Interpreting the Image

The professor smiled expectantly as students stared at the image.

"So?", he said. "What is your interpretation?"

After several minutes of silence and glances at each other, one boy responded:

"I see Mary Wollstonecraft", he said.

"Excellent!" cried the professor, smiling even more broadly, excitedly, with the air of one who had set off a series of chain reaction.

"It looks like George Eliot's fed up with her pseudonym!"

Several boys sniggered.

"Maybe Judith Shakespeare?" said one other, a bit hesitatingly.

There were silent murmurs of appreciation.

"Bertha demanding answers, I guess", responded one, carelessly tossing aside the text of Jane Eyre.

"Wonderful!" the professor beamed.

"And what about you?" quipped the professor to the only girl in the class.

She smiled and said:

"Echoes of silence and sadness..."