In the Name of God Deconstructing A Day’s Wait: Binary Opposition Azam Rahimi 9118112 Department of English Language and Literature, Faculty of Letters and Humanities, Shahid Chamran University Jacques Derrida’s theory of deconstruction on reading a text claims on the existing of binary opposition; by this he means that for each center an opposing center exists. This concept has been already confirmed by western philosophers, but Derrida objects them in the case they believe that one concept is privileged and superior to the other.
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Instead, he says that the oppositions can be reversed and one could be privileged to the other or vice versa, depending on their ideas and world views. This would result in a variety of new interpretations of a text here to for unseen by those who are limited to the restraints of western thoughts. Hemingway’s short story A Day’s Wait seems to posses some binary opposition. The story is about a boy of nine year who has a fever of one hundred and two Fahrenheit, but he thinks that his temperature is one hundred and two centigrade.
Therefore he is convinced that he is dying, but his father explains him the difference between Fahrenheit and centigrade and the boy feels better. The concept of misunderstanding creates the opposition in the text. This essay intends to consider some of the binary oppositions within the story and explain the possibilities of different interpretations. According to the happenings of the story, the title A Day’s Wait seems to have binary opposition in itself.
On the one hand, you are waiting for the day to finish as you have done your daily works and want to start a new day with new ideas and hopes. On the other hand, you are waiting for the day to finish and then die. The theme of time is quite clear in the title. As we go through the story, we see that it plays an important role at the heart of the story. By reading the text, one might interpret that the boy naturally fears to face death, where he is “looking at the foot of the bed, looking very strangely”; while in some parts he shows courage to face death.
Hemingway states this concept when the boy says “I’m taking it easy” or “I’m not worry”. Another opposition appears when the boy considers death as a matter of no importance where he is “detached from what was going on”, while he is crying “very easily at little things that were” unimportant. But we must be careful that according to the point of view of the story, these are the father’s ideas. In his view death is a crucial and serious occurrence while the things that the boy is crying for are of no importance; this might be quite vice versa for a boy of nine years.
One other type of binary opposition can be found in father’s eyes when he describes his son detached from what is happening as though he does not care of his fever, while in another part he sees the boy gazing on the foot of the bed and not sleeping or when he does not let anyone to enter his room because something worries him. This may create a contradictory view in father’s view to his son. The binary oppositions go on throughout the story. For example, the way that the boy interprets his father’s words and actions is completely in contrast to his father’s ideas, i. e. ather says some words for his son’s relief, but they cause his grief. This could be seen where the father asks his son to sleep but the boy thinks that he bothers his father. So, he suggests him to go out if it makes him feel sad. But what happens at the end of the story is that the father’s words and explanations give his son a sort of relief so that we see “his gaze at the foot of the bed relaxed slowly. ” By more focusing on the story, another type of binary opposition would be found in the story which is inserted to the main story, when the father goes out for hunting.
The descriptions given of the bare trees, bushes, etc, imply the concept of despair and hopelessness; but the father’s view seems quite different. Although he fell twice because the land is covered with ice, it causes the quails to fly suddenly and he could see and hunt them and he is hopeful that he could continue his hunting in the following days. As we can see, the coincidence of two opposite concept of hope and despair exists in which one might not be superior to the other.
According to what considered, A Day’s Wait consists of some binary opposition like courage vs. fear, hope vs. despair, attention to death vs. not influenced by death, etc. such opposition in a short story, with a limited time of one day, implies that our daily life if filled with the opposition and contrasts, in which one that seems privileged for us might be inferior for another person. In Hemingway’s short story, various views to the words and concept cause the characters and the reader to have different interpretations.
This might be called misunderstanding or a real understanding; any way, both of them are two kinds of interpretations which have their very features. That is exactly what we must consider when reading a text according to Derrida’s theory of reading. Works cited: Ali Rezai, Abbas: oral reproduction of stories(1) . Tehran: The Organization for Composing University Textbooks in the Humanities(SAMT), 2009 Bressler, Charles E: Literary Criticism. New Jersy:Pearson Education, Inc, 2007
