Behind "The Tub"
Chrissi Walker
7/18/2010
Story/Poem Paper
Behind “The Tub”
Amy Hempel, is an incredible writer. She writes with a certain poetry feel behind every word, every line and every page. She’s an author that makes you fall in love, which is why I chose one of her stories from her book The Collected Stories that’s called “The Tub”. The story leaves you a bit confused when you read it for the first time. I reacted differently to it the third time around then I did the first time. The first time I read it, the thought that ran through my head was; “what does this all have to do with a tub?”. The second time around, I read it with a little more sense of what it was and then the third time around it clicked. I have a strange reaction because it made me want to experience what the woman was experiencing. It gave me a sense of calmness, the three situations she described was a sense of being able to be calm and relaxed.
The first paragraph was a description about a church, and going in to the emptiest one so she could have silence and so she could hear her heart beat while she prayed, or that’s how it came off to me. It reminded me of the times where I sit in my room staring at a picture of my dead cat, it may sound incredibly strange but when I stare at my photo of Zeus, I am more relaxed just sitting there in silence. I like the feeling of being calm and relaxed, and the first paragraph kind of showed the beginning of the journey for her. I don’t go to church so the church description gives me no reaction but at the same time I can feel the comfort she got in being there, alone. Being alone is not always a bad thing; it can be really relieving in a lot of ways.
The second paragraph didn’t give me a huge sense of calm, but more of like a home feeling. She describes the feeling of being at home and knowing her cat so well, knowing the tapping noise isn’t going to wake the cat, and implying that the cat knows the sounds she makes, and to decipher which is important
7/18/2010
Story/Poem Paper
Behind “The Tub”
Amy Hempel, is an incredible writer. She writes with a certain poetry feel behind every word, every line and every page. She’s an author that makes you fall in love, which is why I chose one of her stories from her book The Collected Stories that’s called “The Tub”. The story leaves you a bit confused when you read it for the first time. I reacted differently to it the third time around then I did the first time. The first time I read it, the thought that ran through my head was; “what does this all have to do with a tub?”. The second time around, I read it with a little more sense of what it was and then the third time around it clicked. I have a strange reaction because it made me want to experience what the woman was experiencing. It gave me a sense of calmness, the three situations she described was a sense of being able to be calm and relaxed.
The first paragraph was a description about a church, and going in to the emptiest one so she could have silence and so she could hear her heart beat while she prayed, or that’s how it came off to me. It reminded me of the times where I sit in my room staring at a picture of my dead cat, it may sound incredibly strange but when I stare at my photo of Zeus, I am more relaxed just sitting there in silence. I like the feeling of being calm and relaxed, and the first paragraph kind of showed the beginning of the journey for her. I don’t go to church so the church description gives me no reaction but at the same time I can feel the comfort she got in being there, alone. Being alone is not always a bad thing; it can be really relieving in a lot of ways.
The second paragraph didn’t give me a huge sense of calm, but more of like a home feeling. She describes the feeling of being at home and knowing her cat so well, knowing the tapping noise isn’t going to wake the cat, and implying that the cat knows the sounds she makes, and to decipher which is important
Cited: Hempel, Amy. The Collected Stories. New York, 2007. Print.