I think this story is one of the most complicated stories in the book. Actually the plot itself is quite clear...But on the other hand, I think every reader has such a thought in his head, "Is there any plot?” Because as for the action, then there is no action here. But still, one idea which is continued during the whole tale is quite horrible, tragic and disgusting to some extent. We see only one scene here: the Greek women who hold their dead babies and don’t want to give them to anyone. There are many other objects and images that make us feel the dirty atmosphere, like, for example, dead animals, shouting Greeks, dirt on the ground. These are the symbols of such a nightmare as the war and all the inhumanity that it usually wakes up in people. I think the theme of the war is really interesting for the author, and this is not a surprise. In every story he describes some events: before, during or after the war. So the story "On the Quai at Smyrna” isn’t an exception. The war is something that always breaks one’s hopes and dreams. This is something that makes a huge gap in one’s life. This is something that destroys one’s life. This is something that spoils people so much.
But I can’t understand the aim of the story. It’s not necessary to show people that the war can spoil them because it’s a revealed fact. To show these anguish and grief again… I think it’s strange to concentrate your mind only on this side of life.
(by Luck)
The story "On the Quai at Smyrna” is the cruelest and the most savage one I read in the collection "In our times”. I think that this short story shows the whole mood of the book. Hemingway captures the horrors of war, yet he renders the small details and the attitudes of those who witnessed the tragedies at the Turkish port. The narrator begins by saying that the strangest thing is that "they" screamed every night at midnight when they were on the pier. It is something terrible in this sentence that makes the whole atmosphere oppressive and depressing. As the narrator watches people be evacuated, some women are giving birth on the pier, who represent hope for the future and some women are protecting dead babies. These women would not let go of them, up to six days at a time. Finally he describes the Greeks as "nice chaps". He described how they murdered their baggage animals when they evacuated: they broke the mules' forelegs and pushed them into the shallow water. The narrator sarcastically calls this a "pleasant business". I don’t like the story, but it really made a great impression on me.
(by Ayayulia)
