Ong's Reading

The main argument that Mr. Ongs was trying to make, was that literacy is sort of a privilege that some people have and some people dont. However, it is not always that person's fault that they do not know how to read. Ong also mentions how literature is not a necessity that we need. Ong states that a lot of languages are spoken, however out of all of them, very few are ever recorded/written/read. Ong is basically trying to say that literature is not necessary and hasnt been necessary for a long time. Ongs perspective is that we have been around for 30,000 years and the oldest written manuscript is only 6,000 years. This demonstrates how writing has long been too praised as opposed to just accepting and enjoying the languages that we have, and the ones that are quickly disappearing.

In Hills Like White Elephants, i had several favorite lines:

"Oh,yes. But i don't care about me. And ill do it and then everything will be fine."
"And if I do it then you'll be happy and things will be like they were and you'll love me?"

This reading was very hard to wrap my head around and it is difficult to understand without a kind of background. The way that Hemingway wrote this story seems like he didn't really want to tell the whole story and keep his audience guessing what is going on. Hemingway gives us a lot but at the same time he gives us a little. It is sort of like starting to watch a CSI episode in the middle of the episode.