English Post #2: Better Left Unsaid? You Be The Judge!

Do you think direct narration is better than indirect narration? Please, be the judge!

I am going to be ERNEST in todays blog post as I attempt to put Hemingway to shame, proving that he was in fact a fool in believing that indirect narration is superior to direct narration. I will select a passage from his short story, (if it even deserves to be called a story) "Hills Like White Elephants". Specifically, I will use the passage beginning from the third paragraph where they begin their conversation about the white elephants because not much happens here, and I want to show how the story may be very different from how it seems when told using indirect narration. To decide what to write about I came up with back stories for the characters that make sense with Hemingway's version but wouldn't be a conclusion you would come to without the details provided from direct narration. I told the reader about the characters thoughts and motivations to do this.

The waitress walked through the bamboo beads carrying two beers. 

"Ay! No es saludable tomar alcohol cuando estas emperezada," She thought in spanish as she set down the beers in front of the American man and the pregnant, Serbian woman. 

She stood there for a moment admiring the American man's pants but quickly left the couple.

The couple continued thinking about how the girl was getting an abortion. The girl looked off into the hills. 

"Пышные вехи уши вот ыщий дыры," she thought. 

English was her second language so sometimes she and the man had miscommunications. Right now she was angry that the man wanted her to have an abortion. She knew it was because he wanted to get rid if her but she couldn't bring herself to realize it. She wanted to make him mad. He always hated when she would make mundane observations about their surroundings. 

"They look like white elephants," she said, in a thick Serbian accent. 

"I've never seen one," said Hugo, trying to keep his cool. 

Hugo was getting really tire of his latest mistress. He had been with her for over six months and she was starting to bore him. Hugo was born in 1895 to a wealthy arms manufacturer in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. As an adult he ran and expanded his father's arms empire, lobbying the government for more wars and military contracts. Now in his fifties Hugo was only working part time, running his company from around the world. Hugo was a rich and powerful man, but if Olga kept the baby and his wife found out she would be off with half his money. Hugo couldn't have this. 

"Just one more week of putting up with this woman and it'll be over with," he thought. "After the abortion I'll send her back to Serbia and I'll never see her again."

But, Hugo was wrong about this. He would pay for his sinister ways. He would reap the whirlwind of this scorned woman. He would feel remorse, as he peered into the Olga's cold, black eyes, a blade deep into his chest.

In due time, Olga. In due time.

-DP