Reason #1: The other day, as I sat listening to other people's comments in my Native American Literature class, I realized something about English majors themselves that bugs me like nothing else: they LOVE to hear themselves talk. They sit there bloviating for minutes on end about a simple question that probably only required a one sentence answer. In order to speak for as long as possible, they say the same thing over and over again just in different ways. Someone in class will start to speak and and then come up with a list of adjectives that are all synonymous just so they can hear themselves talk for two more minutes. For example, (a poor one but you'll get the gist of what I mean): "This quote from the book shows that these people were sad and unhappy and gloomy and sorrowful and dejected and depressed and miserable and disconsolate..." I could go on forever.
Reason #2: I think we sometimes dig too deep into books in English classes. It always happens at some point during the semester where I lay down a book after a deep class discussion and think, Did the author really want to comment on the status of women in 19th century society? Did she really write this big elaborate romance novel just to provide a social commentary? With certain books I can understand why we need to read between the lines a little bit to understand what the author is getting at, but other books I just want to walk up to a teacher and ask, "Has it ever occurred to you that the author was just trying to tell a simple story?"
Did I completely miss the mark or do these things bug anybody else?
