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Autumn Lala

ENGL 3000

James Schmidt

25 Oct. 2017

Drinking in Short Fiction

In the third edition of The Broadview Anthology of Short Fiction, our class has read nine

stories thus far. Three out of these nine stories utilize drinking in one manner or another. Though

I have not read the full anthology, I am positive I would discover more than these three

examples. In order of appearance and reading, the three stories I am referring to are: Cask of

Amontillado published in 1846 by Edgar Allan Poe, Hills Like White Elephants published in

1927 by Ernest Hemingway, and Cathedral published in 1983 by Raymond Carver.

Publications that are not themed typically reject pieces with similar themes, motifs, or plots when

they have already accepted one piece, so it cannot be coincidence that these pieces appear

together. Additionally, upon listing these stories and their publishing dates, I realized the

drinking motif has continued through decades and centuries of short story writing. I am certain

this also occurs in other forms of writing, however, in this short essay, I will dissect how these

stories incorporate drinking to better understand its literary appeal. After all, it is no careless

mistake that this technique pervades thirty percent of the stories we have read in this one

anthology so far.

In the first story, Cask of Amontillado by Edgar Allan Poe, the narrator, Montresor, is

irreversibly slighted by his friend, Fortunato, and seeks revenge. In this way, Montresor enforces

alcohol as both a driving force and a sedative. As a driving force, Montresor manipulates

Fortunatos weakness for wine to bribe him into the vaults, starting with: My dear Fortunato,
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you are luckily met I have received a pipe of what passes for Amontillado, and I have my

doubts (Levine 22). Amontillado is supposedly a rare vintage, and mentioning one to a man

who pride[s] himself on his connoisseurship in wine would surely motivate him to authenticate

it for himself (Levine 22). While alcohol is the driving force in Montresors plan toward revenge,

alcohol is also used as a sedative to push Fortunato forward. Before Montresor even reaches

Fortunato, Montresor notes upon their embrace that Fortunato had been drinking much (Levine

22). However, Montresor exacerbates Fortunatos inebriated state by encouraging that he drink

more within the vaults to chase away the cold:

a draught of this Medoc will defend us from the damps.

Here I knocked off the neck of a bottle which I drew from a long row of its

fellows that lay upon the mold.

Drink, I said, presenting him the wine. (24)

Montresor continues to encourage Fortunato to drink until they reach a specific crypt, and

Montresor shoves him inside, binding him with chains attached to the interior wall, before

sealing the only entrance and exit off with brick and mortar. Fortunato sobers up as Montresor

buries him alive in nitre-loaded catacombs and mentions the Amontillado one final time. While

alcohol was incorporated within Cask of Amontillado as a driving force and sedative, in Ernest

Hemingways Hills Like White Elephants, alcohol was used for avoidance.

Hills Like White Elephants is the story of an American man and a woman waiting to

take a train in Spain so the woman can receive an abortion. Their state of their relationship is

revealed throughout the tense dialogue, tense because of the way alcohol is used as a scapegoat

for confronting their issues. The beginning of the story begins with the girl asking, What should

we drink? in order to avoid speaking of anything else (144). This is immediately illustrated
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when the man responds with a comment about the weather and she hastily returns with, Lets

drink beer, to bypass even talk of the quotidian nature. However, as always, the tension rises to

the surface, yet in the most unexpected of ways. While waiting, the woman states that the hills

look like white elephants, but the man is not amused by her comment as she had been. When she

asked if her comment was bright, he agreed, but she followed up by saying, I wanted to try this

new drink. Thats all we do, isnt it look at things and try new drinks? (145). When she speaks

of the hills again to explain what she saw, highlighting the differences in their literal

perspectives, the man changes the subject by asking, Should we have another drink? They

discuss the beer for a moment before diving back into the issues with their relationship (whether

they will be all right, be happy, and if the abortion is the right decision), before she asks him to

please please please please please please please stop talking (145-147). When this does not

work, she tells him that shell scream, escalating the conversation to another tension. They do not

speak until their waitress returns, informing them that their train will arrive in five minutes, and

the man departs to move their bags. Instead, the man stops to drink and the bar and the woman

continues to drink at their table, avoiding each other once more with alcohol as the star.

Similar to Hills Like White Elephants, Raymond Carvers short story, Cathedral, also

weaves alcohol throughout his narrative. The story itself takes place during a single evening,

where a blind man named Robert visits a couple for a time after Roberts wife passes. Narrated

from the husbands point of view, the wifes name is never mentioned, but we receive plenty of

information regarding the wifes history and her long-standing friendship with Robert. During

this chunk of backstory, readers see alcohol for the first time when he reveals that the wife tried

to kill herself decades ago with pills and gin (252). This was before they met and married, when

she was with another man, but later on when they were courting, the wife shared her audio tapes
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(letters, truly) she received from Robert with him and he fixes them drinks (253). In the present,

before the wife leaves to pick up Robert from the airport, the husband drinks; he continues to

drink while he waits for her to return (253-254). Then, after Robert arrives, all three drink

heavily throughout dinner and the night ahead (255-258). Unlike Cask of Amontillado and

Hills Like White Elephants, alcohol in Cathedral is not implemented as a tool for avoidance,

as a sedative, or as a driving force. At its first mention, alcohol is certainly used in a malicious

manner, but throughout the rest of the narrative, it is used casually or socially. It carries readers

through the story, connecting each piece like a thread, akin to a through line. A through line is a

constant in your story the throughline is there to maintain your readers attentions and to pull

them through the story (Lamb 1). When discussing the story in class, we paid close attention to

the recurring drinking. So while alcohol was not actively used within Cathedral, its

implementation acted as a thread and connected the scenes.

Often times, objects are hailed as symbols in stories, but alcohol in Poes Cask of

Amontillado, Hemingways Hills Like White Elephants, and Carvers Cathedral acted as its

own literary device due to its constant implementation. In poetry, patterns are determined in

cases of three, and these three stories only make only a third of those we have read within The

Broadview Anthology of Short Fiction. If I read the entire book, I have no doubt I would find

other examples. However, I initially questioned why this anthology would include three stories

with drinking as a central component when it was not themed. But because of this class and its

assignments, I have realized that drinking in literature is a more common motif than I have ever

noticed, and after this brief analysis, I have also discovered how versatile it can be as well.
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Works Cited

Lamb, Nancy. What is the Throughline of a Novel? (And Why Its Important You Have One).

Writers Digest, 28 Aug. 2012. Web. Accessed 1 Nov. 2017.

Levine, Sara, et al., editors. The Broadview Anthology of Short Fiction. 3rd ed., Broadview Press,

2013. Print.