White Elephants

Reading "Hills Like White Elephants" was a very interesting experience for me. This was the kind of story that made you think, "What did I just read?" While I like to think that I am a decent reader, and that I can understand everything I read, this story made me think the complete opposite. A friend of mine who looked up the story online told me that it was supposed to be about abortion, but even with that knowledge in my head, I had a hard time understanding anything I was reading. There were some parts in the story where they would talk about the "operation" and I would actually know what they were talking about, but then get completely lost. I get a feeling that Hemingway added white elephants into the story only to confuse the reader even more, because without background knowledge of what a white elephant is, and how it is used in other cultures, the reader would think that the hills Jig was describing were just big like elephants. The way the events of the story were written out were just confusing as well. I had a hard time of realizing what was going on because of the way the subject of their conversation would jump around. And, I cannot stand when stories don't have a clear message. I understand that if he would have used the word "abortion" the story might have been sensored, but we could at least use a some clues about the topic he is trying to convey. Overall, this was the worst story we have read so far in class.

Bloody Literature

The books that we have read so far in English have really surprised me. I have always thought that classic short stories were supposed really boring and not fun to read. But so far, the books we have read have been able to keep my attention, and were surprisingly based on death, or destruction. Starting off with the Most Dangerous Game, I really liked this story when I read it as a freshman. The idea of somebody being hunted down on an island reminded me of The Hunger Games series, which is one of my favorite. The next story we read was The Child by Tiger. I found this story very interesting. It was interesting in how the character of Dick Prosser went from being the nicest character in the story to going insane and killing a bunch of people. And, the fact that Thomas Wolfe made him an African American really showed the racial views that people had in the 1930's. The last book we've read was The Destructors. I found this story to be really messed up. For some kids who are in a "gang" to want to destroy an old mans house just because he offered them some candy was very strange. I don't even know how someone can come up with that idea. I don't remember ever thinking about destroying houses when I was as young as some of the characters in this story.