Ernest Hemingway’s short story ‘A Day’s Wait’ is about a nine-year-old boy who wakes up one morning with a fever. The boy’s father calls a doctor, who takes the boy’s temperature. It’s 102 Degrees so the doctor diagnoses Influenza. The boy, who has been to school in France, doesn’t know the difference between Fahrenheit and Centigrade. He believes that he will certainly die with a temperature of 102 degrees. At his school in France the boys had told him that the normal temperature was 37 degrees and that nobody could survive with 44 degrees. Being scared of dying, he doesn’t talk abput that with his father. Waiting all day he manages to stay calm and keep himself under control. He takes his medicine, but refuses to sleep. The father, finding his behaviour a little strange, doesn’t realize what is troubling his son. He even leaves him alone in the house and goes hunting for a while. In the evening he finally finds out about the boy’s suffering and explains the misunderstanding.
The story, containing little action, is mainly based on the conversation between father and son. The misunderstanding between them is simple and trivial but it contains tragic elements. The boy is fond of his father and faces his imminent death with heroic indifference. Obviously the father is a loving one but he is unable to understand his son’s suffering.
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