Literary Analysis
“There’s a Man in the Habit of Hitting Me on the Head with an Umbrella”
Fernando Sorrentino
This story by Fernando Sorrentino is short, sweet, and at first glance, potentially absurd. To picture a man, with no physiological needs, hitting a man on the head for 5 years is absurd.
How can something so ludicrous possibly be real, which begs the question is the man with the umbrella actually real, or just a figment of his imagination, or something else entirely?

This story begs many questions, most of which are never answered by Sorrentino. It is obvious after reading this, that it is not just a story about a strange man hitting another man over the head with an umbrella. There aren’t many people I know who would grow accustomed to someone constantly hitting them in the head. Early on in life we are told if someone is doing something to piss you off, pretend its not bothering you, and eventually they will admit defeat and leave you alone. Soon after this strange man starts “automatically” and “impassively” hitting this other man on the head, he has to endure a “terrific punch in the face”. Safe to say if he were just hitting him with his umbrella to piss this random stranger off, he had succeeded.
But this theory is quashed in the opening paragraph, when the narrator says “it is five years to the day since he began hitting me on the head with his umbrella”. No man would go to such lengths to piss off a random stranger, at least not an ordinary man.

Another potential possibility is that the man with the umbrella is actually the narrators conscience. Conscience while not being something you can see, is something people know is there, and is believed to be real. It has been established that this man can’t be real, not in the way one considers something to be real. But if you think of the nature of reality, if someone imagines