Been studying Hills Like White Elephants for the passed 2 weeks. Almost an hour an a half every day just dissecting it, analyzing it. My teacher (who thinks he's a professor)... Told us on the first few days to read it and take it home and annotate it. So... I read it once, then wrote a couple lame questions in the margins.
When he finally decided to bring it up in class.... I was... ugh, it's such a boring pointless story that doesn't even make sense because you can't even tell who's talking when. But he did his socratic thing and suddenly everyone in the class wasn't bored anymore. It only tooka couple clever questions to make me want to read that story again so badly.
So I went and read it a second time. And it was really strange. It was an entirely different story than I'd read the first time. This time, I filled the margins and circled words and drew arrows all over the pages. Since then, we've been having discussions about this 3 page story as a class (We actually weren't told the title til later, so that we wouldn't think to look it up online). It's been really interesting. I mean, sometimes you can really over-analyze and read too much into these things but we've been good about avoiding that. A complete transformation. This story is probably one of my favorites as of yet.
But this post isn't about analyzing this story. It's just about that experience. I think I liked that experience more than the actual story! It was just amazing what I found out about writing, symbolism, transformation, assumtions, things I found out about myself and about what can be.
- "Of course it does. But I don't want anybody but you. I don't want any one else. And I know it's perfectly simple."
- "Yes, you know it's perfectly simple."
- "It's all right for you to say that, but I do know it."
- "Would you do something for me now?"
- "I'd do anything for you."
- "Would you please please please please please please please Stop talking." --from Hills Like White Elephants, Ernest Hemingway
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