Oh, the oppressive heat!

Hemingway wrote Hills Like White Elephants in order to show how hostile an environment had been created surrounding women out of wedlock having babies.  In the short story, his main feature was the setting he created, that of Spain in the heat of summer at a non-descript, remote train station.  The characters dealt with the heat by moving around and eventually to the inside of a bar and by drinking alcohol.  Constantly, Hemingway narrated or put in the mouths of his characters how severely hot the day was.

What was the point of creating such a setting?  It was, of course, to depict a hostile, harsh, and forbidding environment.  The station was located at a crossroads, which symbolized the crossroads of a decision by the pregnant woman on whether to have an abortion or not.  But, the setting overpowers the decision so as to show the harsh sentiment of society that drives the woman to opt for abortion.

As I write this blog at midnight the night has only cooled from 106 degrees during the day to a mere 92 degrees.  It's really, really hot.  There has been no rain in a month, the humidity is low, the grass in the yards is burning, turning green to brown.  The forecast offers only more 106 degree, rain-free days.  I think I am a character in Hemingway's short story.

My next thought was whether the deep heat was some symbol as to what was going on around me (as if I were a character in this story).  I think so, society has changed so much, but its values have taken a rather flat track in many areas such as religion, education, interpretive history, and political policy.  The device that has changed our way of doing business is again about to change our way of communicating altogether.  Everything we see on screens, which are monitors mounted on a device for the moment, will now be moving as the person moves, that is, untethered visuals.

Such a change is as monumental as the young woman opting for abortion in Hemingway's era.  Our values conflict with changes that must take place, away from incumbent methods of how to interact with the environment and each other.  The current environment is harsh for moving in that direction.  But people will have to deal with it.  It's not going away.  What's the answer?  The same one that the woman made.  She was driven to make a decision that progress allowed her to take.  We'll make the same one.  To fight it will be to die in the too oppressive heat.