Joshua Jerome Jerome 1

Ryan Gallagher
AP Literature
6 December, 2010

Meta-cognitive Essay

Seeing as this is a paper that’s sole purpose will be to analyze my thoughts and reasoning

behind the assignment, I feel that it is necessary to include my reason for choosing the optional

assignment that I did. The reason I chose the third optional assignment, which was the

“Hemingway V. Faulkner” creative writing piece, was for the reason that in the past, I have not

scored well on explications-let alone extended explications- and so I endeavored to rewrite

Hemmingway’s Hills like White Elephants as I believe William Faulkner would have told the

tale. The rewrite process proved long and difficult as I constantly had to refer back to examples of

both of the author’s work, in order to ascertain a better understanding of the differences between

the two, in addition to capturing the stylistic excellence that is Faulkner’s writing. This was in

essence the shorter, less drawn out, and typically conversation driven plots of Hemmingway,

opposed to the complex sentence structured, crammed with detail, and the constant looking into

the internal thoughts of the characters in the story. For me, the most difficult part of it all was

extending the conversations between the two characters, and finding a way to do that subtly, yet

sophisticatedly. Because there was not a lot to go on in terms of the thoughts of the characters, or

even in terms of their conversation, you will see how I had to constantly refer back to the setting,

which I utilized as a means of paralleling the thoughts and events of those characters involved in

the story.

From the very beginning, you will notice that I use an editorially omniscient narrator who

is also a participant, as they constantly utilize the first person pronoun, “I”. I chose to do this

because Faulkner usually used an omniscient narrator, who would at times insert his own

opinions about the events unfolding throughout a story, as was seen at the beginning of A Rose

for Miss Emily as the narrator comments on the women of the town’s main reason for being there

was “mostly out of curiosity to see the inside of her house” rather than to mourn for the loss of
Joshua Jerome Jerome 2
Ryan Gallagher
AP Literature
6 December, 2010
Miss Emily. I followed a similar pattern with my introduction as I wrote about how the bartenders

“only wished to see what the relationship was between the odd couple”, rather than being

genuinely interested in their service. This allows for the reader of my story to get a glimpse into

the mind of the bartenders. I also did not give the narrator a name or a gender, in order to parallel

A Rose for Miss Emily yet again, and the way that the narrator was never identified, which I

believe allowed them to be less restricted in describing the events of the unfolding story. The

significance of remaining genderless also allows the story to be personalized by the reader,

almost giving them the semblance that they are the ones witnessing the events taking place, and

allows for some interpretation of how they would react to the experiences based on their gender,

or personal experience. As far as the diction goes, I noticed how Faulkner hardly utilizes elevated

word choice, especially when depicting dialogue. On the contrary, Faulkner utilizes very

colloquia, almost slang words, as was seen in his short story, Barn Burning, when the father asks

“Where’s the nigger” (Barn Burning 163). The racial slur appears many times throughout the

story, in addition to appearing in many other stories written by Faulkner. This can be a result of

the kairotic moment at which his stories-the early nineteen-hundreds- a time when racism

proliferated throughout the southern region of the United States. For this reason, I also decided to

describe the woman serving drinks in great detail, as I commented on how she was a “large dark

woman who could have passed for a Negro.” This added detail was only implemented as a means

of paying homage to the style of William Faulkner, and his consistency as a regional writer who

often implemented elements of his surroundings into his stories.

Another aspect of his writing that made Faulkner standout stylistically was his constant

use of parenthesis in order to give the readers a glimpse into the minds of the characters and

narrator, or even as a means of providing more information to the reader about the subject.

Examples of this can be seen throughout Faulkner’s various works, as was scene in the beginning

of A Rose for Miss Emily, when the narrator describes how nobody had every been inside the
Joshua Jerome Jerome 3
Ryan Gallagher
AP Literature
6 December, 2010
house of Miss Emily, or even knew what it looked like “save an old manservant-a combined

gardener and cook-had seen in at least ten years” (A Rose for Miss Emily 26). This interruption

provides the reader with the reason why everyone other than this manservant had seen the house,

and that is as a result of his importance as a maintenance worker-which also gives us reason to

believe that he might have played a role in the murder of Homer Baron, but that is just

speculation-who had to care for the house. I emulated this when I wrote about how the bartender

grew “increasingly impatient,-she only wanted to hear what he wanted so she could be done with

him, and move onto her other customers”, which I used to emphasize the annoyance that the

bartender was experiencing. This is also seen on various occasions throughout the rewrite.

Finally, two major aspects behind the rewrite that ultimately told the story, was my use of

setting to establish theme and the symbolism behind the various props and actions of the

characters in the story. For example, in the original story, as written by Hemingway, the young

woman constantly looks off at the line of hills, which we interpreted as an attempt to hold on to

her innocence, and possibly even the achieving of purity and innocence through death: abortion. I

allowed for these aspects to remain the same, as they were the driving force behind the story’s

plot. As far as the setting is concerned, when one thinks of a bar, two things come to mind: a

place where information is shared, and where people go to forget about their problems. This

parallels the character’s reason for being there: to try and forget about their problems through

silence and drinking, in addition to the fact that they are there to discuss the situation regarding

the pregnancy of the girl, and the course of action that they will take to deal with it. More

symbolism can be seen in how the characters are also waiting in a train station. This is symbolic

of the fact that the two are waiting for her to give birth, in addition to the fact that they are

waiting anxiously, because neither one of them wanting to be the one to bring up the touchy

subject. A symbolic act can be found in how the man “placed his empty cup down on the counter,

instead of the felt pad that had been provided for that purpose” which is representative of his
Joshua Jerome Jerome 4
Ryan Gallagher
AP Literature
6 December, 2010
uncaring nature regarding the seriousness of the matter. This same idea was seen in Faulkner’s

Barn Burning, and how the act of burning the barn by the hands of the boys father was not a mere

act of spite, but rather “an expression of his profound hatred for anything not belonging to him”

(Kennedy Gioia 237). Similarly, the act of placing the cup somewhere other than the coaster, is

not just as act of physical negligence, but also one of emotional negligence.