In the section of "Hills Like White Elephants" we read, there are three characters: "The American and the girl with him" and "a woman." They have no names, and the narration is very distant from them, really only relating their dialogue and basic actions.
After we did the exercise, we partnered up and read each other's writing. It was very interesting to read someone else's re-interpretation, because of course everyone writes very differently. The exercise was a lot of fun, and definitely encouraged me to try playing around with different POV's when I write!
I chose to re-tell the scene from the POV of the girl. We were only given about five minutes to complete the exercise, so of course it's very rough, but I was actually kind of pleased with my final product, so I thought (with a few little touches here and there to fix some syntax) I'd go ahead and post it.
Just for reference, here is the original Hemingway we were given to work with, from his short story "Hills Like White Elephants":
The American and the girl with him sat at a table in the shade, outside the building. It was very hot and the express from Barcelona would come in forty minutes. It stopped at this junction for two minutes and went to Madrid.
‘What should we drink?’ the girl asked. She had taken off her hat and put it on the table.
‘It’s pretty hot,’ the man said.
‘Let’s drink beer.’
‘Dos cervezas,’ the man said into the curtain.
‘Big ones?’ a woman asked from the doorway.
‘Yes. Two big ones.’
The woman brought two glasses of beer and two felt pads. She put the felt pads and the beer
glass on the table and looked at the man and the girl. The girl was looking off at the line of hills.
They were white in the sun and the country was brown and dry.
And here is my re-interpretation from the POV of the girl:
Thankful for the shade, the girl slowly removed her hat, patting down stay wisps of hair. She set the hat down delicately, slowly. She wanted to sink down into one of the chairs, but the American was watching her. Better not to show how wilted she felt in the oppressive Spanish heat.
Swallowing, the girl trilled, "What should we drink?" Something to take her mind off the heat for a few minutes. The train was still forty minutes out. Her anxiety to sit was growing, but the man was still standing, so she remained stationary, drooping, hand languid on the back of the chair.
"It's pretty hot," he observed. The girl tried not to let a flash of worry pass over her face--was her make-up running? was she sweating? or had it been simply a candid observation?
"Let's drink beer," she suggested, and was rewarded with a satisfied nod from the man as he finally pulled out a chair and sat down. The girl sunk into her chair, suppressing a sigh of relief.
"Dos cervezas," the man said into the curtain.
"Big ones?" the woman asked. The man's attention momentarily diverted, the girl slipped out her pocket mirror to check her face. She quickly ran her hands over her cheeks, where the blush had smudged slightly from the wind and heat, before returning the mirror to her small handbag just as the man turned back to face her.
The drinks were brought in a moment. The girl stared enviously at the cool sides of the glass bottles, glistening with crystal sweat in the heat. She would have rather had water.
