A Canary for One

"A Canary for One" is a short story by Ernest Hemingway. The short story was first published in Scribner's Magazine April 1927.[1][2][3][4] It was republished in Men Without Women (1927), The Fifth Column and the First Forty-Nine Stories (1961) and The Complete Short Stories of Ernest Hemingway (1987).

Ernest Hemingway with his second wife in 1927, shortly after divorcing his first

Plot

Three Americans, a young married couple and an older woman, are traveling on a train from the French riviera to Paris. The older woman is portrayed by the narrator as hard of hearing and anxious, uncomfortable on the fast-moving train. She is delighted by a canary she bought in Sicily. The narrator also observes several disasters the train passes, such as a fire and a train wreck. Halfway through the story, the narrator reveals himself to be the young husband, absentmindedly listening in on the older woman’s conversation with his wife. After finding out that they are American, the older woman lectures the couple numerous times that Americans make the only good husbands. She bought the canary for her still-heartbroken daughter, whom she prevented from marrying a Swiss man two years ago. As they exit the train, it is revealed that the American couple traveled to Paris to finalize a divorce.

Development

Hemingway began writing the first drafts of "A Canary for One" in September 1926.[2]

References
  1. "A Canary for One". www.goodreads.com. Goodreads. Retrieved 2020-04-17.
  2. Justice, Hilary K. "Courting Exposure: The Composition of Hemingway's "A Canary for One"". ResearchGate. Retrieved 2020-07-16.
  3. Hemingway, Ernest. "A Canary for One". OCLC 613269374. Retrieved 2020-04-17.
  4. Scott Donaldson. "Preparing for the End: Hemingway's Revisions of "A Canary for One"". Johns Hopkins University Press. Retrieved 2020-07-16.
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