The Gambler, the Nun, and the Radio is a short story by Ernest Hemingway, which appears in The Snows of Kilimanjaro. The original title was "Give us a Prescription, Doctor", first published in his 1933 collection of short stories Winner Take Nothing.
Plot summary
The story takes place in a hospital, run by a convent. The story focuses around a Mexican gambler named Cayetano, who was shot in a small town in Montana, a nun who aspires to be a saint and prays for everything or anything, and a writer named Mr. Frazer, who is ill, and constantly listens to the radio. To ease Cayetano's loneliness, the nun gets three Mexican musicians to come play for the people. One of the three musicians suggests that religion is the opium of the people, and distracts them from their ignorance. Frazer then tells how all people need opium to keep them from suffering too much. The nun had prayer, the doctors had humour, Cayetano had gambling and now the music of the three, and Frazer had his radio.
The story has themes of religion vs reality, compassion and social consciousness.
Mr. Frazer’s frame of mind is basically that of the modern humanitarian consciousness. The original title of the story, ‘Give Us a Prescription, Doctor,’ is a kind of secular prayer for all that the story encompasses, a plea for the plight of modern man. Mr. Frazer has not lost all faith; he has been appalled by his self-enforced attempt to see what his world looks like without any form of hope. He has compassion for those whom the revolution would operate on without an anesthetic. The prayer is ‘Give Us a Prescription, Doctor.’ In our era of multiple crises and almost instantaneous communication, who has not at times thrown up his hands in frustration?”
Image
A young nun quietly gathering flowers in the nunnery garden on a sunny day. From “Longfellow Pictures” by Herbert Dicksee, Miss M Dicksee and J Finnemore. Published by Ernest Nister, London and printed by E Nister in Nuremberg, Bavaria, 1891.
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