The story is really about a clash of cultures. The doctor was white and delivered the baby but really didn't care about the horrible pain the mother was feeling. He was so detached that he barely noticed it. The woman's husband, an Indian, identified strongly with his wife and her physical pain. He finally could not stand the to see and feel her in such pain. So he killed himself to kill to kill the pain he felt coming from his wife. Hemingway is contrasting how the two cultures reacted to pain in another human being. The white doctor is all busineess, and although he saves his patient and her baby, he is insensitive to her plight. The husband is so in tune with his wife that he takes his own life because her pain is so unbearable.