Intertextuality

The intertextuality that I have discovered is between the movie "Ten Things I Hate About You" and "The Taming of the Shrew".  They both follow the plot line of a girl who wishes to date (in ten things) or marry (taming of the shrew) another man but cannot until her older sister goes on a date/gets married.  Therefore, in both stories, the younger sister tries to get the older sister with a man by bribing another man to go out with her.  However, "Ten Things" is more of a modernized version of "The Taming of the Shrew".  "Taming of the Shrew" is by Shakespeare.

The names of the sisters are even the same.  The older sister in both of the stories has the name of Katherine/Katarina.  She is more of a strong-willed person than her sister.  The younger sister has the name of Bianca.  Bianca is more concerned with her looks and her personality.  The suitors name in "Taming of the Shrew" is  Petruchio of Verona which becomes Patrick Verona in "Ten Things".  At one point during "Ten Things", Kat is referred to as "the shrew" by another character.  In "Ten Things", Patrick, the "suitor", is paid to try to go out with Bianca's older sister so her parents will allow her to go out with the man of her choice.  Kat is a feminist and is very strong-willed.  However, throughout this bribe, the boy, Patrick actually falls in love with Kat and Kat falls in love with him.  In this story, there is a happy ending.  In "The Taming of the Shrew", Petruchio is searching for a wife and his friend, who happens to be the one trying to wed Bianca tells him of Katherine.  Katherine is pretty stubborn so henceforth there is the taming of the shrew (Katherine).  He eventually gets her under control and marries her.  In "Ten Things", Patrick gets Kat under control by the end as she falls in love with him.

Blue Highways

Reading Blue Highways to me was at first very boring.  It caught my attention at the beginning to read that this man was leaving to start a new beginning, to travel across the states.  Then, I began to get bored with the story line.  He just seemed to go from place to place with high detail of each place.  Eventually, with every place, he met new people, letting the reader know what goes on in each city.  Some of the anecdotes I found to be pretty boring, however, some caught my attention.  As I was going through the book, it became more interesting.  

I enjoyed reading about his travels through Kentucky, as I am from there.  However, there was not a lot mentioned about Lexington (where am I from), and there was more about the surrounding areas of which i was not very familiar with.  However, I have heard about them but I hadn't known much about them.

I hope that the book turns into more of a story line with the man.  I realize that his traveling is the story line, but it appears to me that one of the primary focuses of the novel is the anecdote of the people. Although it is interesting to learn about the many different places, I found it more interesting to learn about the different places through a story line like from the novel "Northern Lights".  

I have no idea of where and how this story will end up.  It is pretty different from what I am used to reading.  It has a story line that seems to change a lot.  One part of the book that I did find pretty interesting is when the author says : "I wondered why it's always those who live on little who are the ones who ask you to dinner".  The people that he found that didn't have a lot were very friendly and offered to have him for dinner and welcomed him in their homes.  I also found it interesting that since he was traveling alone, it made him want to become more social when he met people.  It didn't make sense to me before but when I read the part when he was talking to the waitress, it made more sense.