[Ronnie Cray]

Ronnie Cray’s Transformation Journey

What I learnt doing this assignment is that a truly good story, involves the transformation of the Hero. People will get emotionally involved in the story, and are willing to follow it to the very end. I learnt that I also go through a transformation, myself, if I have been touched by my efforts, to tell this story.

Who is the Hero? She is a 37 year old mother named Angela, with a 15 year old daughter, named Lizzie. The name of the movie is Lizzie and Angela.

What is the Character Arc that represents a transformation? Angela goes from being a strict, inflexible and domineering mother, who wants to control her daughter’s every move, to a mother who is more willing to give her daughter the freedom she absolutely craves for.

Angela’s internal journey involves going from being totally strict, and domineering with her daughter, to beginning to truly understanding her daughter’s needs. Her perspective is originally one that is fuelled by fear, because of the her own strict upbringing, and because she herself was raped, at the age of 15 years old. Yet she never tells her daughter about that. She slowly begins to understand her daughter, after many heated arguments, and her running off to be with her dad, in the middle of the night, that if she wants her daughter to be happy, she has to loosen the tight grip, she has on her daughter.

Angela’s external journey involves her never listening to her daughter’s point of view, totally dismissing it, and strictly enforcing her rules on her daughter. It gradually changes through a series of heated arguments, and running off to be with her dad, to her letting her daughter actually have the freedom, that she desperately longs for. Angela actually listens to her daughter’s point for the first time.

The Old Ways:

1. Being strict.

2. Never listening to her daughter.

3. Being very fearful, but hiding it well from the daughter.

4. Not giving her daughter, the respect she deserves.

The New Ways:

1. She loosens her tight grip on the daughter.

2. She finally starts listening to the daughter.

3. Although she is still fearful, she opens up to the daughter, telling her, what happened when she herself was 15 years old.

4. She gives the daughter the respect she deserves.