Overheard Conversation #18

Location: an office
Characters: Tutor, a Young Scholar

YS: That essay I've got to hand in tomorrow?
Tutor (WARILY): Yes...?
YS: I thought I'd look at Animal Farm.
Tutor: Why?
YS: I like pigs.
Tutor: The assignment asks you to look at a short story.
YS: Animal Farm's not very long.
Tutor: It's a novel.
YS: Yes, it is very original.
Tutor: It's not a story.
YS: It's a very good story!
Tutor: You can't do Animal Farm.
YS: Oh. (BEAT.) Okay, I'll look at the religious symbolism in James Joyce's Eveline.
Tutor: The assignment brief asks you to look at a story in the context of your own writing.
YS: I know that.
Tutor: Is there much religious symbolism in your own story?
YS: My story hasn't got any religious symbolism.
Tutor: Hmmm...
YS: Although it could be converted into a story from the Bible.
Tutor (SHUFFLING THROUGH SOME PAPERS): It's about a boy setting fire to a dustbin.
YS: Yes, but the character does a bad thing and the person he hurts forgives him and saves him from punishment for his sins.
Tutor: You really shouldn't force a fit ...
YS: If I make the binman Spanish?
Tutor: Spanish?
YS: Give him a beard and sandals?
Tutor: Why?
YS: Because then my story would be full of religious symbolism.
Tutor: Does Eveline have a beard and wear sandals?
YS: I think the beard is implied rather than realised.
Tutor: You haven't read it, have you?
YS: Not exactly, but the notes on Wikipedia are very good.

Roll credits as tutor curls up in the foetal position under her desk