I have read this short story by Ernest Hemingway
several times in the past, and though I still cannot honestly say whether or
not I like it, I can say that it’s extremely effective. In particular the way
in which the dialogue not only reveals the story, but conveys the building and
often unbearable tension between the two characters. The way in which Hemingway employs social
niceties and politeness as a FOIL to the taboo topic and growing dissent is
especially brilliant. At one point Hemingway writes:
“Yes,” said
the girl. “Everything tastes of licorice. Especially all the things
you’ve
waited so long for, like absinthe.”
“Oh, cut it
out.”
“You
started it,” the girl said. “I was being amused. I was having a fine time.”
“Well,
let’s try and have a fine time.” (662)
That instant is where the tension is first fully introduced,
and reading it you become aware there’s an underlying message being exchanged
between the two characters. Hemingway recreates the feeling of a brewing
argument, of painful undertones, and makes you feel as if you are there
listening to a private exchange you’ve yet to fully understand. He continues
throughout the piece with the characters hedging the topic of abortion with
platitudes, but never outrightly saying what they’re going to do, even to each
other. In this unwillingness to directly confront either the current state of
the female character’s pregnancy, or the difficulty of the abortion, Hemingway
makes the readers aware of the characters’ deep desire to return to their
“before” as well as their awareness of that impossibility. One example of this is when Hemingway writes:
“And you think
then we’ll be alright and be happy.”
“I know we will.
You don’t have to be afraid. I’ve known lots of people that have
done it.”
“So have I,” said
the girl. “And afterward they were all so happy.” (663)
Rather than the dialogue revealing that the couple feels the
same about the events to come, the discord that the events have created between
them becomes more and more apparent as you read, making one feel caught along
with the characters in the story. One also senses the incomprehensible nature
of their decision as Hemingway repeatedly uses the phrase, “it’s perfectly
simple” to illustrate that it is not (663). Regardless of their decision, things have
inevitably changed for the characters and one can feel this as they read
through the dialogue, can feel the characters’ struggles to right something
that cannot be righted, of returning to an intimacy that as the female
character states, “isn’t ours anymore” (664). Throughout this piece you feel
the discomfort and concealed desperation that the characters feel. You
understand the explosiveness of things left unsaid. Hemingway creates a tension,
albeit understated, that cannot be escaped or ignored.
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