Olin College of Engineering
DigitalCommons@Olin
2013 AHS Capstone Projects
AHS Capstone Projects
4-1-2013
The Building Blocks of Short Stories
Casey Karst
Franklin W. Olin College of Engineering, [email protected]
Follow this and additional works at: http://digitalcommons.olin.edu/ahs_capstone_2013
Part of the Comparative Literature Commons, English Language and Literature Commons, and
the Fiction Commons
Recommended Citation
Karst, Casey, "The Building Blocks of Short Stories" (2013). 2013 AHS Capstone Projects. Paper 16.
http://digitalcommons.olin.edu/ahs_capstone_2013/16
This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the AHS Capstone Projects at DigitalCommons@Olin. It has been accepted for inclusion in
2013 AHS Capstone Projects by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@Olin. For more information, please contact
[email protected].
Characterization
“The Secret Life of Walter Mitty” - James Thurber
Passage
“WE’RE going through!” The Commander’s voice was like thin ice breaking. He wore his full-dress
uniform, with the heavily braided white cap pulled down rakishly over one cold gray eye. “We can’t
make it sir. It’s spoiling for a hurricane, if you ask me.” “I’m not asking you, Lieutenant Berg.” Said the
Commander. “Throw on the power lights! Rev her up to 8500! We’re going through!” The pounding of
the cylinders increased: ta-pocketa-pocketa-pocketa-pocketa-pocketa. The Commander stared at the ice
forming on the pilot window. He walked over and twisted a row of complicated dials. “Switch on No. 8
Auxiliary!” he shouted. “Switch on No. 8 auxiliary!” repeated Lieutenant Berg. “Full strength in No. 3
turret!” shouted the Commander. “Full Strength in No. 3 turret!” The crew, bending to their various
tasks in the huge, hurtling eight engine Navy hydroplane, looked at each other and grinned. “The Old
Man’ll get us through,” they said to one another. “The Old Man ain’t afraid of hell!”…
“Not so fast! You’re driving too fast!” said Mrs. Mitty. “What are you driving so fast for?”
“Hmm?” said Walter Mitty. He looked at his wife, in the seat beside him, with shocked astonishment.
She seemed grossly unfamiliar, like a strange woman who had yelled at him in a crowd. “You were up to
fifty-five,” she said. “You know I don’t like to go more than forty. You were up to fifty-five.” Walter Mitty
drove on toward Waterbury in silence, the roaring of the SN202 through the worst storm in twenty
years of Navy flying fading in the remote, intimate airways of his mind. “You’re tensed up again,” said
Mrs. Mitty. It’s one of your days. I wish you’d let Dr. Renshaw look you over.”
-Thurber, James. “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty”. Page 1.
Analysis of Passage
Thurber wrote “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty” in limited omniscient point of view. The
narrator describes Mitty’s thoughts, and the reader also sees him in action. According to Lucke, when
using this point of view, “the writer allows us to discern subtleties about the character that would not
come through in a strictly limited first person narrative” (27). These subtleties are critical in the
understanding of Mitty’s character because of how his character changes between reality and his
fantasies.
Thurber uses the differences between Mitty’s reality and his fantasy in this passage to reveal his
motivations and ambitions. In the fantasy, Walter is a commander of a hydroplane; a man of extreme
determination and gusto who is admired by others. While in reality, he is an unassertive fellow who is
chastised by his wife for going over the speed limit and in his defense can only reply with a “hmm?”.
Mitty’s fantasies enable him to live out his most dramatic dreams; moreover, it can be shown that the
fantasies are merely frameworks, influenced by reality, in which Walter can attempt to achieve his true
goal of achieving heroic success.
In order to achieve his ambition of heroic success, Walter creates exaggerated fantasies based
upon mundane tasks which he is doing in reality. In this passage, Mitty changes the automobile that he
is driving into a Navy hydroplane in the midst of the worst storm in twenty years, and thus setting the
scene for a dramatic climax.
As previously stated, this story is written in limited omniscient point of view which allows the
reader to notice the subtleties in the characters. One group of subtleties surrounding Mitty’s fantasies is
that the facts within dream are often incorrect. In the article, “The Allusions in ‘The Secret Life of Walter
Mitty’”, Ellis explains the factual inaccuracies of this particular fantasy when he states that “being totally
unfamiliar with the nomenclature of planes and ships, Mitty has drawn upon incongruous details in his
striving for verisimilitude” (1). While on the whole, the dream enables Walter to achieve his dramatic
needs, Ellis points out that the details are flawed. For example, “while the hydroplane which Mitty pilots
can be a sea plane, it is more usually thought of as a boat” that uses hydrofoils to move across the water
(1). While this error may seem trivial, it reveals that Mitty does not fully understand his own fantasy.
Similarly, when Mitty yells for “full strength in No.3 turret” he believes that this will allow the ship to be
more maneuverable, but as Ellis points out, “turrets […] control only the movements of guns (1). To the
reader, these terms show that Mitty was using his limited background with aviation and boating to
create his fantasy; however, it is important to note that these flaws do not inhibit the Mitty’s actions in
the fantasy. Although he uses the term hydroplane, he believes that he is flying an aircraft, and although
in reality the turret doesn’t affect the maneuverability of a plane, in his fantasy these inaccuracies are
crucial for achieving the effect that he wants. To the reader, the inaccuracies seem humorous, but to
Mitty as a character, the flaws are meaningless because he does not understand them to be flaws.
Factual errors occur not only in his word choice, but also in the setting of the fantasy. Lieutenant
Berg says that the weather is “spoiling for a hurricane”, but there is also ice freezing on the windows of
the plane (Thurber 1). Hurricanes are inherently warm weather phenomena which cannot occur in
conjunction with ice forming. Again, this reveals that Mitty’s fantasy is fundamentally unsound when
viewed from an outside perspective, but to him it is perfectly acceptable.
Rather than detracting from the power of Mitty’s fantasies, these factual inaccuracies reinforce
the main goal of Mitty’s fantasies which is to achieve dramatic success. Each of his fantasies revolve
around dramatic scenes in which Mitty sets himself up for either heroic praise or action. Because he
does not fully understand the details of the fantasy, one can see the fantasy itself is not critical. The
feeling which the fantasy evokes in Mitty is the key. Every detail, true or false, real or imaginary, come
together to enable him to succeed.
It is interesting however, that Thurber doesn’t allow Mitty to achieve the success that he so
desperately wants. Mrs. Mitty pulls him from the fantasy at the climactic moment to chastise him about
his driving. This causes Mitty to continue creating a variety of dramatic fantasies each of which follow a
similar structure of dramatic events in which Mitty is given a chance to have his moment of success, and
each time the climax is stolen from him by reality. The reader develops a sense of pity for Mitty because
he seems destined to fail within his own fantasies.
Creative Passage
“We’re going deeper!” The captain’s voice cracked like lightning. Wearing fatigues, he stood at
attention showered in the white light of the bridge. “But sir, the ship isn’t rated to go any deeper.” “I
won’t have your fear of death holding me from my objective Private Pascal.” “Dive to 600 meters.
Silence the engines. We’re going down!” The cruiser creaked under the pressure of the water, and a leak
could be heard: plop-plop-plop. The Captain’s eyes flashed over the depth gauge as it reached 500
meters. “Close the port hatches! Turn off the dampers, open the yaw valve!” “Close the port hatches!
Turn off the dampers, open the yaw valve” yelled Private Pascal down the corridor. The men scuttled
about the ship’s bridge turning cranks and flipping switches. The men looked at each other in awe.
“We’re going to make it” they said to each other. “The Captain will make it to 600 meters”…
“Steve, didn’t I tell you to fix the ceiling last week? There’s a leak in the living room and Aunt Mary’s
chair is soaked.”
“What?” said Steve Whitman. He looked from the rapidly falling barometer on the wall to the storm
raging outside. “Steve did you hear me?” said Mrs. Whitman as she took a bucket from under the sink
into the other room. At least the fuselage didn’t give way, thought the bravest captain in the brigade as
he felt the pressure crushing him.
Author’s Note
In my creative passage inspired by “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty” I wanted to focus on the
protagonist’s need for success within a fantasy. Like Mitty, I wanted Steve’s fantasy to be influenced by
his reality. The storm raging outside not only caused the ceiling leak which emerges in the fantasy as the
onomatopoeia of the “plop plop plop”, but it also influenced the sound of his voice which “cracked like
lightning”, and the rapidly falling barometer resulted in the theme of the dream which was the
increasing pressure of the submarine. The theme of pressure is also reflected in Private Pascal’s name. A
Pascal is a unit of pressure often used in thermodynamics, thus Steve relied on this idea of pressure to
populate the only character in his fantasy other than himself.
My creative passage also uses a variety of factual inaccuracies to show that Steve is creating a
dream which in his mind is plausible, but to the reader it is a flawed world. The first inaccuracy is used in
the description of his voice. His voice “cracked like lightning” in his dream, but lightning is a visual
phenomenon, while thunder the noise produced by lightning. Steve also describes his submarine as a
cruiser, a term more often used to describe a surface going vessel. All of the commands that are
shouted to the mean are also inaccurate.
After Steve is pulled back to reality by his wife, his dream continues to weave itself into his
mind. This becomes apparent when he thinks “at least the fuselage didn’t give way”, and then is
described as the bravest captain in the brigade. This is similar to the phrase, “the roaring of the SN202
through the worst storm in twenty years of Navy flying fading in the remote, intimate airways of his
mind” which occurred in Walter Mitty’s reality after he was pulled back to reality.
“Haircut” - Ring Lardner
Passage
Now Jim Kendall, besides bein’ a jokesmith and a pretty good drinker, well Jim was quite a lady-killer. I
guess he run pretty wild durin’ the time he was on the road for them Caterville people, and besides that,
he’d had a couple little affairs of the heart right here in town. As I say his wife would have divorced him
only she couldn’t.
But Jim was like the majority of men, and women, too, I guess. He wanted what he couldn’t get. He
wanted Julie Gregg and worked his head off tryin’ to land her. Only he’d of said bean instead of head.
-Lardner, Ring. “Haircut”. Page 4.
Analysis of Passage
The short story, “Haircut” is told by dramatic monologue told by a character named Whitey.
Whitey’s monologue accomplishes two goals in this passage. First, it describes Jim Kendall, and second,
it reveals how Whitey trivializes or rationalizes Jim Kendall’s behavior in such a way as to describe him in
a positive light.
In the first sentence, Whitey calls Jim a “jokesmith”, “a pretty good drinker”. Each of these titles
given to Jim are true in their meaning. Jim does make jokes and drink heavily; however, the connotation
of Whitey’s words reflect how wants to see Jim Kendall. Whitey wants to believe that Jim was a good
person who was just full of mischief, and he uses elegant word choices in order to redirect the truth.This
can be seen when Whitey said that Jim was a jokesmith, Whitey turned the fact that Jim played cruel
jokes on people in order to seek revenge into profession which requires artistry and skill such as a
blacksmith. As a result, the fact that Jim spends time carefully crafting his cruel jokes in order to inflict
harm becomes commonplace and therefore nonthreatening. Similarly, Whitey calls Jim a pretty good
drinker which places value in Jim’s ability to drink a lot even though Jim’s drunken binges are paid for
with the money that is supposed to feed his wife and children. These two examples are the precursors
to the true focus of the passage, the reader is already aware of the fact that Jim uses his jokes with
malicious intent and that he is heavy drinker, so when Whitey goes on to call Jim a “lady-killer” the
reader knows that this is not as innocent trait as Whitey wishes it to seem.
The remainder of the passage proceeds to give evidence that Jim has had numerous affairs in
Caterville and in his own town. By calling these infidelities “little affairs of the heart”, Whitey trivializes
the fact that Jim has had extramarital affairs. I believe that he does express a moment of pity toward
those affected by Jim’s affairs when he says that Jim’s wife “would have divorced him only she couldn’t”.
This shows that on some level Whitey understands that Jim’s actions have consequences for others, but
explains away this feeling by saying that Jim “was like the majority of men [by wanting] what he couldn’t
get”. In this way, Whitey never places blame on Jim for his actions, rather, he manipulates the way in
which he interprets them such that Jim’s actions become either admirable, as in the cases making jokes
and drinking, or become a factor of human nature, in the case of his womanizing.
Creative Passage
“Well Brian, as well as being a safety nut and an old man in a young man’s clothes, well he was also
control freak. He lived by his fifteen year plan like a Christian lives by the bible. His wife would have left
him for want of excitement, but as I said she just couldn’t afford to.
I guess Brian was like all of the other sheep in the world trying to get ahead in an unwinnable race, I
guess. Living his life through routine and careful scheduling in order to create some semblance of
control over his life.
Author’s Note
For this creative work, I would like to take the idea of an unstable narrator from the “Haircut”
passage, and invert the narrator’s tone. In the “Haircut” Whitey believes that Jim is never wrong in his
actions and even construes ways to portray him as an average man who has a plan for his life. The
narrator in this passage sees such an attitude as boring and even restrictive on living. Just as Whitey
describes Jim as “jokesmith” and a “pretty good drinker”, Brian is described as a “safety nut” and an “old
man in a young man’s clothes”. Both insults are intended to reveal that Brian is conscious of the dangers
of the world and takes the appropriate precautions; however, the narrator sees these as negative
attributes by describing them in a negative light. The final insult directed at Brian was that he is a
“control freak”. The combination of these insulting titles produces a perspective of Brian which a
rebellious youth may hold.
I was hoping that the narrator would come across as such. I used the mocking statement about
Christians to show the narrators lack of belief and scorn in religion. In conjunction with the first
statement in the second paragraph in which the narrator calls Brian like all the other sheep in the world
trying to get ahead in an unwinnable race” I believe a double meaning is achieved. First, Brian is
conforming to the world around him and by doing so, is becoming a successful person. Second, I show
that the narrator resists conforming to the herd because he sees life as an unwinnable race. The
narrator has adopted a mindset in which he believes that he can’t change anything in the world.
Works Cited
Ellis, James. “The Allusions in ‘The Secret Life of Walter Mitty’”. The English Journal. Vol. 54, No 4 (Apr.,
1965) pp. 310-313. www.Jstor.org/stable/811115.
Lardner, Ring. “Haircut”.
Lucke, Margaret. Schaum’s Quick Guide to Writing Great Short Stories. 1999, McGraw Hill Companies.
Thurber, James. “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty”.
Conflict
“To Build a Fire” - Jack London Conflict
Passage
All of which counted for little. There was the fire, snapping and crackling and promising life with every
dancing flame. He started to untie his moccasins. They were coated with ice; the thick German socks
were like sheaths of iron half-way to his knees; and the moccasin strings were like rods of steel all
twisted and knotted as by some conflagration. For a moment he tugged with his numbed fingers, then,
realizing the folly of it, he drew his sheath-knife.
But before he could cut the strings, it happened. It was his own fault or, rather, his mistake. He should
not have built the fire under the spruce tree. He should have built it in the open. But it had been easier
to pull the twigs from the brush and drop them directly on the fire. Now the tree under which he had
done this carried a weight of snow on its boughs. No wind had blown for weeks, and each bough was
fully freighted. Each time he had pulled a twig he had communicated a slight agitation to the tree—an
imperceptible agitation, so far as he was concerned, but an agitation sufficient to bring about the
disaster. High up in the tree one bough capsized its load of snow. This fell on the boughs beneath,
capsizing them. This process continued, spreading out and involving the whole tree. It grew like an
avalanche, and it descended without warning upon the man and the fire, and the fire was blotted out!
Where it had burned was a mantle of fresh and disordered snow.
The man was shocked. It was as though he had just heard his own sentence of death. For a moment he
sat and stared at the spot where the fire had been. Then he grew very calm. Perhaps the old-timer on
Sulphur Creek was right. If he had only had a trail-mate he would have been in no danger now. The trailmate could have built the fire. Well, it was up to him to build the fire over again, and this second time
there must be no failure. Even if he succeeded, he would most likely lose some toes. His feet must be
badly frozen by now, and there would be some time before the second fire was ready.
-London, Jack. “To Build a Fire”. Page 7.
Analysis of Passage
Jack London’s naturalist short story “To Build a Fire” pits an unnamed man against the harsh
Arctic Yukon. The opposing forces of the freezing cold and the man’s will to survive define the conflict in
the story. The cold is unfeeling and relentless while the man foolishly defies conventional wisdom as
defined by the old timer at Sulphur Creek. The selected passage contains the rising action of the story.
Before the passage occurs, the man has fallen through the ice and soaked his legs in freezing water. The
arctic conditions cause the water to freeze rapidly encasing his legs in ice.
In the first paragraph, the man struggles to remove his frozen moccasins in order to warm them
by his newly made fire. The narrator says that the man’s socks are “like sheaths of iron” and that his
moccasin strings are “like rods of steel”. These similes draw attention to the debilitating power of the
cold. Just as his moccasins froze, the man’s fingers go numb as well further reinforcing the man’s conflict
with nature. This instance was not the first time that the man experienced numbness in the story. When
the man stopped to eat lunch, he forgot to make a fire to “thaw out” (London 5); however, because he
was not in immediate danger, he “chuckled at his foolishness, and as he chuckled he noted the
numbness creeping into the exposed finger” (5). This moment reveals to the reader how lightheartedly
the man once took the perils around him. As the beginning of the story states, “the trouble with him
was that he was without imagination” (1).
The man’s lack of imagination becomes most apparent when he lights a fire under a snow
covered tree. Because the man could not imagine anything happening, he was unprepared for the snow
on the tree collapsing.
The manner in which the snow falls reflects the nature of his errors too. Both the snow collapse
and the man’s eventual demise start with many imperceptible events. In the man’s case, he did not have
an accurate temperature reading outside, he did not take a trail-mate along, and he was new to the
Yukon. Each one of these events in isolation may have resulted in a different outcome; however, the
combination caused the situation to become inherently more dangerous. The first perceptible crisis was
when the man fell through the ice. This moment reflects the first bough giving way under its load. Just as
the snow from the bough knocks the other branches’ snow to the ground resulting in catastrophe, the
man falling through the ice start a series of events which result in the man’s death. As Mitchell says in
his paper “the repetition of things and events creates an environment that seems to resist human
intention—one in which desires fail over and over to be able to shape results”(80). Try as he may, the
man cannot get himself out of the situation that he has entered.
In the third paragraph, the man finally understands that he is in serious trouble. It does not take
imagination to comprehend that his smothered fire will lead to his death, and the man interprets the
event “as though he had just heard his own sentence of death” (5). It is in this moment the narrator’s
tone changes from self-assuredness to one full of self-doubt. Earlier in the story, the man prided himself
on making the fire alone because “the old-timer had been very serious in laying down the law that no
man must travel alone in the Klondike” (7). After the fire was lit, the narrator says “any man who was a
man could travel alone” (7). This masculine, prideful tone is reversed after the fire is put out and the
man is alone and he thinks “perhaps the old-timer on Sulphur creek was right” (7). The man’s doubt
pervades his thoughts and becomes apparent when he says “even if he succeeded” in making a fire he
would lose a few toes. His confidence, which defined him when everything was going according to plan,
has eroded away. After the fire was put out, the reader understands that no matter what his actions are
the cold will win the battle for the man’s life.
Creative Passage
The air shortage was fixed. The gas flowed through the secondary tank, giving life with each
intake of air. The monofilament fishing line wrapped around him like spider web around a bug. He
pulled and yanked at the nearly invisible thread with his thickly gloved hands, then, realizing his
stupidity, he reached for his dive knife.
And then it happened. He should have checked his mask before the dive. He should have
noticed the cracks along the seam mask, battered from riding in the dive bag. Each time he loaded the
bag into the truck, the mask lenses scratched against the dive weights. A nearly invisible crack formed
on the edge. The pressure, pressing intensely at 150 ft. started the propagation. The crack spread in a
single line, then split into two cracks. The process continued spreading the crack along the entire length
of the lenses. The glass lenses imploded into the man’s face, leaving him blind.
The man was shocked. The darkness arose around him like death. For a moment, he panicked
and breathed heavily. Then he his breathing slowed. Maybe the instructor was right when he said bring
a dive buddy. A buddy would be able to cut the fishing line. A buddy may have carried an extra mask.
Even if he was able to cut himself free and surface, he would probably get the bends. He must be over
his total bottom time by now, and there wasn’t enough air in the take for a deco stop.
Author’s Note
Unlike Jack London, I have little experience with the harsh arctic environment of the Klondike,
but I do have experience with the inhospitable world underwater. A mistake Scuba diving or in the
Klondike can quickly result in death if simple rules aren’t followed. In my short story, the initial crisis that
happens before the passage is that the man losses air rapidly while struggling with a monofilament
fishing line that is wound around him. As a tech-diver, he will have a second redundant system that he
can turn on and get air. This leaves him with just enough air to get out of the wreck and to the surface if
there aren’t any other dangers. In traditional safe diving, he would have a dive buddy who, much like a
trail mate, would be able to help him in an emergency, but he went against common wisdom and dove
without a buddy. Although this goes against common diving practice he “knows” that he can do it. The
secondary crisis is that his mask implodes under the pressure. This almost never happens unless the
mask has been abused by a negligent diver.
In this short passage, the two crises are not interrelated as neatly as in London’s story. I think
that this doesn’t detract from the stories conflict. The underwater environment is hostile in the same
way as arctic cold. Both have various degrees of danger. In ten feet of water one isn’t in serious danger
just like hiking in twenty degree weather isn’t immediately life threatening. By diving beyond the
recommended limit, the man in my story is undertaking the same risk as the man in the story who hikes
in an extreme cold snap.
The passage ends with the man concluding that he will likely get the bends. The bends is a very
dangerous side effect of deep diving in which nitrogen bubbles form within the blood. This is an
extremely painful and life threatening condition in which the most minor of cases requires immediate
medical attention. A lone diver with the bends will most likely not be able to move at ambient pressure,
let alone get to the hospital. Every diver is taught about the bends and the potential dangers of deep
diving. A technique deep divers use in order to reduce the risk of the bends is a deco stop
(Decompression stop). The diver remains underwater at varies depths in order to give their body time
to breathe out the nitrogen in their blood stream, thus reducing the chance of the bubbles forming
intravenously. These stops are only possible when the diver has enough air to remain underwater and
can see their depth gauge in order to stop at the correct depth. In my character’s case, he has neither
enough air nor vision to conduct a deco stop, thus he must surface at the risk of succumbing to the
bends at the surface. This is similar to the conclusion that the man in Jack London’s story comes to.
Even if he does start a fire, his feet will at least be frost bitten.
Works Cited
London, Jack. “The Build a Fire”.
Mitchell, Lee Clark. “ ‘Keeping His Head’: Repition and Responsibility in London’s “To Build a Fire”.
Journal of Modern Literature. Vol. 13, No. 1 (Mar. 1986), pp. 76-96.
www.jstor.org/stable/3831433.
Narrative Voice
“A Clean, Well-Lighted Place” by Ernest Hemingway
Passage
The old man stood up, slowly counted the saucers, took a leathercoin purse from his pocket and paid for
the drinks, leaving half a peseta tip. The waiter watched him go down the street, a very old man walking
unsteadily but with dignity.
“Why didn’t you let him stay and drink?” the unhurried waiter asked. They were putting up the shutters.
“It is not half-past two.”
“I want to go home to bed.”
“What is an hour?”
“More to me than to him.”
“An hour is the same”
“You talk like an old man yourself. He can buy a bottle and drink at home.”
“It’s not the same.”
“No, it is not,” agreed the waiter with a wife. He did not wish to be unjust. He was only in a hurry.
“And you? You have no fear of going home before your usual hour?”
“Are you trying to insult me?”
“No, hombre, only to make a joke.”
“No,” the waiter who was in a hurry said, rising from pulling down the metal shutters. “I have
confidence. I am all confidence.”
“You have youth, confidence, and a job”, the older waiter said. “You have everything.”
“And what do you lack?”
“Everything but work.”
“You have everything that I have.”
“No. I have never had confidence and I am not young.”
“Come on. Stop talking nonsense and lock up.”
“I am of those who like to stay late at the café,” the older waiter said.
“With all those who do not want to go to bed. With all those who need a light for the night.”
“I want to go home and into bed.”
“We are of two different kinds,” the older waiter said. He was now dressed to go home. “It is not only a
question of youth and confidence although those things are very beautiful. Each night I am reluctant to
close up because there may be someone who needs the café.”
“Hombre, there are bodegas open all night long.”
“You do not understand. This is a clean and pleasant café. It is well lighted. The light is very good and
also, now, there are shadows of the leaves.”
“Good night” said the younger waiter
“Good night” the other said. Turning off the electric light he continued the conversations with himself. It
was the light of course but it is necessary that the place be clean and pleasant. You do not want music.
Certainly you do not want music. Nor can you stand before a bar with dignity although that is all that is
provided for these hours. What did he fear? It was not a fear of a dread. It was a nothing that he knew
too well. It was all a nothing and a man was a nothing too.
-Hemingway, Ernest. “A Clean, Well-Lighted Place”. Page 4-5.
Analysis of Passage
This passage of the short story is separated into three distinct sections: the description of the
old man leaving the café, the waiter’s conversation, and the old waiter’s thoughts. Each of these three
sections is crafted in different ways, yet in sequence they create a compelling argument on human
existence. As Bennet puts it, “the structure of the story is based on a consistent polarity: “despair”,
characterized by depth of feeling and insight into the human condition in opposition to “confidence,”
characterized by a lack of feeling and, therefore, a lack of insight” (7). The polarity is most easily seen
with regards to the characters and symbols in the story. The characters and symbols are divided into
two groups: those that wish to stay at the café at night and those that have confidence, and light and
shadow, respectively.
The three characters in this section are the old man, the young waiter, and the old waiter. The
old man is described in the first paragraph from a third person point of view. This has an interesting
effect when one considers the fact that he is said by the narrator to walk away from the café with
“dignity”. If another character in the short story would have said the old man was dignified, one could
merely say that it was that character’s opinion; however, because of the detached description of the old
man, I believe it is no longer a character’s opinion but a fact that the author was trying to convey to the
reader. The old man is the reader’s first example of those that like to stay at the café because he is there
alone late at night, but we do not hear his opinion on why he chooses to stay at the cafe; but we do hear
them through the older waiter’s thoughts at the end of the story.
In order for the older waiter’s reasons for staying at a café into the night to have a profound
universal effect for all of those who wish to stay in the cafes, he has to somehow become associated
with that group in the reader’s mind. This occurs both explicitly by the waiter’s conversation with the
young waiter and implicitly through his values. The older waiter self-identifies with the old man when he
says, “ ‘I am of those who like to stay late at the café’ ” (5). Later in the story, the older waiter’s word
usage further reinforces his connection to the old man when he explains that a bodega is not a suitable
place to spend the night because it is impossible to “stand before a bar with dignity” (5). Dignity
becomes a common theme for all of those who wish to stay in the cafes. Once the establishment has
been made between the older waiter and those who stay in the café, the older waiter’s thoughts in the
last section become the feelings of everyone in the group. Those who stay in the cafes at night feel that
“it is all a nothing and man a nothing too” (5). Presumably, it in this statement means life. Thus the older
waiter is saying that life and man is nothing.
In contrast to the old man and the older waiter, the young waiter represents a different group of
people. Unlike the other two characters, the young waiter has youth, a job, and a wife waiting for him at
home. In other words he has everything life can offer. He believes that life isn’t meaningless because he
has meaning in his own life. This idea is strikingly different from the nothingness that the older waiter
describes.
Along with the polarity of characters, there usage of light and shadow throughout the story
plays a role in developing the polarity of the structure. The café is said to be well lighted which invokes
an image security where everything is visible. On the other hand, as the older waiter says, there is “a
nothing that he knew too well. It was all a nothing and a man was a nothing too” (6). Nothingness is
commonly associated with darkness. Thus a polarity is established between the well-lighted café and the
nothingness that those who stay in cafes at night feel. Just as light banishes darkness, the well-lighted
café helps those who stay there alleviate the feeling of nothingness within themselves.
Creative Passage
Author’s Note
Ernest Hemingway’s short story “A Clean, Well-Lighted Place” is a piece influenced by the effects of the
first and second world wars. Artists of the time period are often called “the lost generation” because of
the horrors and tragedies that they witnessed during the wars and their experiences greatly influenced
their works. Therefore it is impossible for me to recreate the aura which Hemingway provides in his
short story. I have never seen war or its atrocities; however, I am a member of the so called generation
“Y” or the millennial generation, and as such, I have experience with a variety of other influences that
were inconceivable in the time of the “lost generation”. Technology for example has played a critical
role in my life. Computers that were once used for academic and military purposes only in the recent
history have become common place; virtual realities have become prominent locations for socialization
among my generation in the form of video games or web forums.
Because of these differences the setting of my story will not be in a café in the traditional post
world war European sense, but in an internet café in the modern world. In these locations, individuals
partake on virtual communities in which they feel that they are welcome in. This can take the form of
video game guilds in MMOPG, web forums, or internet communities such as reddit.com.
The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas by Ursula K. LeGuin
Passage
“How can I tell you about the people of Omelas? They were not naïve and happy children—though their
children were, in fact, happy. They were mature, intelligent, passionate adults whose lives were not
wretched. O miracle! But I wish I could describe it better. I wish I could convince you. Omelas sounds in
my words like a city in a fairy tale, long ago and far away, once upon a time. Perhaps it would be best if
you imagined it as your own fancy bids, assuming it will rise to the occasion, for certainly I cannot suit
you all. For instance, how about technology? I think that there would be no cars or helicopters in and
above the streets; this follows from the fact that the people of Omelas are happy people. Happiness is
based on a just discrimination of what is necessary, what is neither necessary nor destructive, and what
is destructive. In the middle category, however—that of unnecessary but undestructive, that of comfort,
luxury, exuberance, etc.—they could perfectly well have central heating, subway trains, washing
machines and all kinds of marvelous devices not yet invented here, floating light-sources, fuelless
power, a cure for the common cold. Or they could have none of that: it doesn’t matter. As you like it. I
incline to think that people from towns up and down the coast have been coming to Omelas during the
last days before the Festival on very fast little trains and double-decked trams, and that the trains
station of Omelas is actually the handsomest building in town, though plainer than the magnificent
Farmer’s Market. But even granted trains, I fear Omelas so far strikes some of you as goody-goody.
Smiles, bells, parades, horses, bleh. If so please add an orgy. If an orgy would help, don’t hesitate. Let us
not, however, have temples from which issue beautiful nude priests and priestesses already half in
ecstasy and ready to copulate with any man or woman, lover or stranger, who desires union with the
deep godhead of the blood, although that was my first idea. But really it would be better not to have
any temples in Omelas—at least, not manned temples. Religion yes, clergy no. Surely the beautiful
nudes can just wander about, offering themselves like divine soufflés to the hunger of the needy and the
rapture of the flesh. Let them join the processions. Let tambourines be struck above the copulations,
and the glory of desire be proclaimed upon the gongs, and (a not unimportant point) let the offspring of
these delightful rituals be beloved and looked after by all. One thing I know there is none of in Omelas is
guilt.”
-LeGuin, Ursula K. “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas”. Page 2.
Analysis of Passage
When studying Ursula K. LeGuin’s short story, scholars have observed that the “narrator directly
involves her readers in the creation of Omelas by inviting their collaboration” (Knapp 75 Koemer 9). The
unknown narrator explicitly calls the reader to create the world when she says, “Perhaps it would be
best if you imagined it as your own fancy bids, assuming it will rise to the occasion, for certainly I cannot
suit you all” (LeGuin 2). By inviting the reader to create the details of Omelas, the narrator shares the act
of creation with the reader, and as a result, the reader shares the moral consequences regarding the
child locked in the basement.
When one looks at the narrative voice in the formulation of Omelas and the child’s description,
they have drastically different tones. In the selected passage about Omelas, the narrator often expresses
her own doubt about the world by saying “I think” or “I incline to think”. These phrases reveal the
narrator’s uncertainty regarding some details of Omelas. As previously stated, the narrator invites the
reader to add details as they please, and the narrator gives helpful suggestions such as possible
technologies or adding an orgy in order to prevent the people of Omelas from appearing “too goodygood” (2). These suggestions allow the reader to create a world that he finds possible within the general
rules that the narrator has established. By enforcing rules on the creator of the world, I believe that the
narrator is also enforcing the rules on the people themselves. In order to exist within a world built by
certain rules, the characters of the world must abide by the rules of creation.[GE1]
The narrator’s overarching rule is that the people of Omelas are happy. The narrator’s definition
of “happiness is based on a just discrimination of what is necessary, what is neither necessary nor
destructive, and what is destructive” (2). Thus, the reader can only create details which fall into the
narrator’s definition of happiness. The narrator’s invitations and suggestions seem to allow the reader to
create the perfect world based on happiness, and as an added rule, the narrator states that, “One thing I
know there is none of in Omelas is guilt.” The narrator uses firm language to depict this aspect of the
society, which is striking after such a long period of uncertainty; however, this rule is one that only
effects the characters of the story. No matter what the basis of their happiness is they feel no guilt
about it. This has a profound significance when the reader comes to learn that their happiness is based
on the suffering of a child.
The narrator uses similar firm language when she describes the child. At no point during the
description of the conditions does the narrator ask for the reader’s input. Although the narrator still
expresses a level of uncertainty about the details of the child’s sex and physical location, she describes
the existence of the desperate child as a fact of life in Omelas by saying that everyone in Omelas knows
“that it is there” (4). Despite the lack of details about the child and its location, the narrator describes
the child’s situation and interaction with the people vividly. As a result, the narrator now forces the
reader to see the cruel foundation of the people’s happiness in the same manner that the people of
Omelas see the child.
The combination of the lack of guilt and the definition of happiness stated by the narrator are
the most interesting aspects of this passage when one considers the child locked away in the basement.
By looking at the narrator’s definition of happiness one can deduce that the people of Omelas do not
see the child’s miserable existence as destructive, rather they see it as a necessity of their lives, and by
also saying that they feel no guilt, the majority of the people in Omelas feel no guilt about placing the
feeble minded child into such dismal conditions[GE2].
Creative Passage
How do I describe the Cloud City? The buildings soar into the sky so high that the only thing that could
match the height is the spirit of the people. The people of the city were not childish in their lives, but
they have still held onto the best parts of childhood. They are adults who still hold onto items which give
comfort like a child holds their blanket. How can I describe these people to you? How can I make you
believe that such a comfortable people exist? Perhaps it is best if you add your items of comfort to the
people, if you can bear to give them to another. Let us think about daily activities, I think that there
would be a grand park where one could run outdoors and breathe the pristine air and feel the golden
rays of the sun on their back. I like to think that the people would have work that they found
meaningful, if they wanted to work, but no jobs would be stressful because the people are comfortable.
Comfort is derived from the lack of needs and the ability to satiate the wants. I think there would be
spas in the center of every square and the air would be scented with lavender and citrus. I fear that you
think the cloud city is rather puritanical. If so add a thriving consumerism culture. If one finds comfort in
the finest goods and the newest goods add it in. Let the people of the cloud city who find comfort in the
finer side of life enjoy all the delicacies that the world has to offer, but let them feel no shame about
their consumption. If there is one thing that I know isn’t in the cloud city, it is shame.
Author’s Note
The goal of this passage is to create a vivid sense of comfort surrounding the inhabitants of the
cloud city by actively asking the reader for input. Comfort is different from happiness because happiness
expresses a state of mind while comfort expresses a state of being. In this passage, I focus on the
physical items which bring comfort to people. In order to push the reader to really think about the
world, I add that the reader can add a market driven by consumerism. This is similar LeGuin’s usage of
the orgy in her short story. The idea that the people of the cloud city could buy the latest goods in order
to achieve the comfort without shame is a little unsettling. An obvious reveal that could be used at the
end of the story would describe the working conditions of those that made the comfort possible, thus
creating a class distinction sort of story, or the ending could describe the environmental impact of
unrestricted consumption of natural resources. Either way, I believe that a statement could be made
that would have a profound impact on the reader and force them to think about the world that they live
in and the choices that they make on a daily basis.
Works Cited
Bennet, Warren. “Character, Irony, and Resolution in ‘A Clean, Well-Lighted Place”. American Literature.
Vol. 42, No. 1 (Mar., 1970) pp.70-79. www.jstor.org/stable/2924380.
Hemingway, Ernest. “A Clean, Well-Lighted Place”.
Kaufman, Gershen (1996). "The Psychology of Shame, 2nd Ed.," Springer Pub:NY.
LeGuin, Ursula K. “Those Who Walk Away from Omelas”.
Roemer, Kenneth M. “The Talking Porcupine Liberates Utopia: Le Guin’s ‘Omelas’ as pretext to the
Dance”. Utopian Studies. Vol. 2, No. ½ (1991), pp. 6-18. www.jstor.org/stable/20719020.