The Pianist:

            I wrote this piece last minute. I could not find an idea or some sort of conflict I wanted to write about. When I finally sat down to write this piece I thought back to all the other pieces I had read in class and we did not have anything with a musical theme, so I used that as inspiration. For this piece I chose for it to be focused around the piano and how this instrument affected the dynamics of a family.

            I am not a pianist, but if given the chance I would like to learn. So, in order to write this piece, I had to google information about pianos. I mostly focused on the parts of the piano and well-known classical music pieces. I listened to multiple songs before choosing which ones to use in my story. I needed each song to correlate with the emotions the main character was feeling and to reflect whatever action was taking place. 

            To improve this piece, I needed to be clearer with my description and wording in the beginning because at times it was confusing- I needed to get straight to the point. But I did have good dialogue, I feel like I incorporated the piano and showed how much the instrument meant to the main character and her family really well. 

Mikrokosmos:

            Continuing with the musical theme I found this piece much easier to write than the first one. I wrote this piece in first person, so I felt like I was actually the main character and I inserted actions and dialogue that I could see myself actually saying and doing. I went more in depth with my study of the piano and classical music pieces. The title of this story was inspired by the boy group BTS. They recently released an album called Map of the Soul: Persona and one of their songs is called Mikrokosmos. 

Mikrokosmos was created by the Hungarian pianist Bela Bartok. Each piece displays a variety of technique and skill that start off easy and progress to a professional level throughout each volume. This title is significant for my story because the main character has a moment of peace/is at ease but at the end of the story has to make a difficult choice that will affect her life greatly. Yes, the character never really had an easy time through the entirety of the story, but everything is easier compared to the ending scene. 

            I really enjoyed writing this story because I had yet to encounter someone write about this topic in class and the fact that my story would be different and stand out made me feel proud. I found inspiration to write this story to reflect societal issues, stereotypes and talk about white privilege because I was starting to write my critical lens essay on an Octavia Butler story. Her story also talks about society and what’s wrong with it. 

            For this piece I had to fix the ending, I left the readers hanging. I believe I did such a good job keeping the readers interested in the plot that they needed a better ending. So, I complied and wrote more at the end to make it feel complete.

Critical Lens Essay: Speech Sounds

            I had never written a critical lens essay before and when I read about what possible theories each story could have I had to go back and read some of the stories over to spot the theories. I realized that I read the stories for pleasure the first time around, so I took this chance to read again and pay attention to what the author was really trying to say. Octavia Butler used her modern-day dystopian society to address feminism. Octavia Butler shows how even without the ability to speak to others, men still dominant the world and place themselves above others.

            The main character Rye is relying on this man she just met to provide her with happiness and to cure her loneliness out of desperation. The man plays the role of a savior and acts like the cop of this dystopian society even though cops no longer exist. He could be doing it for a number of reasons, but the problem here is why is he the cop and not a woman? Would they not take a woman seriously? Or is it too dangerous for a woman to be playing cop? After reading this story for a second time those are some of the questions I had. I pointed out areas where the unfairness between the genders was present and showed how it related to society today. I find it interesting how a story written in 1983 can still reflect the world in 2019.