- Set in the past. Check. This book is set during WW2 in Leningrad.
- Include fantasy, supernatural, make-believe aspects. While this isn't a concrete thing, there were several mentions of how unreal everything was. How there were cannibals and death and whore houses and how war made everything strange and unrealistic. Like they were somehow removed from the real world. So I think this could be a nod to the fairy tale aspect.
- Clearly defined good/evil characters. This one was harder. I think it's not so much good and evil characters, but something else. I believe all the characters are supposed to be the "good" aspect, and the environment is supposed to be the "evil." Or rather, the war is the evil. I know there are some characters that could be defined as evil, but I believe they are only that way because of the environment.
- Involves magic elements. Alas, there is no magic in this story. I wouldn't even know what could relate to this.
- Objects, people, or events in threes. The trio (Lev, Kolya, and Vika) could be classified in this way. The dozen eggs are a multiple of three. I think they also have three hundred rubles at some point? I could be wrong on that, though. This one is kind of a stretch, but there are a few elements in threes.
- Focus on a plot/problem that needs to be resolved. The entire trip they are focused on getting the dozen eggs for the colonel, so I believe that counts.
- Often have happy endings, based on the resolution of the problem. Well, I guess the ending could be seen as a kind of bittersweet happiness. While Kolya did die, Lev did get the eggs to the colonel and the colonel gave him two first-class ration cards and we do know that Lev and Vika lived "happily ever after."
- Usually teach a lesson/values important to culture. I'm not exactly sure what the lesson would be. There isn't a huge theme throughout the book, but I guess friendship could count.
I then looked at another sheet for common fairy tale elements.
- Special beginning or ending words. The beginning and ending words kind of matched. Vika saying she didn't cook.
- Royalty. There are a few people who could be considered royalty in this story. Probably the NKVD man who sent them for eggs and the Nazis who captured them. Also the girls in the log cabin could be considered royalty, even if they are being forced.
- Poverty. It's everywhere. It's basically the whole book.
- Universal Truths. Coming of age, sexuality, friendship, bravery, fear, war, and so on.
There was also one common motif that I found very fitting: Impossible tasks.
And while I was looking on that page, I found something else interesting that could be related.
analyzes the function of each character / action = a tale is composed of thirty-one elements and eight character types; Vladimir Propp, Russian fairytales
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After that, I looked at Kaputt and The 900 Days. It appears that Kaputt was part autobiographical and part fiction. This means that some of Benioff's information on the siege could be a little off. However, it appears that The 900 Days was pretty much completely accurate. However, it appears that most of the source information (people) are now dead. There is one person, though, who talks about how there is an overuse of people from "the arts and crafts crowd" (artists, poets, musicians" opinions. This would make sense with the views that we get from Benioff. Other than that, I didn't really see anything that could have made any of his telling faulty.
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I think I'm either going to be on the track of writing a paper or doing the video with information option. Unless we can come up with something else that could be interesting and informative.
Also, I'm pretty sure I want to do the fairy tale paper/video.
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