Title
"A Study in Pain": Musical Variations and Ernest Hemingway’s "The Gambler, the Nun, and the Radio"
Document Type
Essay
Annotation
Analyzes the story’s experimental structure and thematic treatment of pain considering the musical concept of variations, a popular contemporary genre emphasizing differing perspectives of the same musical idea. Camastra reads the ending as fairly optimistic with Frazer able to tune out his anxieties about the future by listening to the radio. Concludes that the structure of variations enabled Hemingway to revisit important themes of his canon such as courage, resiliency, and vocational identity.
Published in
American Short Story
Date
2015
Pages
99-113
COinS
Citation
Camastra, Nicole J. “‘A Study in Pain’: Musical Variations and Ernest Hemingway’s ‘The Gambler, the Nun, and the Radio.’” In American Short Story, edited by Michael Cocchiarale and Scott Emmert, 99-113. Ipswich, MA: Salem Press, 2015.