Ruarhy Outlaw's short story "Death by Spanish Name" uses what Ernest Hemingway calls "direct and honest prose about human beings." Outlaw also uses what Hemingway calls "every sensory detail" in telling this story.
             The story is told in first person, and the setting appeals to the reader's sense of sight, smell, and touch. It takes place in a hospital that is not air conditioned, and the reader is aware of the terrible heat that the narrator and the other characters are enduring. As Jorge Carillo lies dead, only the narrator is aware of it because Jorge's respirator contiunes to operate even though Jorge has died. None of the staff at the hospital notices that Jorge has past away. Not even his wife Marlene notices.
             Because the narrator is aware that Jorge is dead, he must decide what to do. At first he wants to tell the nurses so that he "canpt just let him lie here like road kill." If he can tell the nurses in Jorge's hot, smelly ward, then Ru, the narrator, will not have to tell Marlene himself that Jorge is dead.
             But then the narrator decides that no one should tell Marlene that her husband is dead. When Mr. Sanchez's oxygen tank is discovered to be empty by one of the nurses, Marlene begins to cry. "If I thought they'd let my husband rot like that poor old man I don't know what I'd do." At this point the narrator knows that its best for Marlene to think Jorge is still alive.
             The writer uses the heat in the hospital to utlize the sense of touch. He also uses the bad smells to utlilze the sense of smell. He describes the ugly walls and the dirty floor to use visuals to tell the story. Like Hemmingway says, Outlaw uses sensory details to tell this story.
             The writer does a great job of putting the reader into the story. The reader feels their own body sweating with the heat. Because the sensory details are so good the reader knows that this story will stick in their mind. I will think ...