31 pages • 1 hour read
Ernest HemingwayA Day's Wait
Fiction | Short Story | Adult | Published in 1933A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Symbols & Motifs
Temperature and Thermometers
The thermometer is a critical plot device in “A Day’s Wait.” Schatz doesn’t understand the difference between Celsius and Fahrenheit measurements, and this misunderstanding leads him to believe that he’s dying. Schatz’s understanding of temperature is based on Celsius. Using Celsius measurements, a temperature of 44 degrees or higher would indicate rapidly approaching death. In Fahrenheit measurements, this number is 111 degrees.
However, the thermometer serves other figurative roles in this work. First, it symbolizes Papa’s role as a caregiver. He’s the one taking Schatz’s temperature and tracking it. He’s the one to worry when it keeps rising, causing him to lie to Schatz about his temperature. Additionally, the thermometer symbolizes Papa’s struggle to acknowledge his son’s maturity. Schatz is fully capable of taking his own temperature, but the people around him insist on babying him. This refusal to accept Schatz’s growing maturity contributes to his misunderstanding and consequent emotional turmoil.
Howard Pyle’s Book of Pirates
The Book of Pirates serves multiple functions in “A Day’s Wait.” First, it symbolizes miscommunication. Papa reads the story to Schatz in an effort to comfort the boy and hopes it will lull him to sleep. Meanwhile, Schatz tells Papa that he can read if he wants to. Schatz feels that the reading is comforting his father, though he’s rather disinterested in the book.
However, Hemingway specifically references this book by both title and author, indicating a reason for this choice: The book also symbolizes the masculine ideals that both Schatz and his father try to emulate. While many books might be more useful for soothing a child to sleep, Papa chooses an illustrated work full of adventures and swashbuckling pirates. These are the role models that Schatz is trying to emulate, and they help explain why he’s so focused on being self-reliant.
Death
Although not always directly stated, death hangs over the story like a shroud. In the simplest terms, death is the vehicle that drives the plot. At the heart of the first miscommunication in the story is Schatz’s fear that he’s dying because his temperature is too high. Although Schatz’s illness isn’t serious at this point, the doctor alludes to conditions that would make Schatz’s illness more serious and possibly lead to death. This leads Papa to be concerned enough about Schatz’s rising temperature to lie about it.
The hunting scene, in particular, demonstrates that death is close at hand. Although the conditions are poor, Papa manages to kill two quail. He’s even rather happy about the possibility of killing more at a later date. It’s an interesting dichotomy, in which Schatz, fearing death, seeks comfort from his father, and his father, seeking comfort, deals death to the quail.
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By Ernest Hemingway
