An Archetype and a Profession

In this exercise one person will pick an archetype and another person will pick a profession separately. When asked, they will tell us what they have picked and we will write a scene where we will attempt to do two things:

1. Make the archetype an individual
2. Explain why the archetype is the archetype they are. How did they become that way?

Archetype: Evil Stepmother

Profession: Interpreter

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       I have no idea what made me take this job as interpreter. I have enough on my hands now with trying to raise his child. It was not originally part of the understanding, raising his child, I mean. We married with the idea that the girl would live with her mother. But now, here she is in my house, well our house, and I have to say I do not at all care for the arrangement. The child is constantly underfoot and I cannot get a thing done with her near. Certainly I cannot prepare for my work, for the simultaneous translation this new job requires.

       People don’t realize that simultaneous interpreters are not really all that simultaneous. Well, what I mean is we are not all that spontaneous. When I am called to interpret at the UN for instance, which I am solely because so few people in this country know Berber languages as I do—when I am called then to cover a speech by the Ambassador of Morocco, say, I find I must spend some time weeks beforehand researching his views, his leanings, the sorts of likely things he will say to the UN before I would ever think of showing up there. It is not only interpreting the words after all, it is anticipating the words. It is knowing what the speaker is going to say before perhaps even he knows just what that is. 

       But with this child now always about the house, how can I find the time? How can I find the peace of mind I need to do my research? I can’t even leave the house for the library with the damn girl always grasping at my knee. And such sniveling then when I try to rip her loose.  Oh just grow up, I want to tell her. Don’t you realize I have no interest in raising you myself?  And when she starts to cry harder, and whispers please, please, “Speak up,” I tell her. “I can’t hear you.”

       It was how I was raised, after all. Oh just grow up, my mother would say to me if ever I whimpered or whined. My mother had no patience for weakness. You have to be tough in this world, she said. 

       And so I am tough. I speak up for myself. I speak up professionally for others. And now, to my dismay, I find I must also speak up to this, my unfortunate new step-child.  

- BC

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       She thought Mary was a brat. The little girl was spoiled by her father, the grandparents, the relatives, the teachers and servants. She was determined to break that cycle or to at least turn it down a notch. She was going to make Mary into a human being even if it had to endure the evil stepmother figure. 

       Please, take the dirty dishes to the kitchen and clean after yourself. Mary, the teenage step daughter hated her and thought Rita was actually determined to make her life miserable. She rolled her eyes and took the dishes to the kitchen. 

        Let’s go! We’re going to be late. Rita yelled. Not a word in reply but Mary did stamp out of the kitchen, got her backpack and walked towards the door. Silence. 

       Rita was tall and slender. She had long fingers and long toes that sometimes would stick out of her sandals. Her voice was sulky and naturally loud. She was a lover of words and languages. She loved their sound. She entertained herself thinking about grammar and pronunciations. She was an interpreter and translator dedicated to literary works of English and French. Give her any word in any of these two languages and she would explain for hours the epistemology and history of this and that. But she couldn’t stand silence. She couldn’t interpret silence. Mary wasn’t talking to Rita for about three months now. Rita even tried to ask her about school and other teenage things but there was never a reply, only silence. How she wished to bypass the silence and include some words into a conversation with Mary. But no… She thought to herself. – How clever! She figured out my strengths and weaknesses and is using it all against me. 

        So, she was left with a monologue that sounded like:  - Buckle up! I don’t want you to come home late after school. If I don’t see you at the house when I get back from work, you’re going to bed without supper. I’ll take your phone away if you don’t do well on your test. Stop! We don’t chew gum in the house. It was indeed disheartening. In Mary’s head, the words changed the scenario. They made Rita look like an old lady wearing a long black cape who wouldn’t walk on two feet but levitate sitting on a broom. How she wished she would just fly away. 

- NM

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       Jane walked downstairs to find her stepdaughter already at the kitchen table. She had poured herself a bowl of cereal and was happily munching her way through it. 

       The sight of hter, awake and happy, doing nothing wrong that she could yell at her about, enraged Jane. She opened the cupboard to get a bowl for herself and banged it on the counter. She went to the refrigerator to get the milk carton.

       "Lindsey! How am I supposed to eat breakfast if you've left me so little milk? You're so selfish!"

       Lindsey's voice was small and scared, unsure what had brought on this latest wrath from Jane.

       "I'm sorry, mom, I thought there was enough left."

       "I'm not your mom. I've told you to stop calling me that."

       "But dad says..."

       "I don't care what your dad says."

       Lindsey knew better than to continue arguing.

       Jane wound her way to the living room, her bowl full of cereal and milk, past the picture of her husband's ex-wife. Lindsey's eyes and face stared back at her. The resemblance was uncanny. Given a couple of decades, that would be Lindsey. Jane tipped her bowl as she passed the frame, the milk spilling all over the picture and the coffee table.

       Well, Jane thought, I guess there really is no more milk left.

- FR

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