“History of a Disturbance” is a story that takes shape into a long message to the narrator’s wife. In the message he clarifies his “vow” of silence, a vow to do without speaking completely and remain in the world of perception. Throughout the text, the narrator gradually becomes aggravated by the uncertainty of thoughtfulness, such as the word love:
But you said, “Do you love me?,” which seemed to require me to understand those words and no others, to think what they might exactly mean. Because they might have meant, Do you still love me as much as you once did even though I know you do, or Isn’t it wonderful to sit here and whisper together like teen-agers on the dark porch, while people are in the bright living room, talking and laughing, or Do you feel this rush of tender feeling which is rising in me, as I sit here, on this porch, at night, in summer, at the Polinzanos’ barbecue, or Do you love everything I am and do, or only some things, and if so, which ones; and it seemed to me that that single word, “love,” was trying to compress within itself a multitude of meanings, was trying to take many precise and separate feelings and crush them into a single mushy mass, which I was being asked to hold in my hands like a big sticky ball. Do you see what was happening? Do you see what I’m trying to say?” (Millhauser 99).
In this quote, the narrator takes a deeper interpretation into the meaning of love. He picks apart the word, precisely covering the meaning and what it could possibly mean.
The irony of the story is that the author can only express his experience through words. If this irony was deliberate or not, that is a question only the author can answer. The story delivers in a creative way the simple point that words and symbols guide our appreciation and in doing so limit our point of view. Symbols assist us to foist organization on an otherwise disorderly reality, but this means blocking out the chaos. Symbolization involves the process of absorption, which leads us to forgetting details and forming generalizations. At the same time, the narrator becomes engrossed in a world of details and dislikes the enforcement of identifications and classifications.