"There is a certain relief in change, even though it be from bad to worse!"
-Washington Irving
Imagine, a young boy sitting quietly in bed, obsessing with the grim fact that the apparition of death is looming over his head, searching for new victims to take as his own. This is a near accurate description of Schatz, the miserable, nine years old protagonist in Ernest Hemingway's "A Day's Wait'. In the story, Schatz catches the flu, and must stay in bed and rest. However, though he appears calm and collected on the outside, he is actually nervous on the inside, distressed by the possibility of his premature demise. Although Schatz thought he was going to die and was worried in the beginning, he figured out in the end that he was going to survive, and was relieved.
Initially, the gullible character Schatz fears his untimely death, glutting his mind with worry. When Schatz comes to know that he has a 102 degrees F fever, fear strikes. When he was in France, his friends told him that that you will die from a 44 degrees C fever. Schatz makes the foolish mistake of mixing up the Celsius and Fahrenheit and reaches the conclusion that his end is near. Furthermore, in order to ause of something. As you can see, Schatz was very worried about his supposed early departure this proves my point that he is worried, the author has written,"His face was very white and there were dark areas under his eyes. He lay still in bed and seemed very detached from what was going on.... he was looking at the foot of the bed very strangely." This shows that Schatz is worried because those are the signs that are shown when a person is deeply disturbed or stressed.
Towards the end, the the previously worried child, Schatz, was relieved to find out that the end was not near. When Schatz tells his father why he looked nervous, his father clears his false thinking by saying that the thermometer in France on a different scale than on the one where he lives. As it is written by the author, “But his gaze at the foot of the bed relaxed slowly. The hold over himself relaxed too, finally, and the next day it was very slack and he cried very easily at little things of no importance.” I can infer from this quote that the stress took its toll on poor Schatz, but he hid all his feeling to try to act brave. When he found out that he was nowhere near dying, he was relieved, which caused this to feel many types of emotions. It is like blowing a balloon and then popping it. Just like the balloon, Schatz was filled with pressure (worry).
Overall, in the beginning although he thought he was going to pass away and was paranoid towards the end Schatz realized he wasn't going to die and became relaxed. As you can see Schatz, at first was worried according to his mood throughout that part and then towards the you can tell he became relieved after the relaxing look in his eyes. Now you now the boy who was sitting in his bed without a word frightened actually had nothing to be afraid about.
