The setting of Ernest Hemingway's story "The Gambler, the
Nun, and the Radio," a hospital, is central to the theme of life as injurious illusion.
In order to distract themselves from their awareness of the illusionary quality of life,
the writer listens to the radio, the nun prays and wishes for sainthood, and the
gambler, who admits to being "a poor idealist," who is a "victim of illusions," bets on
cards, hoping for luck.
As he sits in his room listening to
the Mexicans playing music, that music
which has the sinister lightness and defness of
so many of the tunes men have gone to die
to,
Mr. Frazer thinks about
what "opiums" there are that people use to cope with life. And, he decides that
revolution is no opium; rather, it is
a catharsis, an ecstacy which can only be
prolonged by tyranny. The opiums come before and
after.
For, while revolution
purges the soul in an emotional release, unleashing conscious conflicts, one either dies
from it, or he must return to the former condition of illusionary life, a condition that
demands again another opium. Frazer decides stoically that after the Mexicans leave, he
will have his opium, tequilla, and play the radio so that he can hardly hear his
desperate thoughts about life's illusions. He will endure as the others suffer with him
in the hospital.
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