• Freedom vs.

Family
-both the man and the girl are accustomed to a
free, uncommitted lifestyle.
-When the man looks at their combined
luggage, it is covered with “labels…from all the
hotels where they had spent nights.”
-The man is firm in his conviction that this
pregnancy is “the only thing that’s made us
unhappy”.
• Man, woman and relationship
- The man and girl represent stereotypes of
male and female roles: the male as active and
the female as passive.
- The man makes the decisions and the female
complies.
- He wants the girl to seek an abortion in order
to maintain the freedom he enjoys, but he
wants it to be her decision.
• Choices
- crucial decision the couple is trying to make:
whether or not to have an abortion.
- The man made the decision and try to
convince the girl to undergo the operation as
much as he can.
- The girl surrenders her own freedom of choice
by agreeing to the procedure as she hopes
that doing so will restore the man’s love for
her.
• The word “abortion”
-never used throughout the story, but it is obvious
early to the reader that a man is persuading a
woman named Jig to undergo the procedure.
- Jig does not want the operation, but the man
ignores her subtle hints.
- He pretends to be concerned with her thoughts
and tries to diminish the difficult operation she is
about to undergo, but he is actually more
concerned with his own happiness.
• Courage to face challenges
-In this story, Jig is the courageous one.
- She is willing to call the situation what it is, to
speak out, if sarcastically, about their shallow
relationship. “That’s all we do isn’t it—look at
things and try new drinks?”
- It seems that she is brave enough to go
through with the pregnancy while he is too
selfish and afraid, “But I don’t want anybody
but you. I don’t want anyone else.”
- He cannot face up to the change and
challenge that life brings them.
• Guiltiness
- Travelling away from her town.
- The guilt a woman experiences before and
after the operation can potentially alter her
personality forever.
- When a woman has an abortion, only her
companion and possibly her closest friends
and family will know of the abortion.
- She is afraid that if the public knows she had
an abortion, she will be known as a baby killer.
• Taken for granted
-Jig seemed to have a low self-esteem and the
man used her emotional weakness to his
advantage.
- He knew that she was in love with him and that
she would do anything to satisfy him. He
promises her love and happiness while
discussing the abortion; and when she tries to
change the subject, he becomes angry with her
and uninterested with her conversation.
• Cheating
-Maybe the man had a wife and that Jig did not
know he was married.
-The story referred to the man as "The American",
and Jig's nationality was never revealed.
-The man might travelled quite often and that he
had impregnated a woman when he was away from
home.
- Most probably he would leave the abortion clinic
while Jig had her abortion and she would return to
an empty lobby and never see him again.
• Isolation and estrangement
- settings: desolate train station, halfway
between Barcelona and Madrid, seemingly in
the middle of nowhere.
- Estrangement: English-speaking characters in
Spain, a “foreign” country
- The two are literally strangers in the country.
- further isolates the couple by sitting them
outside of the bar, on the platform by
themselves.