reflection of the volcano, showing the pre-apocalypse world. The colours were purple/blue, a contrast to the apocalyptic world which was dark and gloomy. On the next slide, I explained the overall plot of the prequel. In our version, the volcano erupts, releasing ashes/dust into the atmosphere. This causes all sunlight to be blocked and as a result, the people are forced into a long winter and are unable to grow food. The government is overthrown and people begin killing and stealing one another to survive. Leyao went on to explain how this disaster impacted families and society. She begins to explain that the mom has never been in a healthy state of mind, “My heart was ripped out of me the night he was born so don’t ask for sorrow now.” It was a mental and physical burden for her which lead her to kill herself. People started to resort to cannibalism, forming cults in order to survive and this would change their society. Kayla then went on to explain how certain quotes from the book explained why our theory would work. Alexandra’s slide was on the “rotisserie baby”, she elaborated and further justified how the situation caused people to lose their sense of consciousness to perform these horrific acts. “To be or not to be that is the question.” On this slide, Leyao discussed how the mom and dad handled the apocalypse. While the mom chose death as the easy way out, the dad sees his son as the reason to keep going. Sara ended the presentation by explaining the title, “Rising from the Ashes”, saying it represents how the dad and boy rose from this tragedy and carried the fire. 

Paving the Way

Starting off the second presentation was Marlin who explained the backstory to their prequel. Their idea was that a nuclear war resulted in fallout and chaos due to the UN being unable to find peace. As a result, the world was divided and he described it as being similar to the Cold War. Paulo pointed out that there was evidence of ashes and bleakness in the book. In addition, the dad’s constant coughing out blood was a motif throughout the book. Daniel provided more evidence by explaining quotes from the book that would back up their theory of nuclear war. “The city was mostly burned… Cars in the streets caked with ash, everything covered with ash and dust.” “At night when he woke up coughing he’d sit up with his hand pushed over his head…”In the next slide, Mateusz talked about the various symbolism and concepts of their book cover.  The black and white cover represented the duality of good and evil in their world. Grey represented the blend of good and evil, and how every action is both good and evil. Victoria talked about the fire pistol which was a symbol in the book. She talked about how fire pistols are usually used for emergencies in order to communicate when you're in danger, but the dad and boy fired the pistol for fun which showed a sign of lost hope. Towards the end, the group showed a clip of the aftermath of the bombing of Hiroshima to show the devastating effects of nuclear weapons.

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The last group incorporated something no other group did: religion. Josh and Brendan explained that their title was an allusion to Christ’s birthday, which in turn was also the boy’s birthday. In their prequel, the boy is born on December 31st. They explained that by being born towards a new year, the boy represented hope/ a new start. Next, Adam did a recap of the book “What We Know From the Book”. He provides several quotes to support his points; the planet was devastated by an apocalyptic event, the planet turned greyscale, everything burnt, ash everywhere and the events of the book take place in America. Helen then discussed the plot of the sequel where the Yellowstone volcano erupts and causes ash into the air. With the sun being blocked there was no way of getting food and there was no warmth.