Student Question

In which season does the story "A Day's Wait" take place?

Quick answer:

The story "A Day's Wait" takes place in winter. Clues include a flu epidemic, which typically occurs in late fall or winter, and descriptions of the environment such as frozen sleet, bare trees, ice-covered brush, and a frozen creek.

Expert Answers

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The short story "A Day's Wait" by Ernest Hemingway tells of a serious misunderstanding when a nine-year-old boy develops a fever. His father sends him to bed and calls for a doctor to come visit. The doctor says that he has a temperature of 102 degrees but that there is nothing to worry about unless it goes a few degrees higher. The boy becomes severely depressed and the father cannot at first figure out why. The father goes out to hunt quail, and when he comes back, he has a talk with his son. It turns out that, throughout the day, the boy has been convinced that he was going to die. He came to this conclusion because he went to school in France, where they use a different type of thermometer. When the boy hears that he is not about to die after all, he is relieved and is able to fall asleep, but the next day he is highly emotional.

There are different clues in the story that the season that the story takes place in is winter. First of all, the doctor says there is a light epidemic of flu, and flu epidemics usually take place in late fall or winter. Additionally, when the father goes out to hunt, the ground is covered with frozen sleet, the trees are bare of leaves, the brush is covered with mounds of ice, and a creek that the dog walks on is frozen. All of these are specific indications that the story happens in winter.

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