The Doctor's Wife

The short story “The Doctor and The Doctor’s Wife” tells a story of a group of indian men working for a doctor to cut washed up logs. The opening paragraph explains the background of the working men and what they plan to do. After finding the washed up logs the men come to an argument of who the logs belong to. Does the story reinforce troubled times the Native-Americans had to endure during the colonial period, or does it relay the trouble men had to go through to take care of their families? We argue that the tensions between the Native-Americans and the white men are quite high. The major tension in this story is between the doctor and Dick, the man from the indian camp. The doctor needs wood to keep the camp and his family warm. He came across several logs that had washed ashore and were buried in sand, indicating they had been there for sometime. The doctor doesn’t think the logs belong to anyone since they have been lying in the sand for quite awhile. He thinks the wood is up for grabs and that anyone may claim it. Later on in the story we come to find out that Dick owed the doctor “lots” of money and that Dick thought …show more content…
Dick knew he owed the doctor a lump sum of money and that he must pay it off. However, Dick was a man of integrity and knew that taking the wood was unethical and illegal. He knew that even if it meant not paying off his debt it would be the right thing to do. On the other hand, the doctor had no care for who the wood actually belonged to because it had been ashore for so long. He also had his wife and son in mind. The doctor’s wife says, “I don’t think, I really don’t think that anyone would really do a thing like that,” referring to Dick thinking this would be enough to pay his debt off (Hemingway). Also, while the doctor is having this conversation with his wife he is cleaning off his shotgun, portraying the anger he has behind the