Blog Post Number 10 and 11: "Bus Stop" Video and Write-Up with Story Boards

0
Write-Up and Story Boards:

https://skydrive.live.com/redir.aspx?resid=6937CE0A31DD5CD!300

Blog Post Number 9: Creative Project and Explanation

Summary: Hilary Mantel’s Bring Up the Bodies depicts the fall of Anne Boleyn from the perspective of Cromwell, the one who wishes for her to be found guilty of both adultery and treason. To do this, he allies with the papist aristocracy in an attempt to find those who will testify against her. The Queen’s husband, King Henry VIII, was rather upset with her incapability of producing a male heir. She didn’t realize that this was not only a pity, but an endangerment to her own life. The king’s attention to Jane Seymour, on of Anne’s ladies-in-waiting, allowed Cromwell to easily get the Queen out of the picture. Though the evidence is scant, she is eventually found guilty. Through the course of an entanglement between truth and lies, the reader is left to find if Anne is truly guilty or not.

AP Prompt: 1970. Choose a character from a novel or play of recognized literacy merit and write an essay in which you (a) briefly describe the standards of a fictional society in which the character exists and (b) show how the character is affected by and responds to those standards. In your essay do not merely summarize the plot.

Thesis: Bring Up the Bodies is about the physical and emotional fragmentation of Anne Boleyn dye to her surrounding and the uptight standards of the society around her.

Explanation: My physical representation of this is a painting. The wallpaper is painted in order the depict the time period of the novel as well as the royalty Anne Boleyn was a part of for much of the book through the color choices. Due to this novel having a historical basis, I wished to convey this through the painting. By showing the distressing of the wallpaper, I wished to portray the fact that by the end of the novel, Anne is no longer of royalty; it has been taken away from her and is now a thing of the past. The black, ‘burnt’ parts of the wallpaper are seemingly reaching towards Anne. This is done to show that she is, in fact, the one being negatively impacted by her surroundings.

Atop the wallpaper, I show three figures; one of a woman, Anna, and two of men, Cromwell and King Henry VIII. The king has his arms crossed, facing Anne, and Cromwell is in the background between them, observing. The king and Cromwell are painting in light grays because throughout the novel, they are seen by the public as on the right side of events. Anne is painted in dark grays in order to show that she, however, is on the wrong side. “She knows adultery is a sin and a crime, but to be on the losing side is a greater fault than these” (259).  The king was unhappy with Anne’s failure as queen, such as being unable to produce a male heir. This leads him to become more so enchanted by one of her ladies-in-waiting, Jane Seymour. “She has lost him to Jane Seymour, and no court of law will judge her more harshly than she judges herself” (260). He and Cromwell took this as an opportunity. Anne was weakened by her surroundings and the accusations against her. They realized this and knew that they could get her out of the picture. “[King Henry] says, ‘Anne is dead to herself. We shall have no trouble with her now” (260).

This brings us to the deeper theme; throughout the novel Anne Boleyn is depicted as an adulterer, a criminal. This crime, in fact, is punishable by death. Even so, the majority of historians believe that Anne and the men who said they slept with her were innocent and were framed. Though Mantel never straight out says that she is innocent, history seemingly proves otherwise. Even so, there is no clar facts that point out Anne’s innocence; the reader is forced to choose what to believe. “What is the nature of the border between truth and lies? It is permeable and blurred because it is planted thick with rumor, confabulation, misunderstandings and twisted tales” (143). The lies within this novel are undeniable, after all, Anne and Cromwell, who cannot be speaking the truth. Even the king gets brought into these lies. These events have greatly impacted Anne Boleyn and even caused her death, however, they go on, Cromwell’s actions and lack of morals don’t simply change after she passes; Mantel makes this clear. “There are no endings. If you think so you are deceived by nature. They are all beginnings. This is one” (345). That is the last line of the novel, perfectly depicting that though Anne has met her end, Cromwell’s wrath and King Henry’s discontent has not ended and the truth has yet to be proven.

My project displays the essence of Bring Up the Bodies by Hilary Mantel because a painting, like many things in the world, has more than one meaning. It is all about interpretation. Within the novel, I found myself questioning Anne Boleyn’s morality. Mantel makes it easy for the reader to get caught between the truth and the lies, just like the characters within them. The wallpaper depicted is used as a physical representation of Anne Boleyn and her struggles; Cromwell and the king are shown in order to show who has caused Anne’s life to unravel. The darkness within the painting is not symmetrical, it cannot be explained simply and the changes within it cannot be predicted. The painting as a whole shows no true cause for Anne Boleyn’s death, it is simply used to portray the different characters whose morality is questioned throughout the novel as well as the final effects of Anne Boleyn’s surroundings upon her.

Works Cited:

Mantel, Hilary. Bring Up the Bodies: A Novel. New York: Henry Holt and, 2012. Print.

“The Anne Boleyn Files.” The Anne Boleyn Files RSS. N.p., n.d. Web. 04 Oct. 2013.