F2F Class Notes 9th May (Celeste)

lavender – xun yi cao

ex bf/gf / ex-wife/ex-husband

sour [adj]- like a lemon

Lemons are sour.

That relationship went sour. <> That relationship ended/went bad.

former/previous teacher/colleague/boss

architect, police officer, dentist, lawyer = career

servers, retail = job

scooter – like a bike but with an engine

motorbike/motobike – faster than a scooter

Today: discuss protagonist/antagonist, “into thin air”, then continue telling the story about Snow White

into thin air

LM turned into foam and disappeared into thin air, he didn’t realize that there was a girl who had loved him so much.

I want to talk about an opinion piece that/which discusses 2 fairytales. One is about the Little Mermaid written by Anderson, the other is the story of Snow White which came from folklore and was retold by the Grimm Bros. In this piece, the author thinks there are no bad guys in the story of LM. Take the witch, for example. The witch, who should be the villian in the story, didn’t seek to destroy anyone or anything/look to cause trouble. TLM asked for the ability to walk so, the witch wanted her to give her beautiful voice as payment. I agree with the author that this was a fair trade/exchange/deal. So, we cannot say the witch was the evil person in the \

story. And about her sisters, they gave her a knife to kill her beloved prince. We also cannot say that they were the evil ones because they wanted to save their little sister’s life. Even about the prince, we cannot condemn him as an asshole because he didn’t even know she existed and even after the LM turned into foam and disappeared into thin air, he didn’t realize that there was a girl who had loved him so much. So if we have to set an evil role in this story, it might be the reality itself. So, we can regard/admire this story as an artistic tragedy.

Episode 2

About the story of SW, in the author thinks all the reasons are very clear and simple. Why did the queen be so mean to SW? Because she was jealousy of her pretty. Why did seven dwarfs keep helping SW? Because they were kind and they fancied her pretty. Why did the Prince Charming kiss SW? Because she was pretty and he couldn’t help it. Why did SW keep being murdered by her evil stepmother? Because she was kind, naive, and she couldn’t help herself far from tempt.

Both stories are good ones, one is trying to tell us about warm and beatiful things but with a tragic ending, one is trying to tell us about humanity with a very dramatic way of narrating. After I read this piece, I started to think about which story should be my favorite. I think when I was young, SW might be my favorite just because it had a happy ending. As I am growing bigger, TLM has become my favorite. It’s just because sometimes we need to put a beautiful cover onto the cruel reality.

Edited

About the story of SW, the author thinks all the behaviors of the characters are very clear and simple. For example, why was the queen so mean to SW? Because she was jealous of her pretty face. Why did the seven dwarfs keep helping SW? Because they were kind and they admired her beauty. Why did Prince Charming kiss SW? Because she was the fairest in all the land and he couldn’t help it.
Why was SW the victim of her evil stepmother’s hatred? Because SW was kind, naive, and she couldn’t resist temptation/ she couldn’t keep herself from temptation.

Both stories are spell-bindingly dramatic, one is trying to tell us about warm and beatiful things but with a tragic ending, the other is trying to tell us about humanity with a very powerful way of narrating. After I read this piece, I started to think about which story is my favorite. When I was young, SW was my favorite just because it had a happy ending. As I mature, TLM has become my favorite because sometimes we need to tell a beautiful lie to cover a/the cruel reality.

spellbinding/spellbindingly (bound to magic) <> enchanting, magical

cast a spell <> put a spell on sth/sb > sth/sb is bound by the spell

reverse the spell

undo the spell