Proposal and some thoughts/#31

My thoughts:

• Story: Caroline's Wedding
• Characters: Grace, The mother, Caroline, and probably the dead father
• Setting: New York City, the days before C's wedding
• Vision: The mother is more "realistic", rather than simply having conversations with others in Grace's view. The mother can be more predominant, meaning that she will talk more, and have more interactions with both Grace and Caroline. She would also show more Grace's feelings and reactions. Caroline can keep the same. This is basically a vision discussing about the relationship among the mother and the daughters. Also, an essential core of the adaptation is to recall the Haitian histories and traditions and appeal to the audience to pay attention on the old cultures, combining the newly culture in the United States. The version reveals the mother's inside worries and struggles about her daughters and the reactions to their questions, impatience and ultimate understandings.
• Why: The wedding for Caroline and Eric is not the only most important plot in the story. It's a reflection of the American culture--freestyle and not too serious. In contrast, Haitian cultures are relatively more serious. The generation and culture gaps make the mother and the daughters can't understand each other. And the daughters----Grace and Caroline, are not able to understand why their mother tend to be so struggling and reluctant to Caroline's wedding. The bone soup the mother make for her daughters every day, in an other word, is a symbol of Haitian tradition, which the daughters feel it helpless and meaningless.

In my adaptation, I plan to reveal deeper inside the characters' feelings and the conflicts among the mother and the daughters. The mother is definitely a perfect reflection of the Haitian tradition, although she has already moved to the Unites States for more than twenty years. The daughters, in contrast, especially Caroline, are born in the America with little knowledge of the Haitian history; thus, it's reasonable that two of them both don't really understand their mother's thoughts about the wedding and Eric. In my version, I truly want to show a distinct difference between the mother and the daughters, and talk more about the characters' perspectives of traditions and cultures. For example. the discussion on the American style wedding can be more intense and attractive; the mother and Caroline may even have an argument on it. The argument led to a tiny crack in their relationship. And this demonstrates that tradition gap is inevitable and hard to resolve. Cultural conflict is a core element in my adaptation. Then, there can be a coincident that one day Caroline accidentally finds some of the letters in the mother's wardrobe when packing her stuff and preparing for the wedding. Through the letters, Caroline understands what her mother thinks and worries about. Caroline gets the chance to touch the "buried" pieces of memory hidden in huge Haitian history; thus, she understands her mother and has a long talk with her. Throughout the scene, I would like to focus more on the mother's feelings and let her express more her thoughts and worries to the audience. Grace can also interact more to show her relatively neutral opinion but also the misunderstanding of he mother.