Utopia

A DAY'S WAIT

 ERNEST HEMING WAY

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 back 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 coloured 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 the 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 in 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 I 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 I killed two as they went out of sight over the top of the bank. Some of the covey lit in 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 I killed two, missed five, and started back pleased to have found a covey so 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 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, white-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 tenths.

"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 afever 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. "

Absolutely," I said. "It’s like miles and kilometres we make when we do seventy in the car?"

"Are you sure?"

"Oh," he said.

But his gate at the foot of the 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.

Summary

A little boy has a temperature one morning. The doctor comes, takes the boy's temperature, which is 102 degrees, and diagnoses a harmless flu. The boy's father reads something to him but, since the boy is not really listening and seems a little confused, the father leaves him alone and goes out hunting. The whole day long the little boy keeps a stoical, brave grip on himself. Having been at school in France he thinks that he is going to die because he does not know the difference between Fahrenheit and Centigrade. Only in the evening does the father realize the misunderstanding and tells his son that he is not going to die but is only suffering from a harmless cold. 

Perspective/Point of View

The story "A Day's Wait" is also a first person narrative. This becomes obvious in the very first sentence: "He came into the room to shut the windows while we were still in bed and I saw he looked ill." At first, the reader does not know who "he" and "I" are. The "he" is only addressed as "Schatz" and not called by his real name. The reader finds out that he is a nine-year-old boy and later that the narrator is his father (the boy calls him "Papa"). The names "Schatz" and "Papa" in an English text sound a little strange, but they already indicate that the family must have lived in Europe for a time. The importance of this becomes obvious later in the story. 

"Why do you think Hemingway has chosen this perspective/point of view?" 

Hemingway and Poe had similar reasons for choosing a first-person narrator but although both stories are told in the first person, the point of view from which they are told is not quite the same. In Poe's story the protagonist, namely the murderer, tells his own story, thus giving the reader direct access to his state of mind. In Hemingway's story, however, it is not the "hero" who tells the story, but the hero's father. This means that the narrator participates in the action not as a protagonist, but as a secondary character. Told from a different perspective the whole story would not be as effective. The story is based on a misunderstanding between father and son. The suspense in this story arises from this misunderstanding, which is not cleared up until the end. The misunderstanding can only last as long as it does because the story is told from the point of view of the father. As an observer, he has no more access to the boy's mind and thoughts than the reader. 

"What is the reason for the misunderstanding?" 

When the doctor has examined the boy, the boy's father enquires about his temperature. The doctor answers, "One hundred and two", without adding any unit of measurement. The communication between father and doctor works because they are both adults and know that the doctor means Fahrenheit. Doctor and father know that the boy has flu and that he will recover soon. The boy on the other hand, who has gone to school in France, assumes that they are talking about degrees centigrade and at school he was told that people died if their temperature rose to 44 degrees. "At school in France the boys told me that you can't live with forty-four degrees. I've got a hundred and two." The reason for the misunderstanding is therefore the different level of knowledge: the boy does not know that temperature is measured on different scales. 

"Why does the conversation between fater and son not reveal the misunderstanding for such a long time?" 

A further misunderstanding lies in the ambiguous use of the word "it". The boy says to his father, "You don't have to stay in here with me. Papa, if it bothers you." With the pronoun "it" the boy means his dying. When his father answers, "It doesn't bother me.", the same word "it" has a completely different meaning, i.e. his having to stay in the room and read to his son. This ambiguity is also found later when the father tells his son "Just take it easy", by which he means "Don't worry - keep calm." The son answers, "I'm taking it easy", but in this case he is talking about his death. 

"How can one characterize the father-son relationship?" 

It is striking that the father only speaks of his son as "the boy" and does not call him by his first name, or at least say "my son". On the other hand he uses the affectionate term "Schatz" when he addresses his son personally. The impersonal "the boy" and the pet name "Schatz" form a contrast. This contrast reflects the ambiguity of the relationship as a result of the misunderstanding. Obviously, the father loves his son; he calls him "Schatz" and looks after him when he does not feel well, e.g. he reads a book to him and sees to it that he takes his medicine. From the boy's perspective however, the father's behaviour and his going out hunting must create the impression that his father does not love him and is not upset by the fact that he is going to die. When the misunderstanding is cleared up, the father calls his son "poor Schatz" twice and really feels sorry for him because he can understand what the boy must have gone through and in what isolation he must have found himself. This, together with the father's final remark that the boy "cried very easily at little things", reveals his affection for his son. The boy loves his father, too, even though he perhaps regards him as hard-hearted and cruel when he leaves him alone in the hour of his death. He does not want to force him to stay with him during his last minutes of life. He says to him, "You don't have to stay in here with me. Papa, if it bothers you". Secondly, he doesn't want his father or any other person to be infected by his disease: "You mustn't get what I have". So father and son have a close relationship. Yet, through a misunderstanding they are separated; their relationship is disturbed. But the reason for the misunderstanding does not lie in the two persons and their relationship to each other, but in the circumstances. 

"What happens in the story within the story?" 

The father takes the dog and goes hunting. He flushes a covey of quail and kills some of them. 
 
"What is the connection between the hunting episode and the story of the boy's flu?" 

The father goes quail hunting. The father thinks the boy is a little confused and he feels at a loss, so he decides to go out for a while. For the boy this must be a very cruel thing to do because he thinks his father is leaving him to face his death alone. Thus, the boy feels isolated. 
 
 
"What parallels are there between the story and the hunting episode?" 

1. The father is going out to hunt quail, i.e. he is going out to kill. Killing means death and death is also what the boy has got in mind at the same time.
2. The father "flushes" a covey of quail in order to kill them. The same word is used later when the father is back in the boy's room and notices that his cheeks are "flushed".  Here the word means  "reddened" but it is a symptom of the boy's illness which he thinks will also lead to death.
3. The landscape in the hunting scene is described with all the characteristics of a wintry landscape. It is cold but bright (like the relationship between father and son). Everything is ice-covered, i.e. there is a thin layer between the father and nature. Thus, the episode is a kind of mirror for the father-son relationship; they are also separated by a thin layer of misunderstanding.
4. The father is helpless because of the layer of ice. He slips on the glassy surface and falls hard. The same helplessness applies to his relationship to his son.

 
 
 "What is the function of the story within the story?" 

The story within the story has two functions:

1. The hunting episode demonstrates the extent of the misunderstanding because the boy must think the father goes out and enjoys himself while at the same time his son is confronted with death.
2. The story within the story reflects the main theme of the story. The isolation of the boy finds its image in the isolation of the father when he is hunting. His helplessness is revealed again when he is unable to walk on the icy surface. His contact to nature is disturbed by a thin layer of ice in the same way as his relationship to his son is disturbed by the misunderstanding.

 
 
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