Question 5. Fossil Hunting

[Ashley]

DISCUSS THE METAPHORICAL NATURE OF FOSSILS AND FOSSIL HUNTING.

[Carol]

If we take the language to mean "Figure of Speech" and symbolism, and not "necessarily real things"
where does that take us. We know that fossils are real and fossil hunting is a genuine activity, so my interpretation of what you are asking is perhaps symbolism? Fossils are forms of life that once were, and now aren't. With that in mind, fossil hunting could be interpreted as we are all looking for something in our life/world that has passed us up and we are trying to reconcile or find justification for those things that we didn't complete. I have things I haven't reconciled or completed in my life.

Cheryl, am I all wet? I'm not absolutely sure I'm on the right path here!?!?!?!?!?

[Julie]

Carol- I think you are on the right path! I agree that it parallels the searches many of us have in other aspects of our lives. Maybe it is an unanswered question about the distant past (like who were our ancestors?) or something that is within our own past that still needs to be resolved. Or, it could be curiosity about the world, which I know is one of the reasons I love to read so much. Sometimes I discover something amazing about the world or even my own self. I can point to a few very specific books that have changed my life in significant ways by showing me something I had never before considered.

[Ashley]

I'm gonna go out on a limb here and suggest that Miss Philpot herself--as in her Self with a capital S--is a fossil. Metaphorically. Through fossil hunting, she's trying to capture that aspect of herself--identity, self-knowledge, intelligence, perhaps even youth--that her circumstances have made temporarily extinct.

[Lauren]

But aren't we all future fossils? Wasn't that part of Mary Anning's emotional state after finding Lady Jackson washed up on the shore?

[Julie]

Lauren--- interesting point!