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A Day's Wait
Source: Discovering Fiction Book2
A brief Analysis
The fateful misunderstanding
Obviously there is an invisible wall between father and his son. They talk about two different things, the father about the disease and the son about his death but they do not know that they misunderstand each other.
This fateful misunderstanding appears in different scenes where the father and son talk about "it", meaning two different things. One example is when the father asks his son why he does not go to sleep.
"You don´t have to stay in here with me, Papa, if it bothers you." The son is talking about his death but does not mention his fear. He must be shocked when the father answers "It doesn't bother me".
Because the father does not know of the fear of his son there is no reason for him to explain that he won´t die. Instead he goes out to hunt. The boy must think that his father does not even care that he will die, but prefers going out to hunt.
This fateful misunderstanding happens another time, again Hemingway uses the word "it" to describe two different things.
Father: "It´s nothing to worry about." He means the fever. "Just take it easy."
Since the son always thinks of death he assumes his father tells him to take dying easy so he answers: "I am taking it easy".
The hunting scene
In the story "A Day´s Wait" there is a story in a story. In this part of the story the father goes out to hunt for a while while his son is in bed thinking about death. In the passage there is a description of nature which is covered with a "glassy surface": you can see it, but you cannot touch it. This is the same as in the story, the father sees that his son feels bad, but he does not know why. In the hunting scene the circle of life appears. The quails are shot by the father as long as he is able to catch them. They have to die, but some are able to escape. Between the father and nature there is an invisible wall (glassy surface) and between the father and his son there is an invisible wall, too.
The point of view
One interesting point in the story "A Day´s Wait" is the point of view which is very limited. Hemingway use the first-person narrator in this story because this way the father cannot read the boy´s mind and the reader is forced to see everything through the father´s eyes.
The theme
At the end of the story when the boy knows that he will not die he becomes his old self again: he starts to complain about little things that are of no importance just like before he thought he would die. This shows how death lets things appear in a different way, everything that seemed to be important before is not important anymore.
Looking at Hemingway´s biography we can find parallels between the story "A Day´s Wait" and the author´s real life. When Hemingway took part in Word War I he was wounded twice. When he was in hospital he heard the doctor talk about his health and since he did not know any better he thought he would have to die. His own fear, the behavior and the feelings in this situation Hemingway expresses through the character of the son. The boy only knows that you will die with a fever of 44 degrees but does not know that he lives in a country with different thermometers.
This also is the theme of the story: the innocence of a child. The boy would never talk about his feelings and fear, probably because he does not want other people to worry about him. He might not want to hurt them.
The question arises why the boy does not want to sleep. The father does not worry about it, because he knows there is nothing to worry about, but the son maybe does not want to miss how it feels to die since he really believes he has to die. He does not know if it hurts and since death means endless sleeping he might be afraid that he will never wake up again.
I personally like the story because it shows how a bad or difficult situation can chance to influence a person´s life. It becomes clear that especially children need the help of adults to understand what death and illness means. We learn that we have to help children to grow up and that we have to help them to understand the world around them, because as we can see in this story without the help they worry too much about things that they do not have to worry about.
source:gs.cidsnet.de/englisch-online/Leistungskurs2/hemingway2.htm
He came into the room to shut the windows while we were still in bed and I
saw he looked ill. He was shivering, his face was white, and he walked
slowly as though it ached to move.
'What's the matter, Schatz?'
'I've got a headache.'
'You better go back to bed.'
'No, I'm all right.'
'You go to bed. I'll see you when I'm dressed.'
But when I came downstairs he was dressed, sitting by the fire, looking a
very sick and miserable boy of nine years. When I put my hand on his
forehead I knew he had a fever.
'You go up to bed,' I said, 'you're sick.'
'I'm all right,' he said.
When the doctor came he took the boy's temperature.
'What is it?' I asked him.
'One hundred and two.'
Downstairs, the doctor left three different medicines in different colored
capsules with instructions for giving them. One was to bring down the fever,
another a purgative, the third to overcome an acid condition. The germs of
influenza can only exist in an acid condition, he explained. He seemed to
know all about influenza and said there was nothing to worry about if the
fever did not go above one hundred and four degrees. This was a light
epidemic of flu and there was no danger if you avoided pneumonia.
Back in the room I wrote the boy's temperature down and made a note of
the time to give the various capsules.
'Do you want me to read to you?'
'All right. If you want to,' said the boy. His face was very white and there
were dark areas under his eyes. He lay still in bed and seemed very
detached from what was going on.
I read aloud from Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates; but I could see he was not
following what I was reading.
'How do you feel, Schatz?' I asked him.
'Just the same, so far,' he said.
I sat at the foot of the bed and read to myself while I waited for it to be time
to give another capsule. It would have been natural for him to go to sleep,
but when I looked up he was looking at the foot of the bed, looking very
strangely.
'Why don't you try to go to sleep? I'll wake you up for the medicine.'
'I'd rather stay awake.'
After a while he said to me, 'You don't have to stay here with me, Papa, if it
bothers you.'
'It doesn't bother me.'
'No, I mean you don't have to stay if it's going to bother you.'
I thought perhaps he was a little light-headed and after giving him the
prescribed capsule at eleven o'clock I went out for a while.
It was a bright, cold day, the ground covered with a sleet that had frozen so
that it seemed as if all the bare trees, the bushes, the cut brush and all the
grass and the bare ground had been varnished with ice. I took the young
Irish setter for a little walk up the road and along a frozen creek, but it was
difficult to stand or walk on the glassy surface and the red dog slipped and
slithered and fell twice, hard, once dropping my gun and having it slide over
the ice.
We flushed a covey of quail under a high clay bank with overhanging brush
and killed two as they went out of sight over the top of the bank. Some of
the covey 55 lit the trees, but most of them scattered into brush piles and it was
necessary to jump on the ice-coated mounds of brush several times before
they would flush. Coming out while you were poised unsteadily on the icy,
springy brush they made difficult shooting and killed two, missed five, and
started back pleased to have found a covey close to the house and happy
there were so many left to find on another day.
At the house they said the boy had refused to let anyone come into the
room.
'You can't come in,' he said. 'You mustn't get what I have.'
I went up to him and found him in exactly the position I had left him, white65
faced, but with the tops of his cheeks flushed by the fever, staring still, as
he had stared, at the foot of the bed.
I took his temperature.
'What is it?'
'Something like a hundred,' I said. It was one hundred and two and four
tenth.
'It was a hundred and two,' he said.
'Who said so?'
'The doctor.'
'Your temperature is all right,' I said. It's nothing to worry about.'
'I don't worry,' he said, 'but I can't keep from thinking.'
'Don't think,' I said. 'Just take it easy.'
'I'm taking it easy,' he said and looked straight ahead. He was evidently
holding tight onto himself about something.
'Take this with water.'
'Do you think it will do any good?'
'Of course it will.'
I sat down and opened the Pirate book and commenced to read, but I could
see he was not following, so I stopped.
'About what time do you think I'm going to die?' he asked.
'What?'
'About how long will it be before I die?'
'You aren't going to die. What's the matter with you?'
Oh, yes, I am. I heard him say a hundred and two.'
'People don't die with a fever of one hundred and two. That's a silly way to
talk.'
'I know they do. At school in France the boys told me you can't live with
forty-four degrees. I've got a hundred and two.'
He had been waiting to die all day, ever since nine o'clock in the morning.
'You poor Schatz,' I said. 'Poor old Schatz. It's like miles and kilometers.
You aren't going to die. That's a different thermometer. On that
thermometer thirty-seven is normal. On this kind it's ninety-eight.'
'Are you sure?'
'Absolutely,' I said. 'It's like miles and kilometers. You know, like how many
kilometers we make when we do seventy in the car?'
'Oh,' he said.
But his gaze at the foot of his bed relaxed slowly. The hold over himself
relaxed too, finally, and the next day it was very slack and he cried very
easily at little things that were of no importance.
Source: Discovering Fiction Book2
A brief Analysis
The fateful misunderstanding
Obviously there is an invisible wall between father and his son. They talk about two different things, the father about the disease and the son about his death but they do not know that they misunderstand each other.
This fateful misunderstanding appears in different scenes where the father and son talk about "it", meaning two different things. One example is when the father asks his son why he does not go to sleep. "You don´t have to stay in here with me, Papa, if it bothers you." The son is talking about his death but does not mention his fear. He must be shocked when the father answers "It doesn't bother me".
Because the father does not know of the fear of his son there is no reason for him to explain that he won´t die. Instead he goes out to hunt. The boy must think that his father does not even care that he will die, but prefers going out to hunt.
This fateful misunderstanding happens another time, again Hemingway uses the word "it" to describe two different things.
Father: "It´s nothing to worry about." He means the fever. "Just take it easy."
Since the son always thinks of death he assumes his father tells him to take dying easy so he answers: "I am taking it easy".
The hunting scene
In the story "A Day´s Wait" there is a story in a story. In this part of the story the father goes out to hunt for a while while his son is in bed thinking about death. In the passage there is a description of nature which is covered with a "glassy surface": you can see it, but you cannot touch it. This is the same as in the story, the father sees that his son feels bad, but he does not know why. In the hunting scene the circle of life appears. The quails are shot by the father as long as he is able to catch them. They have to die, but some are able to escape. Between the father and nature there is an invisible wall (glassy surface) and between the father and his son there is an invisible wall, too.
The point of view
One interesting point in the story "A Day´s Wait" is the point of view which is very limited. Hemingway use the first-person narrator in this story because this way the father cannot read the boy´s mind and the reader is forced to see everything through the father´s eyes.
The theme
At the end of the story when the boy knows that he will not die he becomes his old self again: he starts to complain about little things that are of no importance just like before he thought he would die. This shows how death lets things appear in a different way, everything that seemed to be important before is not important anymore.
Looking at Hemingway´s biography we can find parallels between the story "A Day´s Wait" and the author´s real life. When Hemingway took part in Word War I he was wounded twice. When he was in hospital he heard the doctor talk about his health and since he did not know any better he thought he would have to die. His own fear, the behavior and the feelings in this situation Hemingway expresses through the character of the son. The boy only knows that you will die with a fever of 44 degrees but does not know that he lives in a country with different thermometers.
This also is the theme of the story: the innocence of a child. The boy would never talk about his feelings and fear, probably because he does not want other people to worry about him. He might not want to hurt them.
The question arises why the boy does not want to sleep. The father does not worry about it, because he knows there is nothing to worry about, but the son maybe does not want to miss how it feels to die since he really believes he has to die. He does not know if it hurts and since death means endless sleeping he might be afraid that he will never wake up again.
I personally like the story because it shows how a bad or difficult situation can chance to influence a person´s life. It becomes clear that especially children need the help of adults to understand what death and illness means. We learn that we have to help children to grow up and that we have to help them to understand the world around them, because as we can see in this story without the help they worry too much about things that they do not have to worry about.
source:gs.cidsnet.de/englisch-online/Leistungskurs2/hemingway2.htm