A Very Short Story

Free indirect discourse is a style of writing that makes a character’s internal thoughts evident by embedding them within the narration, rather than expressing them via dialogue. It was Ernest Hemingway’s preferred style of third-person perspective, allowing him to express a character’s innermost thoughts while still maintaining narrative authority, as those thoughts were mediated by his own narrative perspective. For example, when the soldier is under anesthesia, he is “holding tight on to himself so he would not blab about anything during the silly, talky time” (Paragraph 2). In this way, the reader is privy to the thoughts and anxieties of the soldier, but those thoughts are not expressed through speech. “A Very Short Story” also uses this narrative technique to express the feelings of multiple characters at the same time: “They wanted to get married, but there was not enough time for the banns, and neither of them had birth certificates. They felt as though they were married, but they wanted everyone to know about it” (Paragraph 3). In this passage, the narrator maintains his authoritative perspective, while simultaneously providing insight into both the soldier and Luz’s thoughts and feelings about marriage.