Knowledge+isn't+always+power

Dialogue

Introduction

Most of the time, stories and anecdotes only what the writer sees as important. Sometimes, however, than can be more to be found, like a hidden discussion. That is exactly what this project explores. For this project, the student selected a certain episode form the "Book of Genesis" of //The Bible// and create a conversation that did not happen, or at least, was not told. The dialogue would be between two characters, using certain words, manner of speech, and emotion to convey certain personality traits of the characters. This specific dialogue includes God and Eve before and as he banishes her from the Garden of Eden. The dialogue is intended to convey Eve's guiltiness and naivete and to convey God's intimidating nature and insecurity.

Jon McNaughton This work is a painting called "One Nation Under God" by artist Jon McNaughton, a painting in which almost everyone is symbolic. For instance, McNaughton had intended for the pregnant woman in his painting to be saying "Let me keep my baby", referring to his stance on abortion. The red sash across Jesus' waist symbolizes the blood he spilled for us to save us when he was crucified under Pontius Pilate. He uses all these people to convey all these different emotions and attitudes like he does in his other works. The purpose of McNaughton's worked was described as work that intends to make you feel and think. That has been McNaughton's philosophy when approaching other paintings of his. He is a small time painter from Utah whose works receive praise from all across the country. This is one of McNaughton's most acclaimed paintings and follows such a theme as religion and the real world in other works of his. More on Jon McNaughton

God: Intimidation and Insecurity God's greed for omnipotence results in an irrational fear of man becoming more like him. Even still, God strives to control mankind in //The Bible// and will do it in any way possible. Artist Jon McNaughton advocates that the main way God does this is by utilizing mans fear, intimidating them into compliance. In his painting "One Nation Under God", McNaughton shows God's intimidating nature by depicting Jesus holding up the Constitution. In doing this, God tries to link piety with patriotism. A crowd of men ad women crouch in front of Jesus while real American heroes stand behind him, saluting Jesus Christ. McNaughton uses these saluting patriots to describe God's control over man, symbolizing how God wants man to believe that all things good happen if they shower him with unending praise, keeping God the central recipient of worship. God tries to convince man that if they do not worship him, they will not prosper or be great like the heroes of America, making man both love and fear him, thus keeping mankind in his grip. God makes man believe in him, keeping his control, but when God's control falters, he almost loses his grip on them. God has a close encounter with losing control when man almost becomes like him when in //The Bible//, Adam and Eve eat from the tree of knowledge and he says, "'See, man has become like one of us, knowing good from evil; and now, he might reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life, and eat, and live forever'" (Gen. 3.22). After Adam and Eve become knowledgeable like God, he adopts an ideology that makes him believe that man might be as powerful as he. God begins to think and ask "what if?" What if man becomes like him? What if man were to overthrow God? What if man reigned over him instead? His insecurity resulting from these questions makes God fear men and out of his fear expels them from the Garden. This thought process makes god appear fearful and insecure, showing his flaw's as a ruler

Gustave Dore This is only one of the many scenes illustrator Gustave Dore has drawn in his works. Dore has made many biblical sketches from all different aspects and stories of Christianity, like many pictures including scenes from //Dante's Inferno// the tale of a man descending into the Inferno, better known as hell. Dore was alive from 1832 to 1883 and in his time he did over ten thousand engravings and over four thousand editions. He was very prolific throughout his life, starting when he was twelve with carving into lithographic stones and then exploding onto the Parisian scene. Ironically, Dore started with more satirical paintings and sketches, but wanted to do more in-depth, profound works. Proof of this advancement lies in his many biblical, dramatic sketches which was the most common theme of his literary drawings and sketches. Gustave Dore died poor, but still had many respecting fans, including what would be a famous Vincent van Gogh, calling him an "Artist of the People". More on Gustave Dore

Eve: Curiosity and Guilt

Eve's naivete and curiosity of God's power leads to a guilty conscience for disobeying him, causing her to make a most critical mistake. Though the serpent did trick Eve into eating of the tree of knowledge, it was her fault ever thinking about disobeying God were she started to believe the serpent and it said, "[W]hen the woman saw that the tree was good for food... and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate..." (Gen 3.6). Eve was aware that the fruit was not to be eaten, and she knew the consequence, but she succumbed to her curiosity of the having of knowledge and her naivete managed to convince her conscience that it was OK to eat the fruit of knowledge, foolishly disregarding the only rule she was given and caused her and Adam's expulsion from the Garden of Eden. Had she not been so childish and naive, she would have realized that what the serpent was telling her to do was wrong and that she should not even think about consuming the fruit. It is only after Eve eats the fruit that she realizes the magnitude of what she has done. Artist Gustave Dore captures her distraught emotion as her and Adam are sent forth by a cherubim in his illustration aptly entitled "Adam and Eve Driven Out of Eden". Eve buries her face in Adam's shoulder as they are pointed out of the Garden by the cherubim while even being shamed and scowled at by a creature in the roots of a tree, showing how frowned upon the two are, but it is clear that Eve is affected more so by this. Adam, looking hurt, keeps his head up, showing how he is not entirely ashamed of what he did. Eve, however, keeps her head down, her guilt causing her to look only at the ground, feeling truly ashamed of what she did. Adam did not do anything wrong, it was Eve who sinned. She caused them both that life of shame, succumbing to her darkest desires, showing how she is the weaker being. Dialogue Script God: hello eve. Almost didn’t see you there Eve: oh hey god.... God: what uh...what’s with the clothes? Eve: oh these? Oh they’re nothing. i just thought....you know.....it’d be weird if you saw me naked. God: wow eve that’s a rather KNOWLEDGEABLE thing to say Eve: Haha yeeaaaaaaaah funny thing about that....i was looking through the garden then a serpent told me about some awesome fruit that made you smart like god and i decided....you know.... to.... take a bite... just to see what it was li- God: you WHAT?!?! *thunder crack* Eve: I’m sorry god, but the serpent and the knowledge... it was all so tempting God: I told you like a bajillion times not to eat the fruit of the tree of knowledge!! Eve: but I was trick-- God: DONT GIVE ME NONE OF THAT!!! (*more thunder*) i gave you crystal clear instructions not to eat from that tree!! Honestly, it's so simple Eve: but if you didn’t want me to eat from it than why did you ever put it there? God: um I’m sorry. are YOU god? Eve: no but I’m just saying that-- God: oh really? Because I could have sworn you were. i mean, you clearly have the authority to question my ways so you MUST be god. Eve: I’m sorry lord, it was not my place God: yeah that’s what i thought..... that’s what I thought God: so you ate from the tree of knowledge. Don’t tell me Adam did too.. Eve: well i tasted the fruit and I was like "wow this is really good" so I gave Adam a tiny bite and well... God: oh no!! no! no! no! no! NO (*loud thunder*)!! Why would Adam ever listen to YOU. I mean, you’re just a woman. Anyways, you too are waaaaay to much like me now Eve: we aren’t THAT much like you. i mean, we aren’t immortal like you God: exactly. And that’s how it will stay Eve: oh god! You couldn’t POSSIBLY mean-- God: yes eve. as punishment for your blatant breach of policy, you and your fellow sinner are hereby banished from the Garden, so that you never become more like me or even get close Eve: but god! I said I was sorry!! God: well sorry just ain’t good enough HUH?? Eve: *cry* why god? WHY!?!? God: because I’m too insecure Eve: but I was just curious is all God: but I don’t want people to be like me AT ALL. Like just no. never. NEH. VER. Never ever. EVER Eve: *cry* fine God: *triumphantly* hahahahhahaha god:1 humans:0. You know what? Just for kicks, now whenever you have a baby is gonna hurt like REALLY bad. It’ll be like......if u stretched your bottom lip to the back of your head. What’s worse is that regardless of all the pain you will still want kids Eve: oh my GOD. That sounds...... sounds.... God: terrible? Yeah well so is EATING FROM THE TREE OF KNOWLEDGE!!! Eve: oh if i could just take back that moment-- God: well you can’t can you. Sorry little ms. i-want-to-be-god Eve: i do NOT-- God: you know what? You’ve already overstayed your welcome. Goodbye Eve: fine but-- God: BYE!! Eve: alright.... God: phew! Bullet dodged  -The End-
 * birds chirping*
 * Eve and Adam walk off*
 * song starts*

Script Analysis: The whole goal of the project was to convey traits of two different biblical figures' personality through their manner of speaking only. This is a challenge if one does not know how to really exaggerate, going over board to get his or her point idea, or in this case personality trait, across. Alex managed to keep this in mind when he was writing his script, though sometimes he was a little too upfront and not creative about conveying the ideas. Like when trying to convey insecurity of God, he literally said "'Because [God's] too insecure". He could have conveyed that more subtly and creatively but other than that the script really flaunted God's intimidating nature and insecurity as well as Eve's naive sense of curiosity and the guilt she feels. Describing Eve, actually, was the high point of Alex's dialogue. The way he made Eve sound whiny conveyed that kind of childish naivete that was his goal to begin with, the sadness and guilt when she said "Oh if I could just take back that moment" made her sound truly sorry for what she had done and that is what Alex was hinting at in his character analysis paragraphs. God was good too, how selfish he sounded when he said that he did not want people to be like him at all. That is showing how insecure and threatened by man he is. He tried to put a lot of emphasis on how much God wanted for man to not become like him anymore than they already were. Alex did a fine job at conveying these traits in many expressive tones of voice and manners of speaking in his dialogue.

Reflection The process of doing this project was long and tasking. It had many parts, to put it simply. There was a section and subsection to everything. So that is why this entire project was assigned steps instead of doing it all at once and turning. Alex first started with creating a webspiration chart of what exactly he was going to write about for the character analysis. It looked something like this: That looked like it took much time and effort to get those extended analysis right. He had to draft and re-draft and edit it many times. This alone seemed like the hardest part of the project. All he had to do for my character analysis was pretty much copy this except with paragraphs and actual sentences. Then came that real hardest part of actually recording and editing the dialogue. Recording sounds easy enough, but editing appears time consuming however, because first he had to figure out how to format it so it would upload to the program I was using then learn how to edit it. This took must have taken him a very long time and many hours of his bedtime still awake doing the dialogue editing. This project seemed to be an extremely time consuming and hard process.

References: 1.The Bible. 1991. Ed. Michael Coogan D. Coogan. 3rd ed. New York: Oxford University Press, Inc., 2007. Print. New Revised Standard. 2. Malan, Dan. "Life and Work of Gustave Dore." //Postaprint//. N.p., n.d. Web. 20 May 2010. . 3. McNaughton, Jon. "McNaughton Fine Arts." //McNaugton Fine Arts//. N.p., n.d. Web. 20 May 2010. . 4. Rousseau, Dominique. "Illustrations bibliques." //Creatism.org//. N.p., n.d. Web. 20 May 2010. . 5. Geeding, Keith. "One Nation Under God." //BagOfNothing.com//. Wordpress, n.d. Web. 20 May 2010. .