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Vignette Number One

Decent Essays
Shot Someone The vignette, “Vignette Number One” (1925) was written by Ernest Hemingway (1899-1961), an American Nobel Prize winning author. A vignette is a brief description about an event. The vignette was told by an omniscient narrator, and took place in early 1920’s Chicago at two in the morning. The speaker was telling the story in past tense and the speaker was near the scene. The main idea of this vignette is a person will judge others based on nationality. At two A.M. a cigar store was robbed by two Hungarians in Chicago at Fifteenth Street and Grand Avenue. The two policemen, Drevitts and Boyle came up to the cigar store from the Fifteenth police station; they drove a Ford. The Hungarians began to back out their wagon out of an alley…show more content…
The Fifteenth Street police of Chicago were most likely altered about the robbery. Boyle is the main character of the vignette and lied about his reasoning for shooting the two Hungarians. Although the Hungarians were thieves, they did not deserve such a harsh punishment. Boyle attempted to convince his partner that the men were crooks. Drevitts understood Boyle’s excuse and agreed that the shooting was necessary. The real reason why Boyle shot the two men was because he thought they were wops, a derogatory name for Italians. He killed them because he was prejudice towards Italian people. Hemingway named the Irish policeman Boyle because it showed how he was filled with hate and pain. He was Irish and generalized all Italians by thinking they were all wops and that they did not deserve to live. Boyle thought no one would care that they were dead, all because of their religion, and his generalization about Italians. He was wrong about them being Italian, but thought because there was a robbery it had to be Italians. Something must have happened in his life to make him be filled with hatred towards a whole race. He let his previous experiences dictate the rest of his life. He was wrong about the race of the thieves but believed it must be Italians if there was a crime. The cop was aware that his reason for killing two men was unacceptable but he did it anyway
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