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Discourse Analysis of Ernest Hemingway’s “A Day’s Wait”

Background information about Ernest Hemingway:

Ernest Hemingway was born on July 21, 1899 in the provincial town of Oak Park, in a respected
and educated family. Ernest's mother was a very eccentric and emotional woman while the boy's
father, on the contrary, was a very reserved and stern man. His father taught Ernest the intricacies of
fishing, hunting, an ability to navigate in unfamiliar areas. In the future, these children's trips grew
into a real passion for adventure. At school, Ernest made great success in sports and English. He
read and wrote articles for the school newspaper, which were invariably very popular.

Hemingway knows that with the outbreak of World War I he desperately wanted to go to the front,
but a severe eye injury received during boxing became an obstacle. Ernest made sure that he was
taken to the Red Cross as a driver. He saved the wounded soldier, was caught in the crossfire, and
only miraculously survived. In 1921, Ernest moved to the city of his dreams - Paris.

The first fame came to Hemingway in 1926. , after the publication of the novel "The Sun Also
Rises." This was followed by collections with numerous stories, which also did not leave readers
indifferent. Hemingway’s most known work is his novel “The Old Man and the Sea”, for which in
1953 he was awarded the Pulitzer Prize and later Nobel Prize.

Throughout his life, Ernest Hemingway traveled a lot around the world, repeatedly putting his life
in mortal danger. Hemingway took part in military sorties over Germany, organized
counterintelligence in Cuba, fought with the Nazis in the ranks of the French and Belgian armies.

Ernest Hemingway was married four times, becoming the father of three children. He was always
attracted not only by beautiful, but by intelligent and educated women, in communication with
whom he drew creative inspiration. Hemingway suffered severely from many serious illnesses in
his years, he was chased by depression in conjunction with paranoia. It seemed to the writer that he
was constantly pursued by spies, and his whole life was monitored by the FBI. Increasingly, he
thought about suicide, and died on July 2, 1961, having shot himself from his own gun.

Background information of “A Day’s Wait”:

In 1929, the Great Depression began, covering the entire economy of the country. In the United
States, all banks, industries, factories, and factories were bankrupt and closed. Thousands of people
were left without work and shelter until President Franklin Delano Roosevelt was elected in 1932
and the rehabilitation period began. In 1933 "A Days Wait" was written by Ernest Hemingway in
short story collection Winner Take Nothing, which portrays a young boy's inner conflict and fear
when he becomes ill.Many stories and short stories were written about the relationship between
father and son, which could be the reason the author was close to his father. Hemingway's love of
writing about death and failure is one of the post-war syndromes of all writers of that century.
Ernest Hemingway fought more than once obviously was also very struck by the war days and
suffering.

Plot structure:

Exposition is when narrator, father came to shut the window in the room of his son and saw him
shivering and pale. He asked, what was the matter and learned, that his son has a headache. Father
called doctor and he examined temperature: "One hundred and two."

Rising action starts when father goes for a walk on a bright cold day and he saw a covey of quails.
He was able to kill two and five survived.

Climax starts when the boy refuses to let anyone into his room. He had a white face and was staring
at the foot of the bed. The father told him to take it easy and not to worry. The boy obviously is
holding inside something.

Falling action starts when the boy asks father, which day he is going to die. The father told boy that
people don’t die with fever of only 102.The boy believes that people cannot live with 44 degree and
he has 102. In France there is another scale, where 102 is 44 degree. The boy had been waiting all
day to die about 9 o’clock in the morning.

Resolution is when father explains to the boy, that he is not going to die. The next day he was very
weak and cried at little things, that were of no importance.

Characters:

Son or nicknamed by the father “Schatz” translated from German language as treasure protagonist
and the main character of the short story. When he falls ill with fewer he is trying to be mature,
manly, unemotional in order not to show his fear and loneliness. By the end, when he realizes, that
he was not going to die he quits being mature and allows himself to cry over unimportant things.
Schatz is representative of character for Hemingway’s style. As I told before he preferred to write
about death and loneliness. Schatz is one of the fatalistic heroes, who understand everything
dramatically.

Father is a side character and at the same time narrator. He is a caring father, who looks after his
sick son. We also learned that he loved hunting. He is a caring character, but we see that he could
not notice Schatz is bothered with something.

Setting:
“A Day’s Wait” takes place in both inside and outside of the home. Father closed the window in the
room and this solemn dark atmosphere helped us to feel son’s condition. Hemingway also used
description of both inside and outside in order to make readers feel contrasting and different
feelings. We could guess from appearance of quails that it is countryside and probably, because of
author’s origin it is America. Action starts in the morning and continues through all day. The season
possibly is winter.

Conflict:

The main conflict is Schatz vs his inner world. He misunderstood the system of measuring
temperature and thought he was going to die. He tried to stay mature and not show, that he is scared
of death, but in the end he realizes that he is going to live and releases all his feelings out.

Themes:

Masculinity and heroism is one of the obvious themes. In the story we see the moment, where father
read a book to Schatz about brave, tough, emotionless pirates. This book was not mentioned without
cause, because the boy is actually following this example and tries to face death with fatalistic
heroism. Misscommunication also can be one of the main topics in here. If son could talk with
father nothing would happen, but the main character preferred to keep silent. Hemingway illustrates
how the failure to communicate openly and honestly can result knowledge gap and lead to the
confusion and misunderstanding. Childish innocence is the next topic Ernest Hemingway was able
to touch. He approaches to his fictioned “death” with a brave face not only reflects the story’s
conception of ideal masculinity, but further points to the child’s equation of growing up. At the
beginning he is trying to be strong, but anyway his childish behavior becomes obvious at the end.

Stylistic Analysis:

He was shivering, his face was white, and he
walked slowly as though it ached to move.
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
Simile is used here. His movements were not
confident and were slow.
Simile is used here to make more colorful
description of the weather condition, which at
the same time underline setting.
all the grass and the bare ground had been
varnished with ice.
I read aloud from Howard Pyle’s Book of
Pirates; but I could see he was not following
what I was reading.
He was evidently holding tight onto himself
about something.
It’s like miles and kilometers.
Flock of quails: two dead and five survived.
A Day’s Wait
Irony
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.
His face was very white and there were
dark areas under his eyes.
Symbolizes masculine conventions that boys
learn to emulate from a young age. Pirates are
rough, uncivilized figures who embody
toughness, bravery, and independence
Idiom is used to show, that boy was holding
something inside.
Simile is used to show, how thermometer
measures are different in countries.
Two symbolize death and five life
The name of the story is foreshadowing that
something is going to happen within a day and
symbolize boy’s misunderstanding about
temperature measure.
Boy is all day waiting that he is going to die
with unbelievable strength, but it came out to be
just misunderstanding and boy let out all his
innocent feelings.
Foreshadowing is obvious here. Author gives us
clear explaining, that boy’s behavior looks
strange and suspicious, but anyway none of
them is starting conversation and he just left.
White color symbolizes death.

Lexical Cohesion:

Repetition
White Word white is repeated 3 times to emphasizes
condition of a child and at the same time
symbolize death.
Sick Word sick is repeated 3 times to show boy’s
health condition.
Die Word die is repeated 7 times to emphasizes,
what exactly boy was waiting during all day.
Schatz Word Schatz is repeated 5 times in order to
show fathers close relationship to the son
 Synonyms
He came into the room to shut the windows
while we were still in bed and I saw he looked
ill.
But when I came downstairs he was dressed, Ill=Sick
sitting by the fire, looking a very
sick.
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 Relaxed=Slack
importance.
I took the young Irish setter for a little walk up
the road and along a frozen creek.
… it was difficult to stand or Irish settler is hyponymy of the red dog
walk on the glassy surface and the red dog
slipped…
…it was difficult to stand or
walk on the glassy surface and the red dog Slipped=Slithered
slipped and slithered…

Grammatical Cohesion:

Substitution
Downstairs, the doctor left three different Several words are used in order to replace word
medicines in different colored capsules with capsule. Repetition may lead sometimes to the
instructions for giving them. One was to bring disorganized and mass meaning, while
down the fever, another a purgative, the third to
overcome an acid condition.
Some of the covey lit the trees, but most of them
scattered into brush piles and it was necessary to
jump on the ice-coated mounds.
Elipsis
We flushed a covey of quail under a high clay
bank with overhanging brush and killed two as
they went out of sight over the top of the bank.
…they made difficult shooting and killed two,
missed five…
Markers and Conjuction
So
As
And
But
Oh
Pragmatics:
Utterance
But when I came downstairs he was dressed,
sitting by the fire, looking a very sick and
miserable boy of nine years.
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.
After a while he said to me, ‘You don’t have to
substitution can help to avoid it.
Word covey is replaced by indicating pronoun.
It is done in order to avoid repetition.
The place where should stay word quail, author
decided to leave empty and avoid repletion.
The same way, where word quail is appropriate
to use it was omitted.
This additive conjunction was used 5 times
through all the story. It helps to show connection
and causes of the character’s speech.
This one is also additive conjunction and was
used 5 times. It is used in order to compare
things and underline their similarities
And is connecting thoughts and creating
atmosphere of innocence in the story. Ernest
Hemingway’s lovely conjunction. He uses this
way of repetition almost in all his works.
But id repeated 9 times and is used to show
contrast. Several times it was used in the
beginning of the sentence underlining emotions
of the speaker.
Cognitive marker oh us used by father and child
once to show that boy was released and relaxed
and father was surprised by thoughts of his
child.
Presupposition
There is a boy and he is ill. He is a son of the
narrator.
Implicature
There was a severe epidemic of influenza in the
area and is probably a serious illness. Father was
scared his son is ill with this illness.
Presupposition
stay here with me, Papa, if it bothers you.’ Boy is saying he could go and be free.
‘You can’t come in,’ he said. ‘You mustn’t get Presupposition
what I have.’ Boy did not want people to catch his disease and
die because of it.
…and started back pleased to have found a Implicature
covey close to the house and happy there were Father will hunt another day again.
so many left to find on another day.
Diexis
Personal diexis: He was repeated 26 times in order to replace
Schatz and show close relationship with son.
I was repeated 43 times, which indicates that the
narrator of the story is father and he was worried
and is carrying parent.
They is used 5 times in order to show the
presence of other people and their relations
His is used 8 times in order to indicate boy’s
condition
Himself is used 2 times to show actions which
were done to the narrator
Him was used 8 times in order to show what
was done toward Schatz
Social diexis Boy is used 8 times in order to replace name
Schatz and avoid word repetition.
Discourse diexis That six times, this three times are used to
indicate or replace some words.
Time diexis Morning, the next day, when are used to show
when actions were done and underline setting

Speech Act Theory:

Sentence structures All story is in a form of dialog, excluding some

descriptive moment the author used to specify
and explain to the reader. There are 14
interrogative sentences and the rest is descriptive
ones. Imperative sentences are used as well
toward the boy by his papa.
Performative verbs Verb say is used 11 times in different tense
forms, verb told is used 3 times, verb ask is used
4 times in different tense times and word explain
is used 1 time.
Locution When the doctor came he took the boy’s
 temperature.
‘One hundred and two.’
This was a light epidemic of flu and there was
no danger if you avoided pneumonia.
Illocution The doctor said, that boy had temperature 102
degree and he needed to stay at home and drink
some pills. He had just slight influenza and there
is nothing very scary if to take cure in time.
Perlocution Boy believed in word of his French friends, that
people die at that degree and started to prepare
himself to the death.
Locution ‘You don’t have to stay here with me, Papa, if
it bothers you.’
‘No, I mean you don’t have to stay if it’s going
to bother you.’
Illocution The boy was saying, that father does not need to
see, how his child is going to die and says that
he could leave if he does not want to stay.
Perlocution Father thought it was just fever and boy was
light headed and he does not pay attention and
goes for a walk.

Conclusion:

In the short story of Ernest Hemingway is a huge meaning despite it is not longer, then two pages. It
carry hidden message and shows, how misunderstanding can lead to the non-sense. Also he was
able to show historical context about influenza and underline relationships between father and son.
He used a lot of devices and the text was full of techniques and ways of opening the main theme.
All the story readers are waiting to something unexpected at the end and Ernest Hemingway was
able again to write something really impossible.