Literature - The House on Mango Street

When you consider a novel as accomplished as The House on Mango, one of the ideas that the reader takes away from it -- is the remarkable portrait that Cisneros creates of her characters.  This presentation does a wonderful job of taking those characters to a different level.  In fact, there are picture-graphs of eyes made of words and even people made of the words that are used to define them.  There is the animation of that wonderful line from the novel, "I want to be all new and shiny."  This Illuminated Text happens to be precisely that.

 A presentation that focuses on Esperanza's (and all women's) falling under the shadow of men.  The words, the spare use of images, and the powerful music all contribute to a powerful, evocative indictment -- that leaves a lasting impression.  I like that some of the issues that this Illuminated Text are ones that are often ignored when looking at this book - such as Esperanza as a feminist character and the treatment that she receives at the the hands of the men she trusts.

This presentation by Mike Kenny begins with a bringing together of text about snow, clouds, and names.  If you want to see what is done right in a presentation -- the first thing you'll notice, beyond the wonderful choice of related text, is the perfect choice of font to display that text.  The clouds become names in a seamless and powerful series of transitions -- when two different people are talking, the font for each are different and appropriate.  This is a masterful Illuminated Text.

This presentation by Kevin Chrzanowski and David Peace pulls out all of the stops that are possible when using Adobe Flash.  The character Marion appears, and a song comes from her mouth -- the car that she is waiting for zooms across the screen.  As the Illuminated Text was shown in my classroom, I reminded my students that they showed again that it is the ideas that are crucial -- not the technology or the technological know how.  Make Marion stand still as the text passed her by was not hard to do -- but it was brilliant to conceive.

This illuminated text pushes the envelope of textual animation (as well as the viewer's emotions) as it pulls together the many times that Esperanza is betrayed by those around her as she seeks that ideal home that proves more and more elusive.  Looking at this Illluminated Text after three years I have to say that it has lost none of its power or impact.  Please note that there is also a Quicktime Video version of this presentation if you have any trouble seeing or hearing the Power Point Edition.