Elizabeth Heppenheimer - Senior Project

September 25th

This week I looked over Hannibal, a book that I read over the summer. I had made margin notes, underlined things, and made notes to reread certain passages and chapters. I went through the book page by page and determined what was a useful note and what was just something I thought was interesting or funny at the time. I made a few irrelevant and redundant notes, which were a little annoying to sort through but in the end I came up with several organized pages of notes on the personality, likes and dislikes, of the main character, how and why he consumes people, and his impression on “normal” members of society. I have also done this for the previous two novels in the series, Red Dragon and Silence of the Lambs and the corresponding movies. This week I also watched two other movies. I watched Jennifer’s Body, which was surprisingly good for what it was, but I would have to watch it again to see how relevant it actually is. I also watched Alive, which was somewhat relevant. Next week I plan to watch them both again closely and take some notes. This week I also started reading a book about the history of cannibalism in North America, I'm less than 50 pages into it, but so far it’s interesting.

            Next week I plan to start the final Hannibal Lecter book, Hannibal Rising. I also want to watch the movies based on Hannibal and Hannibal Rising.  Next week I also think I should come up with some short-term goals so I can make the best use of my time and stay on track. I think I need some advice on setting some goals. Over the weekend I plan to think about what I want to accomplish in the next week, month etc. and then bounce my thoughts off my mentor next week. 

 

Final product description

I plan to create an offbeat, dark humored short story that offers insight into the daily lives and rituals of various cannibals. Each cannibalistic character in the story will reflect the personality of either a carefully selected anthropophagous character in American popular culture or that of a person who practices anthropophagy as an integral part of their culture. The story will compare and contrast the various types of cannibalism, but will ultimately aim to explain why the forms of cannibalism seen in pop-culture are socially accepted in America, while tribal cannibalism is considered taboo. Each cannibal I select to base a character on will have to fit the following list of criteria. The cannibals from pop-culture must have been a part of a movie, book, television show, or even videogame that has received primarily positive reviews from society. The pop-culture cannibals should be part of mainstream media that has endured for decades or has become a huge sensation with many avid fans. The cannibals must have practiced at least one of the three main forms of cannibalism, survival cannibalism, exocannibalism or endocannibalism. They must also have a specific and rational reason for practicing cannibalism. Accompanying my short story will be character outlines for all the cannibals I chose to base a character on. The character outline will describe each cannibal’s personality, likes and dislikes, past experiences that may have contributed to their decision to practice anthropophagy and any other relevant information.

So far I have look into a few cannibals from pop-culture and read some information about tribal cannibalism. I'm starting to notice parallels between pop-culture cannibalism and tribal cannibalism as well as pick up patterns in pop-culture cannibalism. 

 

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