Hemingway’s short story speaks leagues simultaneously about the author’s skill in observing irony in real life and colorfully painting it out in fiction, as well as expressing Hemingway’s observations about his fellow Americans.
The deaf American lady’s seemingly absolute belief in the American man’s generalized suitability as a husband very much lies in contrast with her almost callous disregard (un-belief) of her own daughter’s judgment and feelings towards her Swiss sweetheart. Add to the fact that they had stayed and presumably admired and appreciated the culture, people, and society of that foreign country makes her prejudice that striking and out of place. She had overruled her daughter’s wishes and had taken her away from the man she fell in love with, notwithstanding he came from a “good family”.
Hemingway’s playful wit has given us a lady who is “deaf” to what is real to her daughter’s heart/sentiments (10/01/2011), when mothers should be the first to understand their own daughter’s sentiments. (Her) Buying a canary which “sings” well, underscores the mother’s partiality and bias, making her “deaf” to her own motherly duties and feelings towards her daughter, which, the act itself (hearing a canary which sings well when one is deaf) is ironical, in Hemingway’s deconstruction of the American ideal (American superiority complex probably stemming from the victory over Nazi Germany or the Allied triumph in the First World War), which in this story, as an American husband, comes into a stunning and comical close with the American couple with which the deaf lady glorified Americans as good husbands were stated as living their separate ways, although being in an amicable set up.
For me, Hemingway, as if echoing the views of Derrida, was critiquing American attitudes and views here, deconstructing the image of Americans, that, despite becoming a military superpower after WWII, are as fallible and human as the rest of the world, especially that, at the time, America/US was leading the world militarily and aming to spread their brand of capitalism, democracy, and American culture to other countries. It seems that, that it is really ironical that the American husband, who was victorious in wars in Europe and Asia, was not as victorious in his own marriage, although let this by no means be a generalization outside Hemingway’s short story. He could keep military bases around the world, but, he could not keep his own wife, at least that is what the play of irony Hemingway has made in this story (10/01/2011). It is good to note, or it might be notable, that US has the highest rates of divorce in the world. However, we might also take into consideration other factors than men not being able to cement the relationship enough to preclude its dissolution.
His “Hills like White Elephants” also exposes the somewhat apathy of Americans towards their partners’ feelings, although, this is not unique to one state, but all over the world (10/01/2011), again, in the same vent of irony so skillfully written.
Hemingway’s Style of Writing in the Story
As pointed out by my beloved professor of literature in Ateneo before, Hemingway wrote almost always in short sentences, like individual pixels in a picture. Sometimes he has two clauses joined by ‘and’ or ‘or’ but his dialogues are mostly terse and to the point, like exchanges between two very tactfuly and trite people. Maybe that’s what war does to you, you don’t waste too much words. However, when taken as a whole, they show a vivid picture of Hemingway’s observation of ‘American’ behavior. It seems as an expat staying for the most part in Paris, he was acutely sensitive to the behaviors and views of his fellow Americans contrasted with other nationalities.
Like most great authors, he put into play a colorful and well-described scenery against the monotone attitudes of his fellow Americans, though possessing a not-so-ordinary points of view, who seem inflexible and unchanging against the backdrop of variety, to a certain extent.
When Hemingway describes things (“red stone/clay”, “brown uniforms”, etc), he used color, which invites the reader to imagine color when none is stated (“sun on sea”, “grapes”, “negro soldiers”). His details on what goes on in train stations, arrival and departure times, and the description of the French countryside, bespeaks of his being a well-traveled person and his stay in France.
With short sentences, he characterized the protagonists as fallible, weak (the deaf woman afraid of speed in the dark, however later justified in the train wreck), and sometimes deceptive (the man’s ploy to keep his “English character”), but having the strongest wills and prejudices as to appear ludicrous.
His dialogues, concise, like single bullets fired between intervals, hit the mark in his apt use of irony as a method of human behavior criticism, after Voltaire and Cervantes: “…she was madly in love with him….he was going to be an engineer…”, as if to say, the words were used to write the check, equivalent to the Tagalog proverb that goes “nahuhuli ang isda sa kanyang bibig”, “fish are caught with their mouths”. They express fully the nature and way of thinking of the characters without resorting to verbose characterization or physical description.
His details are more or less found or observed in or among the surroundings of his settings, giving his stories a very plausible imaging and scene-setting (the activity in Gare de Lyons). Since he was pointing out real human fallacies and foibles, the scenes of his fiction and the descriptions of the objects and activity, are real too at the time of the writing.
Writer’s note: The connection made between military hegemony and an individual’s behavior in marriage, I admit, is a little far-fetched, but writing in haste for an entrance exam made me stretch my imagination a bit to impress the admissions panel. With that devastating world event looming at the time of the writing or thereabouts, this association is more theoretical than a strict criticism of the text, although I am wont to scrutinize psychological implications and connections within text. I treat texts as commentaries on the behavior and psychological states.
It might be considered an unfair remark to put the burden on men to keep the marriage when women have as much part in its maintenance or dissolution. It is a team effort, really. We do wish that most of marriages would last, for the sake of the children and the companionship that evolved over time. However, this being a digression, statistics has shown us otherwise.
Thus, pardon the literary license I have exercised here.
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Filed under: Behavior, Book Review, Deconstructionist, Essay, Literary Criticism, Psychology, relationships, Social Commentary, thoughts, Writing Tagged: | Ernest Hemingway, Literary Criticism, literary papers, short story
Hemingway’s A Canary for One: A Study in Irony
Hemingway’s short story speaks leagues simultaneously about the author’s skill in observing irony in real life and colorfully painting it out in fiction, as well as expressing Hemingway’s observations about his fellow Americans.
The deaf American lady’s seemingly absolute belief in the American man’s generalized suitability as a husband very much lies in contrast with her almost callous disregard (un-belief) of her own daughter’s judgment and feelings towards her Swiss sweetheart. Add to the fact that they had stayed and presumably admired and appreciated the culture, people, and society of that foreign country makes her prejudice that striking and out of place. She had overruled her daughter’s wishes and had taken her away from the man she fell in love with, notwithstanding he came from a “good family”.
Hemingway’s playful wit has given us a lady who is “deaf” to what is real to her daughter’s heart/sentiments (10/01/2011), when mothers should be the first to understand their own daughter’s sentiments. (Her) Buying a canary which “sings” well, underscores the mother’s partiality and bias, making her “deaf” to her own motherly duties and feelings towards her daughter, which, the act itself (hearing a canary which sings well when one is deaf) is ironical, in Hemingway’s deconstruction of the American ideal (American superiority complex probably stemming from the victory over Nazi Germany or the Allied triumph in the First World War), which in this story, as an American husband, comes into a stunning and comical close with the American couple with which the deaf lady glorified Americans as good husbands were stated as living their separate ways, although being in an amicable set up.
For me, Hemingway, as if echoing the views of Derrida, was critiquing American attitudes and views here, deconstructing the image of Americans, that, despite becoming a military superpower after WWII, are as fallible and human as the rest of the world, especially that, at the time, America/US was leading the world militarily and aming to spread their brand of capitalism, democracy, and American culture to other countries. It seems that, that it is really ironical that the American husband, who was victorious in wars in Europe and Asia, was not as victorious in his own marriage, although let this by no means be a generalization outside Hemingway’s short story. He could keep military bases around the world, but, he could not keep his own wife, at least that is what the play of irony Hemingway has made in this story (10/01/2011). It is good to note, or it might be notable, that US has the highest rates of divorce in the world. However, we might also take into consideration other factors than men not being able to cement the relationship enough to preclude its dissolution.
His “Hills like White Elephants” also exposes the somewhat apathy of Americans towards their partners’ feelings, although, this is not unique to one state, but all over the world (10/01/2011), again, in the same vent of irony so skillfully written.
Hemingway’s Style of Writing in the Story
As pointed out by my beloved professor of literature in Ateneo before, Hemingway wrote almost always in short sentences, like individual pixels in a picture. Sometimes he has two clauses joined by ‘and’ or ‘or’ but his dialogues are mostly terse and to the point, like exchanges between two very tactfuly and trite people. Maybe that’s what war does to you, you don’t waste too much words. However, when taken as a whole, they show a vivid picture of Hemingway’s observation of ‘American’ behavior. It seems as an expat staying for the most part in Paris, he was acutely sensitive to the behaviors and views of his fellow Americans contrasted with other nationalities.
Like most great authors, he put into play a colorful and well-described scenery against the monotone attitudes of his fellow Americans, though possessing a not-so-ordinary points of view, who seem inflexible and unchanging against the backdrop of variety, to a certain extent.
When Hemingway describes things (“red stone/clay”, “brown uniforms”, etc), he used color, which invites the reader to imagine color when none is stated (“sun on sea”, “grapes”, “negro soldiers”). His details on what goes on in train stations, arrival and departure times, and the description of the French countryside, bespeaks of his being a well-traveled person and his stay in France.
With short sentences, he characterized the protagonists as fallible, weak (the deaf woman afraid of speed in the dark, however later justified in the train wreck), and sometimes deceptive (the man’s ploy to keep his “English character”), but having the strongest wills and prejudices as to appear ludicrous.
His dialogues, concise, like single bullets fired between intervals, hit the mark in his apt use of irony as a method of human behavior criticism, after Voltaire and Cervantes: “…she was madly in love with him….he was going to be an engineer…”, as if to say, the words were used to write the check, equivalent to the Tagalog proverb that goes “nahuhuli ang isda sa kanyang bibig”, “fish are caught with their mouths”. They express fully the nature and way of thinking of the characters without resorting to verbose characterization or physical description.
His details are more or less found or observed in or among the surroundings of his settings, giving his stories a very plausible imaging and scene-setting (the activity in Gare de Lyons). Since he was pointing out real human fallacies and foibles, the scenes of his fiction and the descriptions of the objects and activity, are real too at the time of the writing.
Writer’s note: The connection made between military hegemony and an individual’s behavior in marriage, I admit, is a little far-fetched, but writing in haste for an entrance exam made me stretch my imagination a bit to impress the admissions panel. With that devastating world event looming at the time of the writing or thereabouts, this association is more theoretical than a strict criticism of the text, although I am wont to scrutinize psychological implications and connections within text. I treat texts as commentaries on the behavior and psychological states.
It might be considered an unfair remark to put the burden on men to keep the marriage when women have as much part in its maintenance or dissolution. It is a team effort, really. We do wish that most of marriages would last, for the sake of the children and the companionship that evolved over time. However, this being a digression, statistics has shown us otherwise.
Thus, pardon the literary license I have exercised here.
Like this:
Filed under: Behavior, Book Review, Deconstructionist, Essay, Literary Criticism, Psychology, relationships, Social Commentary, thoughts, Writing Tagged: | Ernest Hemingway, Literary Criticism, literary papers, short story