Final Year Project

Project Title

Hatim: Retelling the Untold

Description

Folktales are a unique facet of any culture; an intangible piece of heritage requiring preservation. While they are often very traditional, folktales are capable of evolution, reflecting the change in time and place. By recreating the tale of Hatim Tai, in a web-based Build Your Own Adventure story form, I contemporize the tale to accommodate modern-day storytelling, incorporating and enhancing the unique didactic quality of a folktale. This lets us preserve the folklore and continue its tradition. By allowing readers/viewers to make real-time decisions that affect the flow of the story, we immerse them into the tale, as they reap the consequences of their choices. Using this interactivity, in the form of a hypertext webpage, the project aims to revitalize cultural folklore, adapting it to suit the current epoch while fulfilling the original purpose of the folktale - entertainment and moral education - thus, allowing readers to come to their own conclusion of what is right or wrong. In this form, the story creates an environment conducive to receiving the variety of lessons that lay buried deep within the Adventures of Hatim Tai.