27 pages • 54 minutes read
Ernest HemingwayA Very Short Story
Fiction | Short Story | Adult | Published in 1924A 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
Letters
In Ernest Hemingway’s “A Very Short Story,” the motif of letters is used to trace the emotional connection between the soldier and Luz. The exchange of letters highlights that distance is a critical factor in their relationship, and that it affects the intimacy and quality of their communication. Letters first emerge as a motif as the soldier is sent to the front line. Luz sends 15 letters to the soldier. These letters become the sole means of communication between the lovers and hold emotional significance, especially for the soldier who, upon receipt of the letters at the same time, “sorted them by the dates and read them all straight through” (Paragraph 4). Initially the letters symbolize the couple’s hope for a future together and their love for one another, as Luz writes that it is “impossible to get along without him” (Paragraph 4). Yet the letters also accentuate the distance that exists between them and the difficulty in communicating with each other as they grow apart, emotionally and physically.
While letters initially serve as a means of communication and a source of comfort for both Luz and the soldier, as time goes on and the emotional distance between them increases, Luz no longer writes many letters. She writes one more letter after the soldier returns to America, vastly different in tone and intimacy to her earlier letters, in which she breaks thing off with him and characterizes their relationship as a “boy and girl affair” (Paragraph 6). Luz also confesses her infidelity in the final letter, shattering the soldier’s earlier idealized view of love. The motif of letters, therefore, highlights the theme of Love and Loss in the story.
Darkness and Light
The shifts between darkness and light symbolize the story’s fluctuation between hope and love, and desolation and loss. As the story opens, the chimney swifts fly through a daylight sky, only to be replaced in the next sentence by searchlights that come out at night. The daylight represents the hope and happiness of the couple’s new relationship, while the fact it soon gives way to evening reflects the transitory nature of their love; the cycle of day and night echoes the cycle of Love and Loss that permeate the narrative. The searchlights also represent the dangers and uncertainties of war. They replace the beauty of natural light, shining artificial light into the darkness to provide a sense of safety, in this case, from an air attack.
The name of the main female character, Luz, is derived from lux—the Latin word for “light.” When the soldier is injured and in a metaphorical state of darkness, Luz comes to heal him both physically and spiritually as a force of love. Her light, however, like that symbolized by the daylight, must give way to the night and darkness, particularly as she refuses travel with the soldier to America. Thus, the light and hope provided by the couple’s relationship is soon extinguished.
Hospitals
The hospital in Hemingway’s “A Very Short Story” functions as a symbol of physical and emotional pain. The protagonist, a soldier, spends a significant amount of time in the hospital after being injured in war, and while recovering, his nurse, Luz, becomes his lover. The hospital comes to define the couple’s relationship; it represents the place where they meet, but Luz’s choice to continue working in a hospital also expedites their breakup.
Hospitals function as a microcosm of the war itself: They are places where strangers are pulled together and then torn apart, where loyalties and relationships are forged and fail, and the causalities that the hospital staff treats directly reflect the current fighting and battles. Hospitals enable some young men who have been injured and maimed to recover, but they are also places of death. The hospital plays a role in the metaphorical death of the soldier and Luz’s love when Luz chooses her work as a nurse over their relationship. Even when the soldier returns to America, though his physical body may be healed, the sickness he feels when he says goodbye to Luz in Milan remains.
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By Ernest Hemingway
