Analysis of 'A Day's Wait'

A misunderstanding can affect people a lot. Depending on which kind of misunderstand it is, it can have significant importance for how we understand situations. Sometimes, it gives two different perspectives on a situation. In the story “A day’s wait”, we can tell how much it affects the boy in the story.

The story “A day’s wait” takes place in America. There are two environments in the story, the inside and the outside. Inside it is warm, safe and pleasant. Outside it is cold, harsh and rough.

The story is told by a first-person narrator. It is told by the father, but it does not seem like it is him telling the story, because it is a very objective narrator. This is very a classic Hemmingway style, typically he is showing more than he is telling. To understand his stories, you have to read between the lines. He uses “the iceberg technique” where he is showing just a little bit – like the top of the iceberg – and then you have to figure out the rest yourself, like the big part of the iceberg that is underwater.

There are two characters in this story. There are the father and his son. The father calls his son “Schatz” and therefore we can assume, that they have lived in a country where they speak German, because Schatz means darling in German. “At school in France the boys told me you can't live with forty-four degrees” (page 3, line 19). The boy talks about a school in France, implying that they lived in at least 2 other places. Even though they moved around, they seem to have a good relationship. The father is caring, loving and worried about his son. ”Back in the room I wrote the boy's temperature down and made a note of the time to give the various capsules.” (page 1, line 22-23). This suggests that the father is very attentive about taking care of his son. His son, Schatz, is sick. He most likely has influenza. Nevertheless, he is so sick, that it is necessary to call the doctor. “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."” (page 2, line 24-25) This indicates, that the boy also cares about his father, and he is worried that his father is going to get the disease he got, and that he is going to die. “He lay still in the bed and seemed very detached from what was going on” (page 1, line 26). By this we can tell, that the boy is not listening when his father is reading out loud to him, and he is probably thinking about his last time on earth, which shows us that he is very worried and meditative about it.