This is our first Contextual Studies assignment! For our first assignment, we have to be in a group of 3-4. So I got in a group with Khiirtana and Arissa. Our overall assignments have three in total. The first assignment is to find a research problem based of a short story called "The Rabbits Who Caused All The Trouble" by James Thurber. Secondly, the assignment would be analysing the problem and deciding on a design direction and find the solution to the problem in a narrative form on our first assignment. Lastly, it would be 5 minute video of our work.  

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James Thurber was the author of "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty", "Is Sex Necessary?", and "The Thurber Carnival".  He was born on December 9, 1894 in Columbus, Ohio. He was employed as a secretary to a congressman. He got eye blinded because he got shot with an arrow while playing with his brother. He was forced to go back to his hometown due to his employer's loss of a re-election campaign.

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Here is the story of "The Rabbits Who Caused All The Trouble": 

 

Within the memory of the youngest child there was a family of rabbits who lived near a pack of wolves. The wolves announced that they did not like the way the rabbits were living. (The wolves were crazy about the way they themselves were living, because it was the only way to live.) One night several wolves were killed in an earthquake and this was blamed on the rabbits, for it is well known that rabbits pound on the ground with their hind legs and cause earthquakes. On another night one of the wolves was killed by a bolt of lightning and this was also blamed on the rabbits, for it is well known that lettuce-eaters cause lightning. The wolves threatened to civilize the rabbits if they didn’t behave, and the rabbits decided to run away to a desert island. But the other animals, who lived at a great distance, shamed them, saying, “You must stay where you are and be brave. This is no world for escapists. If the wolves attack you, we will come to your aid, in all probability.”So the rabbits continued to live near the wolves and one day there was a terrible flood which drowned a great many wolves. This was blamed on the rabbits, for it is well known that carrot-nibblers with long ears cause floods. The wolves descended on the rabbits, for their own good, and imprisoned them in a dark cave, for their own protection. When nothing was heard about the rabbits for some weeks, the other animals demanded to know what had happened to them. The wolves replied that the rabbits had been eaten and since they had been eaten the affair was a purely internal matter. But the other animals warned that they might possibly unite against the wolves unless some reason was given for the destruction of the rabbits. So the wolves gave them one. “They were trying to escape,”said the wolves, “and, as you know, this is no world for escapists.” Moral: Run, don’t walk, to the nearest desert island.

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Here are some steps to do the assignment.

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1. Observations

One of the things that we'd noticed was it seemed weird that the wolves imprisoned the rabbits in a dark cave for their own protection. There was a lot of blaming on the rabbits's characteristics for causing such downfalls on the wolves. Also, the animals told the rabbits to not run and said "this is no world for escapists",  yet at the end it is written "Moral: Run, don’t walk, to the nearest desert island". Both statements contradict each other. 

 

2.  Problems and Critical questions

Why didn't the wolves eat the rabbits in the first place?
Why did the wolves do all of this at the time they did?

What if it was the rabbits the ones that were scheming on the wolves?

Who came up with the phrase "there is no the world for escapists?"

Were the wolves dying because of themselves or was it the rabbits?

Did any of other animals die from the natural occurrences?

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3. Initial assumptions

Our first interpretation of the story is based on Hitler's holocaust on the Jewish people how they were persecuted in gas chambers. Our second interpretation is basically the system of the powerful group oppressing the marginalised groups. This can be taken in the context of the current situation in Rohingya where the Muslims are being killed, which they have to flee to the nearest neighbouring country. 

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The final step is to create a presentation of this and present it in class. It needed to be roughly 10-15 slides, the title "Finding a Research problem", group name and group members, a short story title, about the author, a breakdown of the story such as what they key events are, characters and such forth, a review of the story such as observations, problems, hypothesis, and lastly, some hypothesis. 

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Unfortunately, I didn't get to screencap our previous presentation slides. We had to re-do our interpretation and our similar stories. Instead of those two interpretations, we decided to revamp it into a beauty pageant story.

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Here is our fixed interpretation: 

Bella loses beauty pageants countless of times. She is upset. And angry. Her anger manifests itself into making her cheat in her current pageant to win. Bella uses black magic to win beauty pageants. The other girls start to wonder why they keep on loosing. One of the girls finds out as she saw some black dust from her palm. She confronts her, after denials, Bella seals her via dark magic. they find out that bell uses black magic and they confront her about it. Bella then wants to leave the pageant but her parents don't  let her leave the competition. So she goes back and the other girls get mad and lock her in a room. when the pageant goes on Bella’s parents start to wonder where she is and insist the girls tell them where Bella is. The girls then say that this is not a world for escapists. Which means that even though she was angry losing her pageants, what she did was unacceptable. 

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Here are previews of our slides:

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