In Love With A Statue
Vera: I just don't know what to do. I meet all these guys and they all
seem nice, but none of them are good enough.
Lauren: Just because none of those guys are like your old fling doesn't
mean they
aren't good enough. You have this view of the perfect person in your
head and you just can't get over him and move on. If you are waiting
for the perfect guy that's in your head, you might miss out on your
perfect person.
Serafina: I hate to interrupt, but Lauren is right. Waiting for the
perfect person will get you nowhere. It's just like the story where the
man fell in love with a statue and wouldn't give anyone else a chance
because they weren't the statue.
Vera: What are you talking about?
Serafina: There was this guy named Paolo, a son of a king, who saw a
statue and
fell in love with it. He bought the statue and brought it home where he
spent all of his
time with the statue, hugging and kissing it.
Vera: That's stupid. Nobody would really ever do that.
Lauren: Just shut up and keep listening.
Serafina: OK, so back to the story. Paolo had an older brother
named Claudio who thought that he should get married instead of just
being with the
statue. Because he was such a good brother, he decided he was going to
go out and try to find a girl who might be as good as the statue and
hopefully get Paolo out of his obsession. On his journey, Claudio got
a mouse and a bird for his brother.
Vera: Yeah, that's exactly what I want... a mouse and a bird. Those are
things I could find in my backyard.
Serafina: You don't always have to be so negative Vera. They were
special. The mouse danced like a person and the bird sang like an
angel. He had almost given up when he
suddenly saw a girl who resembled his brother's statue. He took her
and brought her home on his ship. On the way home to Potenza (in
southern Italy), he was cursed. A
black bird told him that if any of these things turned his brother's
head, and if he told his brother about it, they older brother would
become marble. This scared him a little bit. When he gave his brother
the mouse and the bird, he cut off both of their heads. When he gave
her the girl, the older brother said nothing because he was afraid of
turning into a
statue. The younger brother could not figure out why his brother
wouldn't talk to him, so he had his
brother locked up. After many years, the younger brother decided to ask
his brother what was going on. The older brother told him of the curse.
When he mentioned the mouse, his legs turned to stone; when he
mentioned the bird, his torso turned to stone. He spoke of the girl and
became a complete statue. Paolo, who had now become king, tried to find
a way to bring his brother back. A magician told him that if he
sacrificed the blood of his own children, he could bring his brother
back. After doing this, his brother was restored to his normal self and
his children were not harmed. This just goes to show the bad
things that can happen when looking for love in the wrong places. If
you want to fall in love with something, it just might happen and turn
out very badly, so be careful of the standards you set for yourself.
Lauren: See, I told you. If you keep looking for something perfect, you
might never find it and might lose people you care about in the
process. You can't overlook people just because they aren't as good as
your ideal man.
Vera: I guess you are right. I shouldn't compare everyone to him and
expect them to live up to it. Everybody is different and I should
accept them for who they are and give them a chance.
Author's Note:
I chose this as my first story mainly because it relates to the
readings we just did in class this week. It is similar to the story of
Pygmalion. I chose to use the image of Pygmalion from the reflections
essay for this week as well. It is similar to Pygmalion in the fact
that they both fell in love with a statue. Other than that, the stories
are very different. The characters in the frame talereally aren't hard
for me.
Serafina is my Italian teacher's name and so I can picture in my mind
the things she might say and the way she would say them. The other
characters are loosely based on my friends and their experiences.
I
wanted to develop the characters with a certain view of them in my head
so they would be consistent throughout all the stories. Hopefully they
will continue to have fun in Italian class and take the advice of their
wise teacher Serafina. I included most of the main details of the
story, but left out the sacrifices the parents went through to bring
their son back to life because I didn't feel it was needed in the whole
aspect of the story and would have made it too long if it was included.
The magician was the girl's father and he made him sacrifice the blood
of his own children to make him realize how it felt for him when
Claudio kidnapped his daughter for Paolo. He had to kill his own
children to bring his brother back. In the end, his children were fine,
but the punishment was that he would have to kill his own children. I
tried to include as many details about the part of the story that
pertained to Vera's problem, instead of details about other things.
It made Serafina more able to get her point across about how
shallow
people can be in their expectations.
"In
Love with a Statue"; Italian Popular Tales;Thomas Crane,
1885.
Image Information: Pymalion and Galatea by Jean-Leon Gerome
Web Source: World
Lit Website
Next Story: Fair Maria Wood
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