A Canary for One by Ernest Hemingway
"A Canary for One" is a short story by Ernest Hemingway that features a journey on an overnight train to Paris, involving an unnamed middle-aged American woman and a younger couple. The older woman dominates the conversation with her musings on marriage and her daughter's romantic past, revealing her strong belief that only American men can be suitable husbands. Her daughter, who had once fallen in love with a Swiss man during a family vacation in Vevey, has been left heartbroken after the mother insisted they return to the U.S., preventing the marriage.
Throughout the journey, the younger woman's participation in the conversation is limited, often responding ambiguously, while her husband remains largely silent, reflecting a sense of detachment. As the story unfolds, it becomes clear that the young couple is returning to Paris for the first time since the war, and underlying themes of loss and change emerge. The narrative concludes with a poignant twist, as the young husband reveals their purpose for returning: to initiate their divorce, contrasting the romantic backdrop of Paris with their personal crisis. This story encapsulates themes of love, regret, and the impact of societal and personal choices on relationships.
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A Canary for One by Ernest Hemingway
First published: 1927
Type of plot: Psychological
Time of work: The 1920's
Locale: A train en route to Paris
Principal Characters:
The woman , a rich American from upstate New YorkThe narrator and his wife , Americans in their late twenties
The Story
Three unnamed Americans—a middle-aged woman and a younger couple—travel together on an overnight train to Paris. The older woman fears that the speed of modern transit will produce wrecks; she does most of the talking. Although she does not mention her absent husband, who apparently is home with their daughter, she continually asserts that only American men make "good husbands" for American women. Her main concern is for the marriage of her own daughter. Two years earlier, while the family was vacationing at Vevey, Switzerland, her daughter had fallen madly in love with a Swiss gentleman of good family and prospects, and the two had wanted to marry. The mother, however, refusing to let her daughter marry a foreigner, had forced her family to depart for the United States. Now, she tells the American couple, her daughter is still devastated by the affair; to cheer her despondent daughter, the mother has purchased a caged, singing canary.
Only the wife of the young couple participates in the conversation, giving only vague or ambiguous responses, particularly to the question of "good" American husbands. Only once does she extend the conversation by asking directly if the daughter has recovered from her lost love. She also volunteers the information that she and her husband once honeymooned one fall in Vevey; they had lived in Paris for several years before "the Great European War" forced them out. They are now returning to Paris for the first time since the war.
The young husband, who speaks aloud only once, seems satisfied to be isolated from the women's conversation. Almost incidentally the reader discovers that he is the first-person narrator of the story, for he steadfastly looks out the train windows during the journey. He reports in such a flat, unemotional tone that the reader almost forgets that he is a character in the story until the last sentence of the story. Only as the train is pulling into Paris does he wonder whether even trivial points of existence have remained the same after the war. As the train enters the station, he finally reveals the truth of his condition and the point of the story: He and his wife have returned to Paris, the city of light and love, to begin their divorce.
Bibliography
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