Nobody Ever Dies
“The Complete Short Stories of Earnest Hemingway” contains many kinds of stories, with themes ranging from the comic to the serious and the macabre, among which “Nobody Ever Dies” is my favorite one.
The story is about a young man named Enrique, who had been away at war for 15 months. His comrades-in-arms secretly sent him back to a house, without knowing it was being watched.
Enrique was all the time listening. Someone was trying the two doors. Keeping himself out of sight, Enrique carefully looked around the house. There was no one but a Negro walking along the sidewalk. When the dark came, the Negro was still there. Suddenly, a siren on the radio from the next house gave him a false alarm. Soon afterwards, two stones fell on the tiling floor of the porch one after the other. Enrique went downstairs to the back door.
The one outside gave the password correctly, and Enrique opened the door. It was his girlfriend Maria. She had waited until it was dark to come to send him food. Enrique shut the door again. They went up to the porch and looked out. The Negro was gone.
Maria learned from Enrique that many soldiers had died, including Vicente, her only brother and the flower of their party. She couldn’t accept it. Enrique finished his meal and talked about the lessons he had learned from the war and his attitude toward his companions’ sacrifice. But she said he talked like a book with a dry heart. Enrique was hurt and showed her the severe wound on his lower back. She cried. Enrique suggested their leaving the house immediately.
Just then, two real sirens came both ways up the street. Enrique ordered Maria to leave at once, but she insisted he should go first. Finally, they ran out of the back door and took two ways, diving into the weeds surrounding the lot and crawling.
Enrique was almost to the edge of the lot now and must make a dash across the road. But as he started to run, the searchlight caught him, which was from the police car that had come silently, without siren, and posted itself at one back corner of the lot. Enrique fell to the gun from the car.
“Donde esta mi mami?” Enrique cries, over and over where is my mom?” (Nazario 5). Enrique repeats these words again and again as his mother leaves headed for the U.S. These words represent the depth of abandonment Enrique felt and shows the effect Lourdes's choice had on her family. This one, difficult decision to leave her family for money, will destroy her family. As readers, we witness how this hard decision could have been the wrong one as the helpless, five-year-old would have to live without her. Lourdes starts to feel guilty about her decision and just reminds herself, that this sacrifice was necessary and her children will understand this. Tragically, Enrique doesn't understand what he did to make his mother leave. Enrique and Lourdes both suffer from this decision, as Lourdes greatly misses her children, and Enrique desperately misses his
The push-and-pull factors in Enrique’s yearn for the U.S not only allows him to rediscover himself as an individual in a world of uncertainty, it also eliminates his constant fear of failing as a promising human being; in addition exhibits the undying hope of a desperate man found in hopeful migrants. In Sonia Nazario’s “Enrique’s Journey,” his mother’s trip streamed “emptiness” into the heart of a once comfortable child and left him to “struggle” to hold memories they shared. Enrique’s life after Lourdes’ departure triggered the traumatizing demise of his identity. He threw this broken identity away while facing many obstacles, nevertheless each endea...
Like many other migrants, Enrique had many troubles with his mother too. When Enrique first arrived to the U.S., Enrique and his mother’s relationship was going well. Lourdes was proud of Enrique for finding a job as a painter and sander. Lourdes would always brag to her friends that Enrique is her son and that he’s big and a miracle. However, Enrique starts going to a pool hall without asking Lourdes’s permission which makes her upset. Enrique often yells obscenities and mother tells him not to, but Enrique tells Lourdes that nobody can change who he is.
Sarah and her mother are sought out by the French Police after an order goes out to arrest all French Jews. When Sarah’s little brother starts to feel the pressures of social injustice, he turns to his sister for guidance. Michel did not want to go with the French Police, so he asks Sarah to help him hide in their secret cupboard. Sarah does this because she loves Michel and does not want him to be discriminated against. Sarah, her mother, and her father get arrested for being Jewish and are taken to a concentration camp just outside their hometown. Sarah thinks Michel, her beloved brother, will be safe. She says, “Yes, he’d be safe there. She was sure of it. The girl murmured his name and laid her palm flat on the wooden panel. I’ll come back for you later. I promise” (Rosnay 9). During this time of inequality, where the French were removing Sarah and her mother just because they were Jewish, Sarah’s brother asked her for help. Sarah promised her brother she would be back for him and helped him escape his impending arrest. Sarah’s brother believed her because he looks up to her and loves her. As the story continues, when Sarah falls ill and is in pain, she also turns to her father for comfort, “at one point she had been sick, bringing up bile, moaning in pain. She had felt her father’s hand upon her, comforting her” (Rosnay 55).
The emotional letter that Juan left for his mother might be one of the most emotional scenes in the documentary. The pure emotions that the letter was written by Juan to her mother leaves the audience with the bonds and emotions felt between the kids and families. Juan Carlos’s father abandoned the family years ago and left to New York, consequently Juan believe it is his responsibility to provide for his family. He also wants to find his father in New York and confronts him about why he has forgotten about them. The story of Juan is not just about migration of children, but also the issue of family separation. The documentary does not dehumanize but rather bring the humane and sensitive lens to the story of Juan where the human drama that these young immigrants and their families live. Juan Carlos is not the first of Esmeralda’s sons to leave for the United states, his nine-year-old brother Francisco was smuggled into California one month earlier. Francisco now lives with Gloria, his grandmother, who paid a smuggler $3,500 to bring him to Los Angeles, California. Once Juan Carlos is in the shelter for child migrants his mother eagerly awaits him outside. After she sees him she signs a paper that says if Juan Carlos tries to travel again, he will be sent to a foster home.
The two went their separate ways and 15 minutes later they were in the patrol car, and on their way, leading the way for the two other police cars behind them.
However, living in America for too long will affect his life with Maria Isabel and Jasmin. Another quote from the novel portrays Enrique’s trepidation if he does not return to Honduras,”If they live apart for too long, Enrique fears, Maria Isabel will find someone else...Jasmin won’t embrace him as her father,”(Nazario 234) From the time Jasmin was born she never saw her father, because he left her before she was born. This displays how desperate Enrique wants to be accepted by his daughter ,but the only thing he can do is to call and send her gifts to show his affection towards her as a father. Enriques wants to become a family with Maria Isabel and Jasmin both whom he love tremendously. He feels discomfort that the longer they are apart then sooner Maria Isabel will move on with another man and Jasmin will accept that man as her father. This leaves Enrique with a difficult decision to stay with the woman who gave birth to him or return back to his lover and
When the protagonist, Maria, understands first-hand the struggle that she must endure when her family forces her to pay for her sister’s baby’s care without being able to enjoy any of the money she worked hard for. Maria starts to work for Javier, a representative of the cartel that attempts to smuggle drugs into the United States for money. She needed to swallow pellets of heroin that were to be well wrapped. It was a struggle for Maria to consume sixty-two pellets at first and it was difficult for her to endure her trip with the pellets inside of her belly, knowing that there was a risk that the pellets could open up and kill her quickly and painfully. Lucy, one of the women on board the flight that Maria was on, had a pellet rupture inside of her upon her arrival to New York. She died shortly after meeting with the drug
In The Heath Anthology of American Literature, Volume II. Edited by Paul Lauter et al. Lexington, MA: D.C. Heath and Company, 1991: 1208-1209. Hemingway, Ernest. A.
knock at the door and Mr. White answered it to let the man in. His name was
And she also was angry with her maid, because her maid was Latino also. But one night when Jean fell of the stairs and was hospitalized at home, her close friends and husband did not have time to stay with her, and did not seem to care, while her maid was there for her and even stayed overnight to take care of her. So, when Jean saw that she started to understand that she should not have judged her maid by her race, and regretted for her bad attitude toward her maid and gave her a big apology hug.
" The Hemingway Review. 15.1 (Fall 1995): p. 27. Literature Resource Center -.
The Cambridge Companion to Ernest Hemingway; edited by Scott Donaldson; Cambridge U. P.; New York, NY; 1996
Hemingway has a very simple and straightforward writing style however his story lacks emotion. He makes the reader figure out the characters’ feelings by using dialogue. “...
Baker, Sheridan. "Hemingway?s Two-Hearted River." The Short Stories of Ernest Hemingway: Critical Essays. Ed. Jackson, J. Benson. Durham: Duke UP, 1975. 158.