The only way Elisabeth could express her passion for art without her father getting upset was by making scarecrows. The scarecrows helped protect the family crops and were not seen as a waste of time to her father. Now if only she could find a husband.
Elisabeth prayed and prayed that she would find the right guy. One day as she was building the last scarecrow for the field, she said "I wish you were a real man, sculpted to my perfection." She hugged the scarecrow, set it up on its stand, and went to bed.
The next morning she woke up bright and early and went to the field. Upon reaching the crops she noticed one of the scarecrows was missing. She searched everywhere for it, until finally she ran into a man in the middle of the corn field. The man was holding the scarecrow, which looked to be in two pieces. The man said "I'm really sorry about your scarecrow, I was out watering the crops and accidentally knocked it over. I have been trying to fix it for an hour now."
Elisabeth sat down and showed the man how to make a new scarecrow, inspired by him. The two became very close and later got married. Their crops were guarded by two scarecrows, one that looked like her and one that looked like him.
My story is inspired by the story Metamorphosis: Pygmalion. In the original story Pygmalion, the main character, is a sculpture and wishes to have one of his sculptures come to life. In the original story the sculptor does in fact come to life and fall in love with the main character. In my story I decided to have the same idea but a more realistic love story, where the sculpture brings love, but indirectly.
"Metamorphosis: Pygmalion" by Tony Kline
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| source: scarecrow couple |
I really like your adaptation of the story of Pygmalion! I liked that story a lot and it really stuck out to me. I like that you took it and I couldn't even tell it was the same story. Using the scarecrows and how a "sculpture" could bring two people together was a really good idea! See, you thought you couldn't write blog posts, but this one is really great!
ReplyDeleteHi Kaylee! This is also the story I rewrote for this assignment so it is fun to see how others wrote it in their own way. I truly enjoyed the indirect way the "sculpture" brought love in your story. I was waiting for the scarecrow to turn into a real boy and then you outsmarted us all by changing it up. It makes the story more realistic to todays reader and that makes it a better read, in my opinion. Great work and I can't wait to see the way you outsmart us next.
ReplyDeleteHello kaylee! I really enjoyed your story and thought it was a nice twist on the original story! I really thought the scarecrow was going to change into a man and didn't expect someone to show up which i thought was a nice twist. One thing i would add though is maybe some more detail on the man, like why he was in their farm or where he came from exactly maybe giving sort of a magic sense to it from the wish.
ReplyDeleteHey Kaylee! I loved the way you switched up the story a bit. I'm a sucker for a romance or love story, so I loved yours! Describing the ways in which you told that Elisabeth made the scarecrows and then used them for her family farm really allowed the reader to understand the importance and significance of them. Reading your story leaves me wanting more. Does Elisabeth and the man have kids whom also make their own scarecrows?
ReplyDeleteHi Kaylee! I enjoyed reading this and your decision to recreate the Pygmalion in a more realistic way is not only successful and well-written, but also acted a bit like a plot twist for me because I clicked the link and read Pygmalion before I read yours. I was completely expecting the scarecrow to come to life from the title alone so that was cool of you to subvert the narrative in that way! I would have loved to have read more about the couple both in that moment of fixing the scarecrows and more generally over the course of their getting together and settling down, but I wholeheartedly think this story in its current form is both awesome and has that distinctive fairy-tale vibe to it, so the "happily-ever after" ending fits perfectly!
ReplyDeleteHi Kaylee. I really like your take on metamorphosis. When I was reading the story, I thought that the scarecrow was going to turn into a human. After all, she did pray that she had a man sculpted to her perfection. The next day when the scarecrow was broken and the man appeared, I was pleasantly surprised with this twist! I like how you mention in the author’s notes how the sculpture brings love but indirectly. That is totally true! Elisabeth’s dad seems a little unaccepting of her passion for art. Is there an underlying meaning? Did he once have a passion for art and he never made it so he didn’t want his own daughter to get disappointed as well? Maybe he just wanted her to stay in the family business like you said in the story. I think a great way to expand this story or make a second chapter would be to discuss why the father is so anti-art a little more. Giving him a back story would be really interesting and it would allow him to be understood a little more. Great story!
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