Textual Poaching

I chose to remix the story of Abraham and Isaac. The reason I chose this story is because I am the oldest child. As the oldest child you are the ‘guinea pig’ to your parents to figure out what works and what doesn’t. This can be both a benefit and a burden as the child. On one hand you have a different relationship with your parents because both of you are trying to learn how to become a family. On the other hand there may be some things that the oldest child has to experience that the younger children don’t because the parents realize that certain things don’t work very well in their parenting technique.

Peter Forbes article “The Power of Story in an Age of Consequence” really impacted me on how I wrote this story. He says, “Story has always been the way we explain our

relationships and who were are.” I wanted to reflect my relationship with my father in this story. To state the obvious, my father has never tied me to an alter to sacrifice me. We though do trust each other and love each other very much. I respect my dad’s opinions and I believe my dad respects mine.

Just like Isaac I trust my dad with my life. I wanted to put myself in Isaac’s shoes if my hero did something like that to me. What would I say? What would my dad say back? Would I still love him? Isaac most likely did not walk away from that situation completely fine at first. There were probably some questions that he asked and I am guessing there were a few heated discussions.

I also made a conscious effort to have the dialog be more modern. I wanted to put the reader in the story and one of the best ways to do that is to use common language that feels familiar and welcoming. Sometimes we read these stories as if they are like the Harry Potter series of books, as in the people in the stories are not real. I believe that these people are real and they had lives and real emotions just as much as any person who is alive on Earth right now. To show those emotions I used language that presented a less formal feel.