Red Sky in the Morning

Everyone has stories that they could tell in their lives, ranging from the boring schedule we completed at work or school to the exciting adventure we went on during vacation. It doesn’t take much to tell the story to someone else but to truly relate to an audience all the events and timings of a story are beyond words and it is this point that Patricia Hampl is getting at in Red Sky in the Morning. The woman who gets on the bus and sits next to the author tells her “Oh, I could tell you stories.” This statement is the authors point. The woman could easily tell the author stories and facts about her relationship with her husband but to tell the story in a way that it matches the original happening is impossible. Often when someone tries to tell the story of a humorous situation to someone who missed a party or event it can be seen how difficult it is get the message across as best as possible. For those that witnessed the event the happening would have been hilarious because of the events that lead up to the climax and the environment in which they were. When you try to explain what was so funny to someone who wasn’t there all the minuscule details that were so essential to the overall situation they can’t be described specifically enough to expose an outsider to the humor of the missed incident. As Patricia Hampl later realizes in the story that this is what the woman meant when said “Oh, I could tell you stories.” Patricia Hampl sees this phrase as meaning “It betrays not loneliness for someone who will listen but hopelessness about language itself and a sad recognition of its limitations.” The woman did not believe what she could be communicated in a way she saw would be acceptable with. The story the woman wants to tell would be more of a memoir focusing on a specific time and event and trying to describe it in its entirety to get the listener to feel what she felt when she personally experienced it. A memoir focuses on using the first person but unlike an autobiography which looks at an individual’s whole life a memoir can have a much more focused and specific time period. Even with such literature genres it is still past the extent of any language to fully bring someone into a past event and have them recognize it as it happened through literature.