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The reading that i found interesting this week was Ernest Hemingway's poem "Hills like White Elephants". The first time i read through it in class i was completely lost and had no idea what was going on. After reading it the second time and actually understanding the "hint" of what was actually being said it was all making sense. I found it interesting how Hemingway uses "white elephant" to replace the word baby. I had never heard the expression white elephant before so before annotating the piece i looked up white elephant on line and soon found out that a white elephant is actually an idiom for a valuable but burdensome possession of which its owner cannot dispose and whose cost (particularly cost of upkeep) is out of proportion to the usefulness or worth. I found this on Wikipedia.com and found it very interesting about how much the white elephant relates to the troubles they are going through. They are undecided on whether or not to have an abortion because "the pregnancy is the only thing making them unhappy right now" and they are confused on what "track" to take. The train tracks symbolize the path that they will take either in one direction towards birth of the child or the other direction towards an abortion. Train tracks represent this well because there is only one direct path on a train and theres no turning back once you move forward. That is why i felt Ernest Hemingway's Poem "Hills like White Elephants" was a very interesting poem.

Taylor Sjoberg