1. Text

Hitting the bottle day and night was not the best way for Hemingway to save his marriage.

[He wrote this on the board and said he was going to follow three-part Puritan sermon form, which we covered in January, to explain it. He wrote the three parts on the board--Text, Explication, Application. Two classes earlier, reading "The Snows of Kilimanjaro," we got on the topic of Hemingway's drinking problem. I recorded this lecture on my cell.]

2. Explication

In this sentence, students, "bottle" is an example of metonymy, which is a figure of speech involving association, not comparison as in metaphor. "She's a witch" is a metaphor because it implies through comparison that a given woman resembles physically or morally or both a hag [some students giggled]. But to say to a woman "Pick up your broomstick and fly out of here" is the metonymic way of calling her a witch because we associate broomstick with a witch's means of travel and in fact this metonym was drilled into our heads at a very young age when we first saw The Wizard of Oz or went trick-or-treating for the first time. Have you ever seen a witch without a broomstick? That's a rhetorical question. Of course not.

But of course there's always more: discourse on witches, as we saw with the Puritans, reflecting negative views of domesticity, spinsterhood, vaginal power, and women, independent or ugly women, clever women, women who can read, women on the outskirts (metaphor or metonymy?) of the colony. All kinds of misogynistic attitudes are embedded in "broomstick," which shows how effective metonymy can be. Another example. If I told you in my family my mother wore the pants, you would say, Nicole? "Your mother was in charge, not your dad." Right. [Nicole smiled.] That's what it would mean. Supposedly women, the so-called weaker sex, wear dresses while big powerful daddy wears pants and makes all the big decisions. That's metonymy. Likewise, "hitting the bottle" uses metonymy to say a lot about Hemingway and his four marriages.

[He scrunched up his eyes, breathed deeply for ten seconds or so, then resumed at a slower pace.]

3. Application

Now part three. In my case the bottle--and note that none of this would apply to the Mountain Dew bottle that Shannie brought to class today or the Aquafina bottle that Melanie has on her desk, and that's because metonymy works within a particular context--is almost literally killing me because it refers to the fact that someone I know is addicted to the fluid in a specific material bottle--no, no, correct that, dozens of bottles strewn around the house, under our bed and couch, under the bathroom sink, deep in the closet behind sweaters and quilts, under the driver's seat of her car, in the hope chest, in short wherever I normally don't go, her secret places--addicted to the clear liquid contained not within an actual bottle or flask but sloshing inside a plastic liter container, not glass, not an actual bottle.

Now look at this. If we substitute "o" in bottle with "a"--presto--"battle," a new metaphor [he wrote bottle on the board and went at it with finger and chalk]. She battles the bottle, I battle her, our baby being a major casualty [Melanie, an older student, sighed]. And change the "b" to "r" and you have "rattle," an onomatopoeic metaphor. This battle rattles me, makes me crazy. And change the "a" back to "o" and delete "tle" and what's left is "rot"--from bottle to battle to rattle to rot.

That I tell my friends she hits the bottle nightly obviously means she drinks a lot, she doesn't hit anything any more than Hemingway does in our Text, not literally, certainly not me or the baby, she is quite a gentle soul, hasn't even "hit rock bottom," an assonant metonym, by the way.

But one fateful day she ran out of drink. Hadn't been able to sneak out and buy some. Five hours later, boom, withdrawal. I was there. I will never forget the fit, another loaded word--butwhohasthetime--never forget this: [he lowered his voice and looked toward the ceiling and began talking in trance-like units]

CLACK --

the canister of Pledge she was polishing the bedside table with

launched by the spasm crossing the room airborne

striking the hope chest

which contained a bunch of bridal stuff and billets-doux [I had to look this up, it took me awhile to find how this is spelled because it sounds like billay-do]

yellow-dyed by time

empty bottles too

From the baby's room

I heard it ding the chest

her yelp

dropped the diaper

ran like mad

she was already down

in a realm where fine words do not obtain

arching and flopping on the floor

more fish than female deprived of oxygen

while doing household tasks suddenly faltering on a carpet

blood spraying out black beads

eyes dripping the syrup of sight

foam like melting sponge clinging to clenched lips.

She gasped for a pin-drop of air

spitting, quaking, howling

legs clubbing the floor

hands swiping it for something to hold

a grain of gravel, a speck of dirt

her face swelling hot brown-pink paint

close to bursting and coating the beige walls.

I ran screaming for a phone

found one

looked for nine-one-one

couldn't find the nine

did at last

ran back shouting into it and found her catatonic

kneeled begged

don't die my darling

don't die my darling

scooped her up

heavy like a dying thing

don't die don't die my darling

fearsome eyes distended

beset by invisible ghouls

clawed out amidst guttural curses

flopped back down

blue eyes bigger than

and wider than

and voice like

tropes fail

jerking

gagging

nearly dead

partially alive

fit abating

ambulance

four paramedics had broken in

baby awake

baby in my arms

baby wide-eyed watching mommy

sitting up with help

blinking slurring

men in white preparing to cart her away

where am I who are they my name is my daughter's name is the year is I don't know

blotchy face mustering a little pucker

for a dry kiss of welcome back

having been forsaken by God for three minutes

one day before her thirty-fourth birthday

crucified on the last day

of her thirty-third year

outside the sun glared one hundred

Fourth of July degrees

two-month drought.

[Distant siren, hum of lights, a cell phone in the corridor, voices, bodies shifting in cheap seats, sniffling, and then]

The bottle. A metonym. Let's leave it at that. See you tomorrow. "Quiz?" asked Nicole. No quiz, definitely no quiz on this. [And gathering his things, he said "I'm sorry" as he walked out of the room.]