THE MYSTERY BEHIND THE DEATH OF AN INDIAN HUSBAND AND HEMINGWAY’S STYLE


Author: Chihiro

A first-year student at the University of Tsukuba

This article was granted permission for publication on February 10, 2023


What struck me most when I first read the work was about the death of the Indian husband, as many students were. There has been a lot of controversy about the mystery: the argument by Mayers that it was an Indian cusom for the husband to simulate his wife’s birth, or the argument that he was protesting imperialistic behavior in that his wife’s birth was interrupted by the whites. But I was not satisfied with any of them.


From here, I would like to discuss my own thoughts on the death of the Indian husband through this class. In the team discussion about my husband’s death in class, we heard various opinions, but everyone was critical of their own opinions as well. Everyone could understand the feelings of wanting to die, but they could not give sufficient reasons for the actual act of dying. My conclusion is that there is more than one reason for the act of suicide. The Indian husband was mentally trapped by several factors that led him to make the decision to commit suicide.


"He had cut his foot very badly with an ax three days before. He was smoking a pipe. The room smelled very bad."


As this sentence indicates, the husband was psychologically tortured. He had to stay in bed for three days while his wife suffered, and during that time he heard her screams. Cigarettes have a calming effect as well as an intoxicating effect, like a kind of drug. He was not just lying there, but he was dazed by the effects of the cigarettes. He was injured, kept hearing his wife’s screams, felt helpless and unable to accept the complexities of the situation, and was unable to make appropriate decisions. He finally committed suicide to escape from reality.


Thus I have come to my own conclusion to the greatest mystery of the work, the death of the Indian husband, but I am sure not everyone will be 100% convinced. Hemingway’s style of writing is a series of short sentences, and there is no waste at all. This is both the matter and the charm of the style. It is a text that can be interpreted in many ways, like a Japanese haiku or a kind of poetry. In short, through this class, I realized the attraction of Hemingway’s writing, which gives mystery and curiosity to those who read it.


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