Non-Literary Text.
” SKII# Change destiny stories- Beyond the limits of DNA with Misa Kuranaga”
Context: Misa Kuranaga began her training at the Jinnushi Karo Ballet school and later continued at the school of American Ballet. She has been a member of San Francisco ballet and later joined Boston Ballet in 2003. She was promoted to second soloist in 2005, soloist in 2007 and principal dancer in 2009. Misa received numerous awards and honors during her early age. In spite of her physical build that would normally be considered unsuited to the art, she opened up herself to the world and the odds that were stacked up against her broke as she overcame her struggles using her own tenacity. She wasn’t born to be a ballet dancer, but she chose to change her destiny. Today, she is Boston Ballet’s first ever Asian principal dancer. She overcame her limitations and changed her own destiny.
Point: The world judged on her and she did not feel confident about how she was born; short height, brown eyes as Asian. There is nothing that can limit us from being who we are and what we are meant to be.
Evidence: 1. “My DNA is a funny little dictator”
2. “it dictates that I will see the world through brown coloured eyes”
3. “that my narrow hips will limit the race of my movement”
4. “My legs are too short to be graceful” she feels that her legs are too short to be a ballet dancer and that she can’t do it
5. ” but most of all, my DNA dictates that I shouldn’t listen to little dictators”
Analysis: 1. Most of the women in the world believe that they can fulfil their dreams and be successful only if their parents were successful or have done it so. They feel that their success is inherited from their parents. If their parents are not successful then, they don’t feel confident about themselves as well. Yet some people hesitate to overcome them in their life and limit themselves from doing what they want to do
2. In this video, though Misa had short height, brown eyes, she did not care about those little things and she opened herself to the whole new world. Though some part of her DNA showed that she can’t become a ballet dancer but most of her DNA dictates that she should do it and that she can become one of those.
3. Nothing can limit you from being who are and who you will be in the future. Opening yourself to the world is in your hand and that is your identity and happiness
4. There is a repetition of “it dictates” to emphasise to her strength and determination to do what she want to do.
5. Misa Kuranaga became the first Asian ever to be appointed as principal ballerina at the Boston Ballet.
6. Throughout the video of Misa, the light focuses only on her in the dark background which symbolises how she overcame her hardships.
7. Misa opened up about her struggle making her presence known in the wold of ballet and how she overcame what others perceived as limitation.
Literary Text
Grotesque by Natsuo Kirino
context: Natsuo Kirino is the middle child of three. She began her writing career in 1984 when she first started off composing her novels in the romantic genre. However, she did not have a passion for writing more romance novels and wanted to concentrate on works focusing on the psychological aspect of crimes. She then started to write mystery novels in 1990s and won several awards as well. “Grotesque” is one of them. The story Grotesque was inspired by a 1997 murder in which the victim was a 39-year-old woman who was a researcher at Tokyo Electric Power Co. by day, and a prostitute by night.
The novel Grotesque, is mainly about how women are pressured and how they are rejected in the society. Grotesque is a powerful indictment of that kind of society. However, people often mistakes Grotesque as a crime novel. Natsuo Kirino’s real concerns are social, not criminal; her true villain is “the classist society so firmly embedded in Japan” which pushes her protagonists along the road to prostitution. Nevertheless, Grotesque is a triumph.
Point: women struggling to be taken seriously by men and are stereotype as being weak and cannot achieve their goals like men. They are pressured by the society and does not feel the sense of belonging or fitting into a particular group.
Evidence: From the story Grotesque, the particular paragraph that I have chosen is on page no. 58, last paragraph. “A squirrel….this paragraph mainly talks about how the narrators feels about herself and becomes too self conscious.
- “I would be a pine, perhaps, or a cedar”
- ” at any rate, I would not be the kind of flowery tree that welcomes birds and insects to gather in its branches like blossoms”
- ” I was a tree that simply existed for itself, alone”
- ” a clever squirrel who forages for nuts in the trees and buries them in the ground to stave off winter hunger. The squirrel was exactly what I was not”
- “old tree, thick and hard”
Analysis:
- The narrator thinks that she is not beautiful and she compares herself to “nothing”
- she feels that she lost her identity and is not recognized by anyone.
- she compares her beauty and body to a flowerless tree that won’t attract any birds or insects but rather would be left alone.
- She feels too conscious of her identity and shows lack of self confidence
- she feels excluded and unwanted by other people.
- she hated herself for how was born.
Intertextuality
Both the narrators become self conscious about how they were born and struggles to identify their identity. The society takes over them (judgemental) and limits them from being who they are and what they want to do. Both the narrators struggles in their life to fit in a certain group and finds it hard to overcome their hardships. However, Misa Kuranaga succeeds to break her limitations and proved that the judgements of society (people) were wrong and finds her identity to move forward for a better future. On the other hand, the narrator of Grotesque is still stuck in the judgements of society and doesn’t find her true identity.
