What implications are being made by the man being called "the man" and the woman being called "Jig?"

William Delaney

Hemingway's style of telling this story places the reader in the role of an
eavesdropper. The reader only knows what he can see and overhear. This has sometimes been called
the fly-on-the-wall perspective. It eliminates mostand gets right into the dramatic conflict.
There would be no benefit in our knowing the man's name or the girl's name. We only know her
nickname is Jig because the man calls her Jig. If Hemingway thought it was important for the man
to have a name, he might have had the girl call him John or Bob--or whatever. Since there is
only one man in the entire story, it is not necessary to have him identified by name. There are
two women, so one is identified both as "the girl" and as "Jig," while the
waitress is "the woman."

There is something very
"modern" about this way of telling a story. We live in a world in which we see
thousands of people who are complete strangers. We see many incidents which we don't understand
and while will never be explained to us. We...

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