“Rapunzel,” the fairy tale, was first published in 1812 by the Brothers Grimm. Today, there are several versions of the story that exist, most of which were designed for children’s ears. However, William Thompson believes that despite the simplicity of the story, there actually lies subtle, complexities of the story that create different levels of meaning; in totality, there are four levels of a story: literal, structural, anthropological, and cosmological.
The simplest level of the story is the literal level, where everything is denotative. From the literal level you can sense patterns in narration. These patterns form the structural level of the story. For example, in “Rapunzel” one gains the sense that everything comes in sets or pairs. This is implied with the presence of the father and mother, Gothel (sorceress) and Rapunzel, the King and the prince, the twins Rapunzel gives birth to, and finally the complete union of Rapunzel and the prince. On an anthropological level, “Rapunzel” implies how a weak and unstable patriarchal society can be overrun by a matriarchy, but in the end the best relationship is a stable patriarchal society in the realm of Kings; however, for this patriarchal society to be stable you must have a unique balance of power and love between both sexes. Last but not least, there is the cosmological level of “Rapunzel,” were the story sets up order of the planetary systems. A Rapunzel is scientifically known as the Campanula rapunculus, a fivefold flower (five petals). Given the plants appearance, the character, Rapunzel, is portrayed by the planet Venus. If you ever observed Venus drift in the sky and connect the dots, it would make the shape of the Campanula rapunculus petals. Now you could dissect each and every story you have ever heard into these four levels.
Let us dissect “LOST” into these four levels. On the literal level, the story follows the lives of the survivors of a plane crash taking place on an uncanny, supernatural island. Structurally, you see that each person has their own problem, where the problem originated, and yet each problem cannot be completely resolved, just slightly improved. For example, Hurley won $144 million off of a lottery number; however, this number was not exactly randomly generated by Hurley. These numbers were seen by Hurley during his stay at a mental institution of which one of the insane people kept painting on a canvas. Ever since Hurley won the lottery, he has only been brought bad luck and many people involved with or around Hurley start to die. As a result, Hurley blames himself. Once crashed on the island, Hurley is faced with the several curses. In one instance, Hurley initially stashed a lot of food for himself, but feeling guilty for hording food and being so fat, he has his friends help rid him of the food. He comes to find out that there was a food drop from the night before. Hurley breaks away from his friends and restarts his bad eating habits. Again, his friends come to his rescue and help him reason. Even though Hurley solved his eating problem, he is still stuck on the island, which is still full of unwelcomed surprises. “LOST” is such an immense, detailed, and powerful story it is hard to accurately articulate every idea so when it comes down to looking at “LOST” at anthropological and cosmological levels, it probably would be better to generalize several theories. On an anthropological, “LOST” is all about how different people of different races must cooperate to survive and how you cannot have anarchy if anyone wants to survive. You see that order is only obtained when Jack is the leader of the survivors and you see how people like Jin and Michael must cooperate to get off the island together (even though their attempt fails). On a cosmological level there are so many people that groups of people can represent plants. There are the messengers, supporting actors, who represent Mercury (“the busy planet”). There are the main actors, who represent Earth and its fragile state, and the “others” (and other living evils) who represent Earth’s moon. I believe that the evil represents the moon because the moon is always orbiting the Earth and always has affect on the Earth’s systems and no matter what, we cannot not get rid of the moon without completely getting rid of us. Last but not least, the mysterious island represents the Sun which is the center piece of our solar system, and drives both creation and havoc on Earth.
The simplest level of the story is the literal level, where everything is denotative. From the literal level you can sense patterns in narration. These patterns form the structural level of the story. For example, in “Rapunzel” one gains the sense that everything comes in sets or pairs. This is implied with the presence of the father and mother, Gothel (sorceress) and Rapunzel, the King and the prince, the twins Rapunzel gives birth to, and finally the complete union of Rapunzel and the prince. On an anthropological level, “Rapunzel” implies how a weak and unstable patriarchal society can be overrun by a matriarchy, but in the end the best relationship is a stable patriarchal society in the realm of Kings; however, for this patriarchal society to be stable you must have a unique balance of power and love between both sexes. Last but not least, there is the cosmological level of “Rapunzel,” were the story sets up order of the planetary systems. A Rapunzel is scientifically known as the Campanula rapunculus, a fivefold flower (five petals). Given the plants appearance, the character, Rapunzel, is portrayed by the planet Venus. If you ever observed Venus drift in the sky and connect the dots, it would make the shape of the Campanula rapunculus petals. Now you could dissect each and every story you have ever heard into these four levels.
Let us dissect “LOST” into these four levels. On the literal level, the story follows the lives of the survivors of a plane crash taking place on an uncanny, supernatural island. Structurally, you see that each person has their own problem, where the problem originated, and yet each problem cannot be completely resolved, just slightly improved. For example, Hurley won $144 million off of a lottery number; however, this number was not exactly randomly generated by Hurley. These numbers were seen by Hurley during his stay at a mental institution of which one of the insane people kept painting on a canvas. Ever since Hurley won the lottery, he has only been brought bad luck and many people involved with or around Hurley start to die. As a result, Hurley blames himself. Once crashed on the island, Hurley is faced with the several curses. In one instance, Hurley initially stashed a lot of food for himself, but feeling guilty for hording food and being so fat, he has his friends help rid him of the food. He comes to find out that there was a food drop from the night before. Hurley breaks away from his friends and restarts his bad eating habits. Again, his friends come to his rescue and help him reason. Even though Hurley solved his eating problem, he is still stuck on the island, which is still full of unwelcomed surprises. “LOST” is such an immense, detailed, and powerful story it is hard to accurately articulate every idea so when it comes down to looking at “LOST” at anthropological and cosmological levels, it probably would be better to generalize several theories. On an anthropological, “LOST” is all about how different people of different races must cooperate to survive and how you cannot have anarchy if anyone wants to survive. You see that order is only obtained when Jack is the leader of the survivors and you see how people like Jin and Michael must cooperate to get off the island together (even though their attempt fails). On a cosmological level there are so many people that groups of people can represent plants. There are the messengers, supporting actors, who represent Mercury (“the busy planet”). There are the main actors, who represent Earth and its fragile state, and the “others” (and other living evils) who represent Earth’s moon. I believe that the evil represents the moon because the moon is always orbiting the Earth and always has affect on the Earth’s systems and no matter what, we cannot not get rid of the moon without completely getting rid of us. Last but not least, the mysterious island represents the Sun which is the center piece of our solar system, and drives both creation and havoc on Earth.
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