Project Three
The Crow
Looking down upon the child playing in the overgrown grass field in front of that old farmhouse I feel a sense of joy. The child I have watched over for all these years is all grown up. She is so peaceful and carefree and I envy her joy. I remember the joy in the little child’s eyes as she learned to ride her first bike, that little girl on the pink bike with the white tires and pink pom-poms dangling from the handlebars will forever be in my heart. The girl, now old enough to inquire about nature finally looked up at me after all these years. My heart fluttered and I found myself in a strange mix between nervousness and excitement. I knew the girl would not recognize me from her past or even take a second glance at me, but I had hope. To my surprise, the girl looked up at me and maintained eye contact with me for what felt like an eternity, my heart was pounding out of my small chest and I was tempted to fly away to escape her questioning glare. The joy in her eyes was slowly replaced with what appeared to be a look of disgust. I should have known. The human race does not like my kind, I should have known they are all the same. Even the child I have watched over and protected for so long despised me. I made my home in this mighty oak just outside her window just before she was born. I never would have imagined falling for a human, but watching her being brought home for the first time as a newborn child I knew she was different. I believed it was fate that the two of us were brought together, and I took it as my personal duty to watch over and protect her. I watched this child of mine grow up and become a jovial young girl, but she was the same as the rest. All of the humans despise me, they view me as a nuisance, a pest, and even a stigma for bad luck. I don’t know if it is because of the way I speak or the ominous coloration of my body but the people I love watching do not share that love with me. This child of mine looked up at me and saw nothing but a forewarning of grim days ahead. Maybe the stereotypes were true. Maybe I am bad luck. Maybe I am a nuisance. The disappointment rose inside of me like a rushing river, I should never have let myself get attached to a human. The child was now exploring a group of wildflowers looking as beautiful and bright as a summer sunset. These were the beautiful parts of nature, the nature that the people admire and protect. I have given up on humankind’s ability to look past stereotypes and looks these people are so entranced by pretty looks they refuse to look at the rest of the hidden beauty in the world. These people will never admire an ugly bird high above them in the branches of a tree. I will never be seen as anything other than just a crow.
Artist Statement
Throughout the project, I have been able to use a wide variety of the skills and concepts we have learned throughout the class. First, I utilized what we learned about perspective and differing points of view and how these can drastically change the meaning of a story. In my short story, I utilized the point of view of a crow that has been rejected by humankind because of social stereotypes. The story tells about a crow and his attachment to a young girl that lives in a house next to his nest. The crow wants to be appreciated and loved by humans as much as they love the beautiful things in life such as flowers, but they cannot see past his ugly looks and social stereotypes. All the people, even the little girl he cares about so much rejects him in disgust.I wanted to make the short story have a deeper meaning than what is on the surface, and with everything going on in today’s society I decided to choose the pain and struggle of negative stereotypes as a topic to write about. I did not want to write directly about the subject so after several ideas, I chose to make my story about a crow and the negative stigmas attached to them. The crow is a metaphor for the inability in today’s society for most people to look past wrongful social stereotypes and stigmas. The crow has many humanlike features and emotions in order for the reader to relate to and establish a connection with him. I then describe how everyone hates him and cannot see him as the reader does. I used this to show a differing side of how minorities and other people affected by negative social stereotypes. During the previous project, I modified “The Death of John O’Brien” which was by far the most influential activity we have done in class that affected my writing of this story. After changing the point of view from the original story to a different perspective it helped show me the drastic effect point of view has on a story. I used a similar tactic and wrote the short story from a unique perspective that is unexpected and hidden at first. This creates a story that shows a different side of a story that most people do not think about. One main challenge I faced was the difficulty in expressing the emotions of the crow in my story. We do not know how or if birds feel emotions or if it is the same way as we do, but I wanted to hide the point of view of the story until the end so I made the crow more humanlike to try to fool the reader. I made the crow feel emotions as a human would to make him both more relatable and vulnerable to the hardships of being neglected. The second most influential reading we read in class was “Varsity” by Brock Kingsley. The story depicts a special education student being bullied by a naive football team, the special needs student has to live with a constant feeling of rejection by the rest of society. The crow from my story and the student from “Varsity” both face discrimination and negative social stigmas. I used this as inspiration on how to describe a social issue surrounding discrimination in the world. I then tried to make my short story replicate these social issues shown in both stories without referencing to them directly. I used this to make the crow in my story a metaphor for how social discrimination can hurt people and to see the pain through their eyes.
