A Canary for One by Ernest Hemingway

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A canary for one by Ernest Hemingway (analysis) The story under the title "A Canary for One" was written by one of the most famous writers of the 20th century – Ernest Hemingway. The title of the story under analysis is quite suggestive. “A canary for one”. The indefinite article together with the word “one” stands for the idea that everybody is lonely and unhappy. “Canary”, or a bird in a cage is rather symbolic for the lack of independence and as a result imposed ostentatious happiness. The story begins with the description of the train going to Paris and the passengers in it. They are the main characters: the American lady with her canary, and a man with his wife. The couple is traveling to Paris with an old American woman in the same compartment. They have a common and easy conversation while the trip, and finally part reaching their destination. The couple is going to divorce. Now I’d like to pass on the theme and ideas of the story. The leading theme is connected with family relationships. In the story “A canary for one” the theme of happy marriage and the theme of tragic love are combined. Here we come across three main characters: the American lady who is returning home with a canary as a gift for her daughter whose love with a Swiss the American lady tragically broke, and the American couple who also is going to Paris in order to divorce there. There are several ideas in the story which help us to discover meaning of the story. First, The American lady doesn’t even try to understand her daughter’s desire to marry the foreigner. As for her belief that “Americans make best husbands”, she is too self-imposed. Second, the idea of semi-national marriage sounds absurdly, as the author shows us a perfect example of bad relationships between the American husband and wife, who are intended to divorce. The problem of this story is the marriage. We see the
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