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Post by Aspra Roseta Laira on Apr 16, 2008 0:37:03 GMT -6
[Why don't you return to that opening description, and read it again in the context of the rest of the story. You might find something else. Please enlighten me -- the opening simply describes the protection of the bamboo shade on the couple -- is this what you are referring to? .... Then again, (referring to the text, not my memory) there is "no shade and no trees" on this side -- does that possibly refer to the fact that there is no protection from the real issue at hand? Let me know if I'm near what you want me to get at, Prof. I'm off to bed now. G'dnight everyone! |
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Post by Sir Alexandreu Davinescu on Apr 16, 2008 0:43:46 GMT -6
Well, at the end of his life he was in despair at his failing powers. Like most writers, he lamented the things he had written that he felt were unappreciated. He rewrote his history to suit his legend. He was bitter, deceitful, and incredibly unhappy in his last years, and if he had any meaning it was lost to him.
But when he wrote, he wrote with power and poignancy. Traditional literary criticism once held that what meaning there was in a work was that which was intended and placed there by the author. But new schools of criticism point out that there is no one set of meanings for any given set of words. Jacques Derrida's deconstruction indicates that for every signifier (the symbol or word), there are a plenitude of signifieds (the meaning behind it). While we won't go too far into that, it speaks to the reality that each story and even each sentence is inseparable from its context - you and your experiences. The short of it is that if there is any meaning, it's the meaning that it gives to you. And that will probably always remain, for as long as anyone can relate to these stories. And given that people still read and enjoy Beowulf centuries later, that speaks well for Hemingway's potential longevity.
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Post by Aspra Roseta Laira on Apr 16, 2008 0:45:08 GMT -6
Why don't you return to that opening description, and read it again in the context of the rest of the story. You might find something else. The shade did not hide what they had to discuss. Is that, perhaps, what you mean? |
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Post by Sir Alexandreu Davinescu on Apr 16, 2008 0:49:23 GMT -6
[Why don't you return to that opening description, and read it again in the context of the rest of the story. You might find something else. Please enlighten me -- the opening simply describes the protection of the bamboo shade on the couple -- is this what you are referring to? .... Then again, (referring to the text, not my memory) there is "no shade and no trees" on this side -- does that possibly refer to the fact that there is no protection from the real issue at hand? Let me know if I'm near what you want me to get at, Prof. I'm off to bed now. G'dnight everyone! "The hills across the valley of the Ebro are long and white. On this side there was no shade and no trees..." The hills, which represent something unwanted but precious ("white elephants"), are far in the distance. They are admired by Jig. But she is on this side, with no shade and no trees. There is no verdancy, no fertility, on this side. The next sentence has railroad tracks going off into the distance. This perhaps references the very trip they are there to take... either back from fun, or headed to the clinic. It stretches off, with no end. |
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Post by Aspra Roseta Laira on Apr 16, 2008 0:53:13 GMT -6
Thank you, Professor Davis, for another great learning experience! I look forward to next week's lecture.
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Sir C. M. Siervicül
Posts: 9,636
Talossan Since: 8-13-2005
Knight Since: 7-28-2007
Motto: Nonnisi Deo serviendum
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Post by Sir C. M. Siervicül on Apr 16, 2008 15:51:32 GMT -6
What does the cat represent? I think the cat represents sex. The girl's husband seems to say the right things, but isn't really very interested in her. I agree. Or maybe not necessarily just sex, but at least intimacy. "The hills across the valley of the Ebro are long and white. On this side there was no shade and no trees..." The hills, which represent something unwanted but precious ("white elephants"), are far in the distance. They are admired by Jig. But she is on this side, with no shade and no trees. There is no verdancy, no fertility, on this side. And that's reinforced by the way the girl looks back and forth between the fertile and sterile sides of the valley in the story. She looks almost longingly at the side "far away, across the river" just before the man starts talking about how they can "have everything," but she contradicts him and looks back at the dry side. It's like she feels trapped on that side, so she tries to convince herself that her situation is better than she knows it to be. Regarding Cubism, here is an example of Cubism-inspired architecture from Talossa – a sketch of a frieze on the Frederick C. Bogk House, designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, and located in the southern end of Vuode Province:  |
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Post by Nic Casálmac'h on Apr 17, 2008 15:08:06 GMT -6
Sorry I'm late; I can't believe I didn't get a chance before now, though I did check Tuesday morning... Cat in the Rain As for the cat, I thought about the same as Aspra said: it seemed to me to represent her desire to nurture, though perhaps also a desire for love. It did not really seem as if George loved her, or at least he did not show it in the way she wanted him to. It seemed she felt that it would be okay, that she could accept the way things were, if only she had something to love, to care for; thus when she saw the cat, she wanted it. She did not know why she wanted it, but only that she did want it very much, and that I think was because her desire was more subconscious. When she said "It isn't any fun to be a poor kitty out in the rain", though she was ostensibly talking about the cat she had seen, I think it is meant to be herself, because she feels left out in the rain. As for her androgyny, I think it reveals the underlying conflict: the girl wants to become a mother, and George does not want her to; we do not know enough about him to know why. If it were normal life we would just assume he was reading an intriguing novel and did not want to talk or put it down, but because it happens throughout the story I think it shows that he does not want things to change. Hills Like White Elephants I thought it was interesting how there were so few clues as to what the man and the girl were actually arguing about; oftentimes in stories the writer will use some gesture (which would have been quite easy here) to tell the reader what is meant. There leaves it rather open to interpretation. However, the predominant feeling is that it is something of great moment, something life-changing as it were, and so I do not really see that it could be taken as anything other than abortion. Both stories really are remarkably similar for all their differences. In both the girl wants to become a mother and the man wants things to stay the same. I also found the relationship between these stories interestingly like the relationship between the last two we read: the first was fairly straightforward, simply told, without much to it, unless you look deeper; the second was more powerful merely on its own, without needing analysis to make it mean something. The description seemed to me to represent the girl's predicament. I think she did not really want to go through with it, for all she said that she did not care, and the bareness of the area symbolized her desire to escape and her realization that there was nowhere to escape, nowhere to hide. I liked this story better. I particularly liked this quote: "And we could have everything and every day we make it more impossible." I confess I do not quite know what she meant by it, but perhaps what I read into it is more powerful anyway. --- Almost forgot to link to some cubism. I don't like the style much at all, but I find it interesting that what artists are trying to attempt with it is very like what writers of icons are attempting to represent. |
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