A Canary for One: Hemingway's Unspoken Divorce - Audiobook - video Dailymotion

Gates of Imagination

Dive deep into Ernest Hemingway's "A Canary for One," a masterclass in his famous "Iceberg Theory" of writing. This short story from the collection Men Without Women appears, on the surface, to be a simple account of three Americans traveling by train to Paris. A talkative, older American woman dominates the conversation, sharing her rigid views on marriage and her heartbreak over her daughter's broken engagement to a "foreigner." However, beneath this seemingly mundane dialogue, Hemingway masterfully constructs a powerful narrative of emotional distance, cultural prejudice, and a marriage that is silently falling apart.  Through the quiet, observational narration of the unnamed husband, the story subtly reveals the profound disconnection between him and his wife. Their silence and detached interactions stand in stark contrast to the older woman’s monologue about love and family. The story’s power lies in its final, devastating line, which re-contextualizes the entire journey and the couple's strained relationship. This seemingly trivial conversation on a train becomes a metaphor for a marriage—and perhaps an entire generation—post-World War I, struggling with a sense of disillusionment and loss.  In this audiobook summary and analysis, we will explore:  Hemingway's "Iceberg Theory" and its application in the story.  The themes of divorce, emotional isolation, and the fragility of marriage.  The symbolism of the canary and the train journey itself.  The irony of the older woman's nationalist views on marriage.  The historical context of the story and its connection to Hemingway's own life.  This is a must-listen for anyone interested in classic American literature, short story analysis, and the unique style of one of the 20th century's most influential writers.

Transcript

00:00Gates of Imagination presents A Canary for One by Ernest Hemingway

00:06Read by Jacob Rivers

00:08The train passed very quickly a long redstone house with a garden and four thick palm trees

00:16with tables under them in the shade. On the other side was the sea. Then there was a cutting

00:23through redstone and clay, and the sea was only occasionally and far below against rocks.

00:29I bought him in Palermo, the American lady said. We only had an hour ashore, and it was Sunday

00:35morning. The man wanted to be paid in dollars, and I gave him a dollar and a half. He really sings

00:41very beautifully. It was very hot in the train, and it was very hot in the lit salon compartment.

00:48There was no breeze came through the open window. The American lady pulled the window blind down,

00:54and there was no more sea, even occasionally. On the other side there was glass, then the

00:59corridor, then an open window, and outside the window were dusty trees and an oiled road

01:05and flat fields of grapes with graystone hills behind them. There was smoke from many tall

01:11chimneys, coming into Marseille, and the train slowed down and followed one track through many

01:16others into the station. The train stayed 25 minutes in the station at Marseille, and the

01:22American lady bought a copy of the Daily Mail and a half bottle of Evian water. She walked a little

01:27way along the station platform, but she stayed near the steps of the car because at Cannes, where it

01:33stopped for 12 minutes, the train had left with no signal of departure, and she had only gotten on

01:38just in time. The American lady was a little deaf, and she was afraid that perhaps signals of

01:44departure were given and that she did not hear them. The train left the station in Marseille, and there

01:49was not only the switch yards and the factory smoke, but, looking back, the town of Marseille and the

01:54harbor with stone hills behind it and the last of the sun on the water. As it was getting dark, the train

02:00passed a farmhouse burning in a field. Motor cars were stopped along the road, and bedding and things

02:06from inside the farmhouse were spread in the field. Many people were watching the house burn. After it was

02:12dark, the train was in Avignon. People got on and off. At the newsstand, Frenchmen returning to Paris

02:20bought that day's French papers. On the station platform were black soldiers. They wore brown

02:27uniforms and were tall and their faces shone, close under the electric light. Their faces were very black

02:34and they were too tall to stare. The train left Avignon station with the black standing there.

02:42A short white sergeant was with them. Inside the lit salon compartment, the porter had pulled down the

02:48three beds from inside the wall and prepared them for sleeping. In the night, the American lady lay

02:55without sleeping because the train was a rapide and went very fast, and she was afraid of the speed in the

03:01night. The American lady's bed was the one next to the window. The canary from Palermo, a cloth spread

03:09over his cage, was out of the draft in the corridor that went into the compartment washroom. There was a

03:15blue light outside the compartment, and all night the train went very fast and the American lady lay awake

03:21and waited for a wreck. In the morning, the train was near Paris, and after the American lady had come out

03:27from the washroom, looking very wholesome and middle-aged and American in spite of not having slept,

03:33and had taken the cloth off the birdcage and hung the cage in the sun, she went back to the restaurant

03:38car for breakfast. When she came back to the lit salon compartment again, the beds had been pushed back

03:45into the wall and made into seats. The canary was shaking his feathers in the sunlight that came through

03:51the open window, and the train was much nearer Paris. He loves the sun, the American lady said. He'll sing now

04:00in a little while. The canary shook his feathers and pecked into them. I've always loved birds, the American lady

04:08said. I'm taking him home to my little girl. There, he's singing now. The canary chirped, and the feathers on his

04:17throat stood out. Then he dropped his bill and pecked into his feathers again. The train crossed a river

04:23and passed through a very carefully tended forest. The train passed through many outside of Paris towns.

04:31There were tramcars in the towns, and big advertisements for the belles jardinières and

04:36Dubonnet and Pernod on the walls toward the train. All that the train passed through looked as though it

04:42were before breakfast. For several minutes, I had not listened to the American lady who was talking

04:47to my wife. Is your husband American too? asked the lady. Yes, said my wife. We're both Americans.

04:58I thought you were English. Oh, no. Perhaps that was because I wore braces, I said. I had started to say

05:07suspenders and changed it to braces in the mouth to keep my English character. The American lady did

05:13not hear. She was really quite deaf. She read lips, and I had not looked toward her. I had looked out

05:21of the window. She went on talking to my wife. I'm so glad you're Americans. American men make the best

05:30husbands, the American lady was saying. That was why we left the continent, you know. My daughter fell in love

05:38with a man in Vevey. She stopped. They were simply madly in love. She stopped again. I took her away, of course.

05:49Did she get over it? asked my wife.

05:52I don't think so, said the American lady. She wouldn't eat anything, and she wouldn't sleep at all.

06:00I've tried so very hard, but she doesn't seem to take an interest in anything.

06:04She doesn't care about things. I couldn't have her marrying a foreigner.

06:10She paused. Someone, a very good friend, told me once.

06:15No foreigner can make an American girl a good husband.

06:20No, said my wife. I suppose not.

06:25The American lady admired my wife's traveling coat, and it turned out that the American lady

06:31had bought her own clothes for twenty years now from the same Maison de Couturier in the Rue Saint-Honoré.

06:38They had her measurements, and a vendeuse who knew her and her taste picked the dresses out for her,

06:43and they were sent to America. They came to the post office near where she lived uptown in New York,

06:49and the duty was never exorbitant because they opened the dresses there in the post office to

06:54appraise them, and they were always very simple looking and with no gold lace nor ornaments that

06:59would make the dresses look expensive. Before the present vendeuse, named Thérèse, there had been

07:05another vendeuse, named Amélie. Altogether, there had only been these two in the twenty years.

07:11It had always been the same couturier. Prices, however, had gone up. The exchange, though,

07:19equalized that. They had her daughter's measurements now, too. She was grown up,

07:24and there was not much chance of their changing now. The train was now coming into Paris.

07:30The fortifications were leveled, but grass had not grown. There were many cars standing on tracks,

07:36brown wooden restaurant cars and brown wooden sleeping cars that would go to Italy at five o'clock

07:42that night, if that train still left at five. The cars were marked Paris-Rome, and cars with seats on

07:50the roofs that went back and forth to the suburbs with, at certain hours, people in all the seats

07:57and on the roofs. If that were the way, it were still done. And passing were the white walls and

08:04many windows of houses. Nothing had eaten any breakfast. Americans make the best husbands,

08:11the American lady said to my wife. I was getting down the bags. American men are the only men in the

08:18world to marry. How long ago did you leave Vevey? asked my wife. Two years ago this fall. It's her,

08:27you know, that I'm taking the canary to. Was the man your daughter was in love with a Swiss?

08:34Yes, said the American lady. He was from a very good family in Vevey. He was going to be an engineer.

08:41They met there in Vevey. They used to go on long walks together.

08:44I know Vevey, said my wife. We were there on our honeymoon. Were you really? That must have been

08:54lovely. I had no idea, of course, that she'd fall in love with him. It was a very lovely place,

09:01said my wife. Yes, said the American lady. Isn't it lovely? Where did you stop there?

09:08We stayed at the Trois Couronnes, said my wife. It's such a fine old hotel, said the American lady.

09:17Yes, said my wife. We had a very fine room, and in the fall the country was lovely.

09:23Were you there in the fall? Yes, said my wife. We were passing three cars that had been in a wreck.

09:30They were splintered open and the roof sagged in. Look, I said, there's been a wreck.

09:37The American lady looked and saw the last car. I was afraid of just that all night, she said.

09:45I have terrific presentiments about things sometimes. I'll never travel on a repeat again

09:51at night. There must be other comfortable trains that don't go so fast.

09:56Then the train was in the dark of the Gare de Lyons, and then stopped and porters came up to the

10:02windows. I handed bags through the windows, and we were out on the dim longness of the platform,

10:09and the American lady put herself in charge of one of three men from Cook's who said,

10:14Just a moment, madam, and I'll look for your name.

10:18The porter brought a truck and piled on the baggage, and my wife said goodbye, and I said goodbye to the

10:24American lady, whose name had been found by the man from Cook's on a typewritten page in a

10:30sheaf of typewritten pages, which he replaced in his pocket. We followed the porter with the

10:35truck down the long cement platform beside the train. At the end was a gate, and a man took the

10:40tickets. We were returning to Paris to set up separate residences.

10:45Thank you so much for listening to this audiobook. If you enjoyed the story, feel free to like,

10:54subscribe, and explore the channel for more captivating tales. See you in the next recording.

A Canary for One: Hemingway's Unspoken Divorce - Audiobook

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