Short Fiction · Chapter
A Story Which Will Never Be Finished explained
A man awakens to find his wife informing him that barricades are being built on their street.
What happens
A man awakens to find his wife informing him that barricades are being built on their street. They share a profound, transformative moment as they prepare to join the revolutionary uprising, grappling with their roles as parents and partners. The husband leaves his family to take up arms, while his wife plans to follow the next day, having been radically changed by the call of freedom and the new era.
Themes in this chapter
Freedom and Imprisonment
The characters experience a profound liberation from their past lives, with the wife describing the falling walls as creating a sense of spaciousness, width, and freedom, contrasting with the old, stifling existence.
Death and Mortality
The chapter is suffused with the awareness of potential death, as the husband and wife discuss the possibility of being killed, and the oldest child asks if his father will be killed, highlighting the stakes of the revolution.
Characters to notice
- The Woman
The narrator's wife, who undergoes a radical transformation from a mother focused on her children to a revolutionary comrade, driven by the sounds of the barricades and a newfound sense of freedom.
- The Oldest Child
The nine-year-old son who is awake and aware of the situation, asking his father if he will take his gun and if he will be killed, showing a premature understanding of the revolution.
Key passages
“Suddenly my wife aroused me. In her hand a candle was flickering, which appeared to me in the middle of the night as bright as the sun. And behind the candle her chin, too, was trembling, and enormous, unfamiliar dark eyes stared motionlessly. "Do you know," she said, "do you know they are building barricades on our street?"”
The narrator is abruptly woken by his wife, who holds a candle that seems blindingly bright. Her chin quivers and her eyes look strange and unfamiliar as she tells him that barricades are being erected on their street.
This moment establishes the central event of the chapter and the wife's transformed demeanor, signaling the onset of the revolution.
“"People have such a holiday once in a hundred years, and you want to deprive me of it. Why?" she said.”
The wife argues that the revolution is a rare and celebratory event, and she resists being kept from participating in it.
This quote encapsulates the wife's fervent desire to join the uprising, viewing it as a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for liberation.
“"There is no such thing as time. Who are you? I did not know you. Are you a human being?"”
The narrator declares that time has ceased to exist, and he questions the identity of his wife, marveling at her newfound humanity.
This reflects the surreal, transformative nature of the revolutionary moment, where ordinary perceptions of reality are suspended.