Hills Like Loop Writing?

            To ease into our Monday morning, we began class by hearing a final poetry recitation by Kristen Barrett. After Kristen recited “When You Are Old” by William Butler Yates, Mrs. Lemon gave us a brief biography of Yates. We learned that he was sickly and probably had something similar to pneumonia. Aware that death was fast approaching, Yates created a wild new way of seeking the world through his writing.

            Following our discussion of Yates, the class returned to loop writing and our poems of choice: “From Blossoms,” “Delight in Disorder,” and “The Sea.” In our focused free-writes this morning, Mrs. Lemon challenged us to approach our writing uninhibitedly and to start anew in a sense if necessary. We revisited our previous writings, selected lines from these writings, and brought it all together in either a paragraph or perhaps a poem. The decision was up to us. We then shared images from our writing “quaker style.” Reflecting on how we felt about the loop writing process, someone pointed out that it was like speed dating but with writing instead. We decided that it was conversational, argumentative, and not necessarily formal. Finally, we recognized that, through this process, our brain scattered in a multitude of directions, but we embraced this fact about ourselves.

            Our completion of the loop writing exercise led us to the bigger picture. We were informed that this process was ultimately the starting point of a personal essay. But there was a catch. The project was introduced to the class as “The Rumination Essay: Finding the Joy.” This was our chance to meditate on passages we created during loop writing and link them to make a greater story–a mix of creative and analytical writing. Then, we highlighted moments of our individual writings that we did not want to lose.

            After wrapping up our conversations regarding the personal essay, we turned to Ernest Hemingway’s “Hills Like White Elephants.” First of all, Mrs. Lemon gave us an overview of the important events in Hemingway’s life that ultimately shaped his writing. Born right at the turn of the century in 1899, Hemingway learned how to uniquely present the human psychology early in his writing career. Desperate to get to war to prove his manhood, Hemingway fought in World War I. After being injured and sent to a hospital in Italy, Hemingway met and fell in love with a British nurse. Soon enough, Hemingway healed and returned to America hoping his new love would follow. However, the British nurse sent a letter confessing that she was in love with someone else. Hemingway’s heart was shattered.

Ending our biography of Hemingway on such a heavy note, we decided to move to the story itself. The majority of the class was utterly confused by the cryptic story; however, we were able to bounce ideas and predictions off of one another only a few moments into our discussion. We pointed out Hemingway’s lack of naming his characters in this particular story seeing that we were only informed of the girl’s nickname which was “Jig” while the man was simply referred to as “the American.” Early into our discussion, we were asked the question, “What is the significance of the train?” A classmate brought up the idea of the setting of the train station being a crossroads of sorts. Something is lost or will be lost. After numerous possibilities and predictions such as abortion and lobotomy (thanks Kelly!) were thrown around, we decided that the elephant in the room was the girl’s pregnancy. Something interesting about Hemingway is the fact that he never calls abortion by name because it only makes it more real. To Hemingway, sadness and pain do not hold an antecedent. The baggage is ever so present in this story. It’s heavy either way–whether the girl has the operation or not. Then, another classmate pointed out the stark contrast between the man, aka the realist, and the more creative girl, aka the optimist. We pointed out the man’s lack of want of “anybody but you” (you meaning the girl). We decided that this was his final clue to the girl that he did not want anything to do with this baby. But really, it’s all open to interpretation.

Finally, we discussed the loaded ending. The conversation is the relationship in this case. At this point, the whole story shifts dramatically. Now, the girl feels “fine.” But oh how loaded the word “fine” really is! The girl begins to deaden herself emotionally. She lacks the enthusiasm and exploratory voice she possessed at the beginning of the story. Now, she fakes her feelings. Really, those feelings are a simple numbness and a sense of trauma. Maybe Hemingway left us even more confused than we were to begin with. I mean, after all, all I see is hills like white elephants.