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🔵 Example of panels shown close together

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🔵 Example of panels shown close together

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If we had read this text separately we would have missed the important connections that Ware makes between all of the passages. A lot of connections and realizations made about the bee was a group effort. One group member was noticing the abundant presence of flowers throughout some of the passages, specifically the one involving the florist. Another group member another noticed that the bees were pollinating the flowers in the branford bee stories. As a group we came to the conclusion the beginning of the bee's stories arose when the florist from the human stories planted flowers. This also relates to this shared synchronous circle of life that we see being mirrored in both storylines.

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The nature of this story is all about realism and relatability. Nothing in it is sugar-coated, as characters in any part of the story experience loss and unhappiness regardless of age. Nothing in anyone’s life is completely happy 100% of the time, and this story does a terrific job of making the main character seem so human. She struggles with weight gain, the loss of her father, marriage issues, and many other things that anyone coming across this story can wholeheartedly relate to. The point of this story was not to establish a main character who has a hard time and to implement a magical storyline that ends with her living happily ever after, but instead to showcase the realities of life. Rather than being something that begins with a relatable main character and ends with something completely unrealistic, the story does not have a specific ending. There is a part that can be assumed to be the end, but it is not the end of that character’s life. Life is unpredictable, and we can lose everything we have in a single moment, a fact that did not go unsaid in the story through the events that occurred. It’s easy to get lost in the world of fiction since fiction is more fun than reality, but this story really showed how a character that was drawn on a piece of paper could act more human than some actual humans can. Ware purposefully made the story a confusing mess of twists and turns because, at the end of the day, that is life. We never know what will happen next, and we also never know what is going on behind the closed doors of others, meaning the main character’s life was completely unknown to her neighbors, but we were told all about it in the form of this story.

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As a group we decided to collectively read all components of the novel separately and take note of what themes or formal elements we found in each section. This was a positive because we all analyzed each piece which allowed us to created and share our own opinions. This uncovered various new ideas that not all members found on their own. On the contrary, since we all had a goal of reading each piece we had a lot to read in a short period of time. If we had divided the reading we may have been able to discover deeper meaning and ideas within the text.

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At first, the story regarding the bee was a difficult component for all members of the group to comprehend. We were unsure where it fit into the story and what its purpose was. After reading more passages we were able to work together to dissect the stories that involved the bee and find components in its story that also corresponded with the other stories. One main similarity connecting the stories is the apartment building. It is shown throughout the stories involving the human characters as well as being shown in the background of the bee’s story a multitude of times. From this we compared and contrasted the bee and human passages and discovered that there were more similarities than differences as both stories included enlarged images of the characters in the center of the pages to emphasize their precedence. We concluded that the story of the bee revolved around its circle of life similarly to the human circle of life that is portrayed in the other passages. A main correlation between the human characters and the bees is the presence of the apartment building in both stories. This allows us to acknowledge what the main messages are in the different stories and to analyze them thoroughly.
Ware, Chris. Building Stories. Pantheon Books, 2012.

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🔵  How Does Structure Relate to Meaning? 

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🔵  How Does Structure Relate to Meaning? 

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The story has no structure as there is no beginning, middle, or end which is symbolic of the chaotic and structureless lives that the characters are experiencing. The events during this story are constantly progressing and dramatically changing in a way that they are unable to control. This relates to how the readers are also unable to control fitting each part of the story into a coherent beginning, middle, and end.

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The author uses the formal element, performing authenticity to create a sense of realism and relatability for the reader. Performed authenticity can be achieved through visual signs. For example, the book titled "Disconnect" shows a couple sorting through their bills together, and the paperwork is scattered all over their kitchen counter. This is also because they just noticed that their checking account has just been overdrawn. The financial struggles of the couple can be connected to the prominent theme of relatability. Many people in the world face the obstacle of having unpaid bills, and it creates stress. This overall use of performed authenticity makes "building stories" more engaging and authentic for the reader by creating an emotional and tangible impact on the reader.

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The author uses the formal element, layout to depict how cramped the characters are living in the apartment building. The panels are usually spaced out by no room in between them. This chaotic use of the panels shows how life can be extremely complex and messy. This is representative of how the residents are living both emotionally and physically close to each other. The book with the dates in it says, “469 feelings of being watched,” while listing all the statistics of the building. This line from the book shows that the characters are not given much privacy throughout the story, and the layout helps show that. The layout also uses close up to show the reader the intimate feeling and actions of the characters. The reader uses these close ups to better understand the characters by being more engaged.

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As we see the daily lives of the residents of the apartment building, we get to see the uncensored lives of the everyday people who lives there, how they deal with their own hardships and emotions relating to their current situations, no matter what they might be. The fact that each character has their own struggles makes them all the more human to the reader and also makes them relatable. This is meant to make the reader connect themselves to the characters they are reading about, which is one of the main aspects of reading a novel. However, instead of through only words on paper, Ware does it through images. Even if this is done through means of cartoonish characters, we see deep into their lives, we see their internal strife and we see their pain. They are not cartoon characters from a children's show with no worry in their lives, but real people, just like the reader.

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When we see the residents of the apartment building, Ware does it in such a way that the reader is viewing the residents from inside their room as if there is no exterior wall separating the residents and the outside world. Similar to the set of a TV show, there is the lack of a connecting wall that would close them off from outside so that we can see and hear what is going on behind the walls of the apartment building.
Even when residents, namely the florist, are outside of the apartment building, it still looms in the background for the most part. It is part of their story, it's where they live and where they are meant to feel safe to come home to but as readers, we know that the most vulnerable parts of their lives take place behind those walls.

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Branford's hive is just outside of the apartment building, but he ends up getting stuck in the florist's room one day and she has to open the window to let him out. He leaves quickly and returns to his hive. Branford's story portrays many of the emotions present throughout the rest of the story that the main characters also deals with. He too, is forced to face adversity, and has a faith in God to help him out of said situations. A bee's circle of life is similar to a human's.

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The florist in the story is unhappy with her life, and has been since she moved into the apartment building in the first place. She has not had an easy life before the move, but it certainly didn't get better even after acquiring a child and a husband. So, when she ends up letting the bee outside of the apartment building, she thinks about freedom; freedom from the situation she was in, freedom from her years of unhappiness. That is when she decides to pack up and move her family to the suburbs where they can, hopefully, live a better life.
When she sees the rubble that remains of her old place of residence, it is as if once the building fell, so did her old life. She moved on, and the apartment was destroyed along with her, erasing the pain she once felt when inside those walls that are now long gone.

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The florist on the third (top) floor is where most of the story takes place. To begin with, she is an amputee that lives alone and wishes she did more with her life than she actually had, since she was pursuing art and settled for her job as a florist. We learn about all the loss she has encountered in her life, such as her father. Eventually, she ends up settling down with a man who she isn't quite sure she truly loves, thinking about her high school boyfriend who had her get an abortion. Despite her doubts about her current husband, she gets pregnant and keeps the child. She lives an unhappy life, wondering what could have been, worrying about her weight and her wasted life and eventually ends up moving to the suburbs with her daughter, away from the apartment building. The last time we see her and the building in the same frame is when she drives by it with her daughter several years later and only sees the remains left by a wrecking ball, as the apartment was torn down.

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The couple on the second floor argues all the time. They never seem to get along and are disinterested in each other sexually, yet their relationship still remains. When being looked at by people in the future who can hear them through the walls, they all discuss when their relationship will end, because with the way they fight, it seems to be inevitable.

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The old woman who owns the building, the landlady, is a simple spinster. She has not done much with her life, so she likes to get involved with the lives of her residents. She rents out rooms in the apartment building and lives vicariously through those she houses.

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There are three residents shown in this story, one being the landlady on the first floor, then a couple on the second floor, then a florist on the third floor.

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In the coming years after her father’s death she has learned how to cope with that struggle and has mentally recovered. Though after learning about her friend’s suicide those feeling of grief came rushing back. This was a hardship that she had to overcome once again, only this time she had an established life and a grown daughter that wasn’t oblivious to her mothers sadness. Again, seeing grief controlling the emotions and attitudes that the characters are exhibiting throughout the novel.

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The progression of her fathers cancer was very rapid and sudden. Her family trip was interrupted by the news regarding her fathers diagnosis of cancer and she rushed home to be by his side, but during her visit she learned that her father was doing quite well and seemed like he was on the road to recovery. However in the coming weeks the cancer progressed faster than she had thought and when she returned to visit him the condition of his health had declined greatly. There were many highs and lows during her fathers struggle which took an emotional toll on herself and on her mother making it difficult for them to be emotionally present and supportive for each other. The sudden progression of her fathers health made it harder for her to get closure and accept that this was the last time she would be with him. She ultimately took over for her mother in the end and saw her father pass away in front of her which affected her for the rest of her life. The burden of caring for her sick father is like none other and affected how she reacted when learning of her friend's passing.

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There are enlarged images of the characters throughout their different stages of development that are symbolic of growth and the circle of life. These images are drawn as a double-page spread as they are located in the center of the both pages in some of the passages. There are times when the character is portrayed as an infant, toddler, adult, or as a senior. The strategic placing of these characters in the center of the pages represents the conflicts that they are facing. There are panels surrounding the character on the page that tell the reader what is currently happening in their life. The relationship between the size of these enlarged characters and the panels surrounding them is an example of the formal element proportion. An example of this type of page layout is included above.
Ware, Chris. Building Stories. Pantheon Books, 2012.

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The many conversations our group had greatly impacted our interpretation of the story because we were able to connect different components of the stories and share ideas to make more complex conclusions regarding the deeper meaning of the novel. I learned that the sequential order of a story doesn't define its meaning, and that the deeper meaning of the story can be greater when it is up to the reader to interpret the text.

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There were many structural and formal elements that our group noticed when analyzing the format of the panels and images on each page. Some of the most prominent were: layout, performed authenticity, involvement, and proportion.

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The main area where most of this story takes place is in a 98 year-old Chicago brownstone apartment building. The building has three floors and each is occupied by different resident(s) we are introduced to throughout the various stories.

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Grief is a consistent theme that Chris Ware makes present throughout the novel Building Stories. It is most present when the woman’s father is diagnosed with cancer and when her friend passes away.

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The apartment building and grief were two dominant themes present in the novel Building Stories by Chris Ware because the characters' lives revolved around and were therefore affected by these ideas.