This is the fourth story by Al Sahwa School Seniors as part of this project. Below is a message from the authors, Reem Al Lawati, Mulki Al Jimhi and Maryam Saif
School is like a zoo, with its cage-like classes and its wide range and diversity of species. You’ve got the “jocks”, the ”nerds”, the “Goths”, the “pretty girls” and the plain “cool guys”. Johnny Oxford, is your typical “nerd”. With his pimply face and his shorts waist high, still keeping the suspender trend alive. It was a normal day at school. Oxford would already be at the physics lesson prepared to hear another lecture from the teacher. Students would walk in chatting, laughing and eager to start the lesson. Everyone except Domenic. Domenic is the “cool guy” that never really cared about attending his classes. Especially physics. What makes Donny even cooler is that regardless of the vast amount of times he’s bunked the physics class, he still remains supreme and never gets caught by school authority. His admiring classmates praise him and soon gave him the nickname, The Don. Donny has been Oxford’s friend for a while now. No one knows why or how that ever happened, but with time they have learnt to accept it. Oxford has always envied Donny for so long. He’s envied the ease he’s always in and the bliss of not attending a physics lesson.
One day they both decided to meet after school in Don's House. "Why do you always skip physics, Donny?" said Oxford wondering. "What’s the matter Ox-man? You know how much I hate physics, I hate Lenz’s stupid laws and all that stuff, besides, I like chilling.” Don replied. He went on telling Oxford the great amount of fun he misses when he goes to the coffee shop across the street. He also rambles on about his great skills in climbing the school walls. “Aren’t you worried about the exams?” said Oxford. “Why would I be? I’ll casually bunk that as well.”
When Oxford went back home he was thinking about what Donny told him regarding the physics lesson. He also wanted to experience the leisure and the ecstasy of skipping a boring lesson like physics. He made his decision. The next time he sees Donny, he’ll tell him that he’d like to join him on his beautiful journey. The next morning, before the flag ceremony to commence, he, with pride and joy, told Donny that he’d be skipping the physics lesson with him. Physics was the fifth lesson and before that, they decided to meet at the gym bathrooms.
The bell rang. Oxford successfully reached the gym just as he was told, with that great feeling of accomplishment, looking forward to the other side of that tall depressing wall. The wall that separates the boys from the men. Donny made his way to the gym. Suddenly his physics teacher saw him and said smiling, "Hello Domenic, nice seeing you again!" everyone in the hall had their jaws wide open. The Don couldn’t believe that his teacher saw him. Traumatised, he became conscious of the fact that he would be attending the physics lesson, something he hasn’t done for years.
Meanwhile Oxford was waiting in the bathroom hall. He began to panic. Donny took longer than usual. He decided to climb the school wall by himself, assuming that Donny would already be there. He made it to the other side and as soon as he landed his feet on the non-school ground, he received a text from Donny.
“Ox-man, I got caught. I’m in class. They called your parents asking about you, and your parents ensured them that you were at school. I heard them say that you’ll be suspended if you don’t come to the lesson. You better hurry!”
Oxford ran. Ran like he never thought his skinny legs would be able to. The thought of being expelled was like death to him. Oh how he regretted it! He slammed the door open and entered the class, looking like he was attacked by a group of monkeys. The teacher broke into laughter, and so did everybody else. He patted him on the back and said “ever heard the saying: Look before you leap?” handing him his copy of The Fable of the Donkey, the Ox and the Farmer. “It’s my favourite.”
Our story is a modern parallel adaptation of Shahrazad’s tale “The Fable of the Donkey, the Ox and the Farmer”. It is a funny and more relatable twist of the original story. You can read the original here http://markturner.org/lmx.html .We would love to hear your feedback and your literary comments about our story.
After reading your adaptation I have come to see that there is a similarity of the plot with the original's story. I find it an interesting adaptation due to the fact that the plot is related to one of our modern issues which is that students find it fascinating to skip classes and how friends can influence each other.
ReplyDeleteMoreover, I have noticed some literary devices being used such as amplification. For example in your first paragraph you have not only said that Oxford was our typical "nerd", you have amplified on what he looked like for the reader to picture exactly how he looked like.
An obvious literary term is that you had character and dialogue. Donny and Oxford were the characters and they had several dialogues from time to time which made the story compelling. Loved it, thank you for sharing.
Yes, we have been thinking of how to relate this to a modern time issue and at the same time try to send a message through it.
DeleteThen after a very long discussion we came up with this idea. As for the connection its clearly shown that the parallel line between the original and the adapted story are the conflict, names and the moral of the story.
For the literary devices as you said we used amplification to give our readers a scene of how our characters look like. Dialogue is also used to suit the characteristics of s short story and to give the story a more life to it instead it being narrated.
Thanks for sharing what you think of our story.
Thank you for your comment. As we mentioned in our blur, we tried making this adaption as relatable as possible to the reader. Bunking lessons is one of the common habits students carry out and has almost become a custom to those who are seen as "cool" in the school atmosphere. These habits are very common in contemporary time and in our modern lives, making it very relevant to the reader, which ultimately was our main goal. Don is the cool lazy guy that skips his physics lesson, just as the Donkey in the original story is the idle, negligent character. Oxford, just like the ox is the hardworking and obedient one. This is the amplification in our story. By describing the characters precisiley and using dialogue, we tried to make them come alive so that the reader can see the connection even better.
DeleteI see, what a nice story, but can you explain more how Dominic and Oxford are related to the original story?
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DeleteThank you for your comment and certainly for the question.
DeleteAs you have read this story it is an adaptation of "The Fable of the Donkey, the Ox and the Farmer." The two main characters are the Donkey and the Ox . If you noticed the both name has the same first two letters of the two characters in the original story. So instead of the lazy Donkey who doesn't like to do work we named "Dominic" a modern name who is also called by his known nickname "Donny" . This was one of the parallel connection between this story and the original one.
We also made sure that these names match the characters behavior in the story meaning Dominic gives the feel of a cool guy name and so on.
And the same goes in the other, instead of the Ox who does his work we replaced it and named "Oxford" a guy who attends all his physics lessons who is the hard worker.
Here is how we adapted the names in a modern way.
Hope I have answered your question.
I must say, that was a fun read! I noticed that no one mentioned the Farmer character. Is he adapted as the teacher? If so, how is there resemblance in both original and adapted character?
ReplyDeleteGlad you liked it. As for your question, yes, the farmer is adapted as the teacher. He is the one that provides the students with hard work in his physics class, in resemblance to the Farmer making the two animals work in his farm.Also, if you have read the original story, you would notice that the farmer has the ability to understand the language of animals, meaning the farmer had a sense of feeling and awareness of what was going on. We confirmed this idea because at the end, when the Ox rushes up from his "too tired" to work state, he laughs as if he expected the Ox to have that kind of reaction. In our adaptation, when Oxford rushes into class after that Donny has warned him about his expulsion, the teacher also laughs and pats him on the back, hinting to Oxford and the reader that he knew what was going on.
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ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed this story. Loved the flow and how the dialogue used was something a normal kid in school would say. The adaptation of the names was spot on and the characters' roles were described really well. I also love the friendship bond you have shown and how despite one being nerdy and the other being cool and no one understands how it happened the cool kid doesn't seem to leave his friend and actually tells him to come back. Well done :) I'd give this a 5/5
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