The text under analysis is an extract from A Canary for One written by an outstanding American writer, a master of 20th century short story Ernest Hemingway, mostly well known for his laconic style of writing, but in most cases it suggest a lot of symbols.
We cant put it into the matter of plot structure, but we may suggest that plot is rather simple. The story is told by third person, and we can say the author is observer. The author makes use of the short and simple sentences.
The narration in this extract is about the American lady on a journey across Europe, and travelling by train she bought a canary in Palermo. There is no description of her in this passage except she was a little deaf but her behavior in train station creates impression of her as fallible, weak and sometimes deceptive. There is an implication of that her traveling in train which resembles the life stream itself.
We can see the whole system of images created here the image of train, road, burning farmhouse, crowds of people Being the master of creating symbols, Hemingway depicts train as the symbol of humans life that goes through different events and surroundings, people and difficulties. On its way train passes pleasant places like red stone house with a garden and four sick palm trees with tables under them in the shade, which may be associated with parents and home, as well as the sea associated with placidity and insouciance. But this impression is non-durable as the sea was only occasionally and far below against rocks. That flash of cheerfulness disturbed by sleepy atmosphere of gloomy hot day, dusty trees and oiled road gray stone hills behind the flat fields of grapes. Here the image of incertitude appears, when the childhood past quickly and hard, autonomous life with its severities and troubles begins, and that is what the switchyards and factory smoke may symbolize. The atmosphere is restless and gloomy, pessimistic. With help of no epithets he makes us feel hopeless: there was the last of the sun on the water. .it was getting dark.
The theme of this extract and as we may guess of the whole story, is our stream of life. Here we can see even the conflict: the person against life consequents. The burning farmhouse symbolizes the tragedies and hardships which everyone has and had throughout his life.
And we should notice that the war theme comes through all Hemingways novels, and we can find it even in this short story, here train comes through negro soldiers on the stage platform, illuminated with the electric light. We may guess that for Hemingway they symbolize the war itself and as we know he took part in hostilities, was a soldier so this theme was very important for him.
The title A Canary for One covers the message the life itself is gray so we should try to find something positive in order to live through it with happiness, and has symbolic sense as canary associated with a small but very important, irreplaceable thing that lighten everyones life and makes it more or less colorable.
To my mind this extract is a good example of Hemingways writing skill. I'm certainly impressed by it.
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