VCCS Litonline
"Love and Licorice" page 3
VCCS Litonline
"Love and Licorice" page 3
6 Jig really thinks she’s ready to settle down and have a child, or she wouldn’t be struggling so hard with the question of abortion. She too has trouble approaching the problem honestly. When she announces "I’ll do it because I don’t care about me," she’s hoping that he’ll feel guilty and change his mind. When he continues to resist, she tries to cut the conversation off: "I’ll scream," she threatens. 7 Jig is beginning to realize that life may not turn out the way she had planned. She likes to try new things, such as Anis del Toro, but often is disappointed. "It tastes like licorice . . . ," she says, and "everything tastes of licorice" (or disappointment), "especially all the things you’ve waited so long for . . . ."
8 From the train station, she gazes out across the valley of the Ebro. Hemingway has chosen this setting as a symbol of the couple’s options in life. They come from the dry side of the valley, where there was no shade and no trees. It was becoming a barren existence for Jig, but one which her companion didn’t want to give up. She was longing for the kind of life that waited for them on "the other side," where there were fields of grain and trees--and children. "And we could have all this," she told him.
9 With the train to Madrid less than five minutes away, he tells Jig, "I’d better take the bags over to the other side . . . ." Perhaps she had finally convinced him that their lives needed to take a new direction. Hemingway leaves us wondering about their final destination. One thing, however, is certain. Unless these two young people learn to be honest with one another, and grow together, with the same priorities and goals in life, Jig may find once again that everything she’s "waited so long for . . . tastes like licorice." * copied by permission of the writer * |
6 Part of this student’s view of the story is that both people are at fault for the pregnancy and the relationship rather than just one, so she shows the flaws and strategies of both the American and Jig.
7 The 7th paragraph could use a transition, though, to indicate that the symbolism Jig established in the story represents what it is that she has waited a long time for--stability, family, nurturing love.
8 The equations in the symbolism could be done more smoothly than with an It and --and children, and the last quotation just hangs at the enc of the paragraph, but the parallel between the two where statements to show the symbols is an effective use of sentence structure.
9 This writer smoothly avoids the in-class debate over what "the other side" means in this paragraph in order to focus on her thesis. Most readers agree that the conflict between the two characters doesn’t end in the train station. Most students see and appreciate the connection between the last sentence and the title of the essay, as well as the implied connections between the opening paragraph and this ending. A Note on Quotations: Many students consider that this essay quotes too much, probably because there are so many tiny quotations. So this essay causes students to confront the questions: * How much quotation is enough? * Which phrases or sentences from the story must be quoted, given the focus and the topic? * How can quoting be done smoothly and without relying on novice formulas
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