Lauren Blanchard, Period 2, 12/8/20, Day A

Lauren Blanchard
Modern Mythology

Ms. Fusaro
12/8/2020

In the lives of most children, we reach a point when the punishment of "time-out" no longer holds any meaning. My mother's reaction to this turning point in my life was somewhat unconventional. I was not grounded and owned no electronics that could be confiscated. Instead, my mother threatened a more precious object: my books. Each time I misbehaved, a page would be ripped out from the back of the book I was currently reading. 

No pages were ever removed. It took me years to realize the threat was empty. In that time, I developed a series of strange reading habits. My paranoia drove me to always read the last four pages of a book first. I knew the end before the plot and characters. I "spoiled" the story for myself, yet still found the experience of reading enjoyable. 

Nobody else seemed to understand. I only understood due our most recent unit in class, Greek Tragedies. 

When audiences in ancient Greece went to the theater, they knew the entire plot of the play they were about to see. In Sophocles' Oedipus Rex, they were aware Oedipus killed his father and married his mother. The audience knew their hero had failed to cheat fate. There was no surprise or plot twist, yet they still saw value in watching these events unfold. Prior knowledge added to the irony of the plot. For them, the play about the literal tragedy of a good person realizing their entire life was a lie. 

Ralph Waldo Emerson once said, "It's the not the destination, It's the journey." I have come to believe that statement is true. The journey I share with book characters, and those shared on stage in Greek Tragedy, allow for an emotional connection beyond reality and fiction. We feel the pain of those who never existed, as real as if it happened to ourselves. The plot looses significance, but the moments that drive it gain value. We experience the story, even when we know the end. 

In any narrative, connection is what makes a story great. It is an art form, greater than words and pictures, that can be felt in the depths of the soul. The connection we experience with characters, drives us to laugh and cry at everything from movies to epic poems, and in this display of emotion we connect with each other. 

As the world changes and grows divided, we need to remember the importance of our journeys with the fictional characters who shaped our lives. We need to seek out the connections we felt with them in others, and allow the emotions that foster understanding to develop. Then, we might not feel like our existence is devolving into the next legendary tragedy.