The prompt is
1. We are looking for passionate students to join our diverse community of scholars, researchers, and artists. Answer the question that corresponds to the school you selected above. Limit your answer to a half page or roughly 250 words.
-College of Arts and Sciences: What work of art, music, science, mathematics, or literature has surprised, unsettled, or challenged you, and in what way?
Here is my answer:
In an attempt to silence mama's heart-wrenching sobs, my sisters jump wildly in front of the screen, arms flailing, trying to crack a grin. It's fiction, they say. She shouldn't cry like that; it could hurt her heart.
Who knew real estate speculation could be so brutally dark? So painfully honest?
Wrongfully evicted from the seaside home is relapsed alcoholic Kathy Nicollo. Desperate for upward mobility, the exiled Iranian colonel, Massoud Behrani, snatches up her foreclosed property. The story is simple yet profound. Each has a claim to the American Dream.
Each claim, however, slowly unwinds to the point where our ideals are left shattered. During the quest for the Dream, we see murder and suicide. We see gross negligence and adultery. As "The House of Sand and Fog" unravels in a way reminiscent of Aristotle's Poetics, we are left with visible proof of the nonexistence - or at least, utter failure - of the American Dream. The narration though, refuses to partake in any categorization of [villain] and [victim] forcing us to either: be the judge or accept the characters as real people. The second, in this darkness, proves much easier.
My sisters lied; it's not fiction. Their attempts to derail us fail. I shriek at them to let us be. Frantically rewinding the last moments, we search for some closure on the screen: a glimpse of hope; the "it will all be all right scene." We don't find it.
1. We are looking for passionate students to join our diverse community of scholars, researchers, and artists. Answer the question that corresponds to the school you selected above. Limit your answer to a half page or roughly 250 words.
-College of Arts and Sciences: What work of art, music, science, mathematics, or literature has surprised, unsettled, or challenged you, and in what way?
Here is my answer:
In an attempt to silence mama's heart-wrenching sobs, my sisters jump wildly in front of the screen, arms flailing, trying to crack a grin. It's fiction, they say. She shouldn't cry like that; it could hurt her heart.
Who knew real estate speculation could be so brutally dark? So painfully honest?
Wrongfully evicted from the seaside home is relapsed alcoholic Kathy Nicollo. Desperate for upward mobility, the exiled Iranian colonel, Massoud Behrani, snatches up her foreclosed property. The story is simple yet profound. Each has a claim to the American Dream.
Each claim, however, slowly unwinds to the point where our ideals are left shattered. During the quest for the Dream, we see murder and suicide. We see gross negligence and adultery. As "The House of Sand and Fog" unravels in a way reminiscent of Aristotle's Poetics, we are left with visible proof of the nonexistence - or at least, utter failure - of the American Dream. The narration though, refuses to partake in any categorization of [villain] and [victim] forcing us to either: be the judge or accept the characters as real people. The second, in this darkness, proves much easier.
My sisters lied; it's not fiction. Their attempts to derail us fail. I shriek at them to let us be. Frantically rewinding the last moments, we search for some closure on the screen: a glimpse of hope; the "it will all be all right scene." We don't find it.
