Second Meeting

Day/Date : Thursday, February 20, 2014
Time : 10.30 AM
Place : Listening Lab, English Department, UNP

Participants:
Anisa Wahyuni as Group Discussion Leader
Cayo Islami ME as Summarizer
Elvarisa Adriani as Connector
Novia Ertika PS as Connector
Yuri Hardianti as Word Master


Advisor: Ms. Leni Marlina, also as Connector and Passage Person

Reading Sources : The story of Sleeping Beauty, retold by Mae Broadley

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Hello All.
We are the members of UNP Reading Circle Community (RCC) from English Department, Faculty of Languages and Arts, State University of Padang.

Now, we'd like to tell you about our activity in the second meeting.
In this second meeting, we discussed about the story of Sleeping Beauty.
Yeah! We know what you think. It's JUST a story for children, and it will not be so interesting to be read or discussed because it's very familiar.
You know, we used to think like that too. But, it totally changed when we discussed the story in RCC.
Have you ever imagined that such story has a very deep meaning and hidden agenda?
Yes or No?
Well, we'll tell you about our discussion of this story .
Now, let's read a brief story of sleeping beauty.

Sleeping beauty is a story about a 15 years old princess who felt asleep after wounded herself with a spindle. The story began with a king and a queen of a far-away kingdom who wanted to have a child. Then, the twelve wise women possessed with the power of magic granted the their wish. A princess was born.
A feast was held. In this celebration, the wise women blessed the princess with beauty, grace, kindness, wisdom, wealth, and joy. However, the king forgot to invite one of the twelve wise women. The wise woman then appeared, and blessed the princess with a hundred years' deep sleep if she pricked herself with a spindle. After that, the king ordered that all spindles in the land should be destroyed.
When the princess turned 15, she wandered through the rooms and chambers in the palace. Then, she came to an old tower where there was a woman with a spindle. The princess who never saw the spindle, come closer and touch it. She pricked her finger with it. Then, she fell down on the floor and lay in a deep sleep. After hundreds years of sleeping, finally a prince came. He kissed her, and then she woke up. The prince and the princess got married, and they lived happily.

In our discussion about the story, we shared some thoughts.
Regarding to the place or time of this story, we thought that this story occurred in a long time ago, where there were still a kingdom, many green valleys, and magic was a usual thing.
About the story, we thought that the story is just a fairytale whose purpose is to entertain the children. The story is impossible to happen in our real life. There is no way that someone could fall in a deep sleep just because touching something that they've never seen before --In this case, pricking herself with a spindle.
But, it also came to our mind that may be the writer wanted to tell parents that they should protect the children from something new, which could be dangerous. In addition, from the story we could conclude that even if the person is 'perfect', and has everything, life is not always easy. Even the small thing could ruin that all. 


When we just gave our simple interpretation about the story, our advisor, Miss Lina, gave us an amazing interpretation which we never thought of. We were really amazed. It felt so great to listen to her, it even encouraged us to make the interpretation that great.

Miss Lina began her interpretation and opinions about the story by asking some questions.
Why would a young princess,who was in her productive life, who has everything--she was beautiful, loved by all people, talented, and kind, fall asleep after wounded herself with a spindle that she has never seen before?
As we know that the princess was very young and she could do anything she wanted to do. But she ended falling asleep and had to give her creativity and productivity up for a little wound caused by spindle.
She even could not control her own body, and could not wake from that sleep by herself. Why should she wait for a prince to wake her up?

Miss Lina said that those might be some hidden agendas from the writer. A girl, at that time, should not do anything and just wait for a man to take her, and be good for him. It indicates that the girls might not do anything they wanted, and had to sit nicely and just wait. Girls do not have freedom to express themselves in front of many people. They could not explore their creativity. They had to give up and just obey the system. These thoughts are supported by the part of the story in which the princess suddenly fall asleep and wait for the prince.

As final statements, Miss Lina said that girls should not give up easily, and limit their creativity and productivity just because people say that they should be good girls by remain silent and not causing any trouble. Girls do not always need to follow old paradigm that they should wait for men. At least, Girls have to try what they want to do, but still knowing the limitation, so that they can create a good future, create their history. 

Miss Lina also said that We have to make our own history and not to wait for someone to make the history for us.

That's our discussion about the story of sleeping beauty. It felt good to be able to share our thoughts with others. Here, we'd like to invite you to give some comments, opinions, critics, or suggestions for us. And for you who want to share what you think about the story, feel free to comment in our post. 

And, RCC always kindly invites you who are interested to join. 

Thanks (^o^)/

 

“Achieving Better Future by Having Fun Reading”