The short story “A Day’s Wait” by the American writer Ernest Hemmingway was a revelation for me. While reading the story, I felt a few déjà vu moments. The interactions with the father and his son are interesting.
The reader could note how the writer handles it with minimalistic dialogue. Since, their conversations are stiff and staccato responses. Yet, this very aspect of the dialogue makes them into a sharp mirror of reality to it.
The actual medical diagnosis is just hinted upon. The revealing of it as a suppositional ailment provides for the inside info for the readers. I loved the way Hemmingway steered the plot of the story.
Not for Weak of Heart Empathiser
The entire plot which hinges on splatter of moments with father, son, doctor, and son’s friends. The matter-of-fact handling of them seem to indicate that much of our illness of family member is handled so.
There was something that stood out for me. The doctor not giving clear diagnosis which the father could not comprehend. Or the fear of the enormousness of the ailment which the patient does not hear at all.
The keeping of real challenge of the sickness was the worldview of brushing crisis under the carpet attitude. The non-disclosure of the extent of the ailment’s effect and further adding fuel to the possible avalanching speed of health decline.
Should the Patient Know or Not?
The question here are we protecting the child from the reality or is the author set on reflecting the very choices of real-life occurrence. The sequence of interaction between the father and the son showcases their queasy relationship.
In many ways, the author showed how we replace other element to be blindsided to reality. The more Indian version of it would be the especially the mother would be by the side of the child if the sickness doesn’t seem to subside.
Here was a father and the mother is not in sight, the son seeks to left alone. The kind of independence that the child seeks when unaware of his ailment is surely brave. Because ailment is a discomfort that seeks to get better and when it doesn’t then, there is disarray.
To top it by disregarding the facts so that the son could process and take steps to not flair up the ailment becomes a character by itself in the plot. The interesting reason that we could garner from the plot is safeguarding his son meant he shouldn’t know.
The fact that the father felt I couldn’t decipher what that ailment from the a few statements from the doctor. Then, why should he explain to his son about something that he cannot wrap his mind around it – this is his motivation to not disclose it to his son.
Relationship Between Characters
The relationship of the Father-Son, Doctor-Patient, Patient-His Friends, absence of the mother in the story seems to be marked by total lack of human sentiments. The fact that the sentimentality of affections is quietly missing from the plot.
The hunt in the cold weather leaves the reader almost stuck in some comic relief from the intensity of problem of the son’s ailment. The dog falling and killing two birds while missing few. The sense of being happy that there are games closer to his residence.
These events add to the detachment towards the daily lifestyle and clearly speaks for emotions are lacklustre in their way of living. The discomfort in seeing his son suffering creates the father to feel uncomfortable in his presence.
The son seems to be more supersensitive to this fact and suggests that he may leave if it bothers him. The way the scene plays and the dialogue a staccato note by itself makes the story poignant.
The other factor would be the doctor his diagnosis based on the symptoms does not provide a layman whose son is suffering to really know how much of it a scary fact. This is almost the same the world over doctors.
Doctor and the Patient Family
The doctor understands the criticalness of the ailment and warns him of the increasing temperature as an indicator for taking care a little serious. The interesting is that the patient does not have the intel of his situation.
The patient is indulged by his father while he makes all the wrong choices. The isolation and overthinking of his possible condition speak for the kind of desperation the son is feeling for any information about his ailment.
These are no different from the real-life situation where the parents try to protect the child from the reality by saying it is an insignificant ailment, a good rest would solve the issue for the son, and blind siding his fear which goes on an overdrive.
While all that the son wants to know is how worse is the ailment, so that he could make a choice of understanding and coming to terms with it. Here the interesting thing is that the father and the son are unable to come to terms with.
The son shows better balance than the father who is trying to escape from it by not acknowledging the seriousness of the ailment. The doctor who looks at the situation pragmatically hints of two possibilities of return to healthy state or impending end of the patient.
Patient and His Friends
Like much of us the son keeps away from all stating his ailment is infectious. The friends are kept at bay and are not allowed into his room. The father forces himself in and has a conversation which does not pan out.
This story is more about the way people interact to being sick and especially if it is an ailment that has little clinical trials. Since only male characters are represented the angle of view is too much emotional information to process.
Like a typical male response is to recede from human contact to process the information. The father goes for a hunt, the son isolates himself. But both were trying to process the ailment in their own style.
In Conclusion
I found this short story more exploratory of the author’s personal struggle of losing his son to Influenza. This was a father’s way of remembering and coping with a passing of his child.
There is no over the top emotional scenes or sentimentality involved. The close to real-life coping mechanism that are employed by the world is shown with light brush stroke of a seeming life story. Yet the ending is left out since killing the child even in a story was not possibility for the author.
Itinerant Storyteller 