Category: Ernest Hemingway

Introduction

Ernest Hemingway was a master of short, expressive prose. Moreover, he considered his best prose to be the story of a man who never gives up  Old Man and the Sea. The harmony of man and nature can be considered one of the main ideas in this work. The idea of a continuous connection between generations is also traced here in the example of the main characters.

Discussion

The main characters are the fisherman Santiago and the small boy Manolin. The boy adorns the loneliness of the fisherman and learned to fish from him. Manolin liked coming to Santiagos and talking to him about the sea or baseball. Santiago and Manolin are kindred spirits despite being from different generations. However, the connection between them is obvious and speaks of the inseparability of one thing. The older man is already at the end of his life, but the boy, Manolin, will continue his work. After all, he is a talented student and knows that he was born to be a fisherman, like Santiago.

When the old man pulled the skeleton of a large fish ashore, everyone was only surprised at such a miracle (Hemingway). Moreover, only Manolin understood everything and admired the courage of his older friend. Santiago likely remained an unsuccessful fisherman for other people because the fish could not be pulled out whole. Nevertheless, Manolin knew that difficulties did not defeat the older man. His spirit was not defeated. Moreover, he will still try to catch the fish of his dreams, and his student will.

Santiago and Manolins relationship does not change due to the storys premise because it only takes a few days over a short period. However, it becomes clear that the roles have changed as readers discover more about their past. When Manolin was first introduced, he had more of a mentor-apprentice relationship. It eventually developed into a caregiver relationship, with Manolin acting as the caretaker.

Conclusion

The absence of hate or resentment on either side of this shift is particularly significant. Santiago is not at all resentful of Manolin helping to take care of him. Ernest Hemingway shows that peoples essential deeds and talents do not disappear without a trace. Two generationsa man in his 80s and a boyrepresent the idea that life goes on and that respect for the elderly influences hope for the future, the drive to live, and the desire to achieve new heights.

Work Cited

Hemingway, Ernest. The Old Man and the Sea. Arrow Books, 1994.

The ways of how a persons psychological state and attitudes to everyday situations change in response to traumatic experiences, such as war or violence, have been an inspirational topic for multiple generations of writers. Soldiers Home, a short story by Ernest Hemingway, is an excellent example of works that reflect on psychological changes and issues following military service and the difficulties of reintegration into society (1).

First published more than ninety years ago, the short story is devoted to the struggles of Harold Krebs, a young man who has recently returned to Oklahoma, his native state, after serving in the First World War and participating in five battles (Hemingway 1). The story provides a detailed account of how an individuals everyday experiences and mental condition can change after returning from combat. It is particularly important that the author uses direct ways to convey messages or introduce facts and symbols to illustrate how war creates hundreds of emotionally broken people.

The short story in question opens a window into war veterans minds by developing the themes of fixation on the past and feeling underappreciated. After years of challenging experiences in five important battles, the protagonist seems to have an urgent need to tell others about his memories to get some attention and, probably, gain more respect from others (Hemingway 1).

The need to feel accepted and appreciated remains unfulfilled given Harolds actual life circumstances, and the character realizes that the post-war hysteria and the glorification of soldiers are almost over. Understanding that his town had heard too many atrocity stories to be thrilled by actualities and that his real stories can hardly impress anyone and instill profound respect for those participating in the war, Harold has to decorate his real memories with fictional details to avoid being taken for granted (Hemingway 1).

To his disappointment, other people were not thrilled by his stories even after hearing all the lies and fabricated details aimed at making Harolds experiences look more dramatic (Hemingway 1). Although desperately trying to demonstrate affection and asking him to tell her about the war, Harolds mother fails to listen closely, whereas his father does not play a significant role in his life (Hemingway 2). This lack of appreciation apparently causes Harolds psychological issues to grow.

To continue, the story in question effectively illustrates the reappraisal of values  a common problem that influences veterans ability to socialize and adapt to daily life during the peaceful time. Prior to becoming a soldier, Harold used to be quite similar to other boys of his age and was willing to pursue some standard goals, such as getting an education (Mahmood 362). Apart from explicit facts, there are some symbols to give hints about Harolds bygone potential for becoming an effective member of society in the future. Hemingway begins the story by describing the photo of Harold surrounded by other members of his fraternity, all of them wearing exactly the same height and style collar (1).

Looking similar to others may symbolize Harolds being on the same page with peers and society in general. However, the experience of suffering hardships during the war makes Harold indifferent to things that bother other men of his age in daily life, thus strengthening his apartness. For instance, even though he is still attracted to girls, Harold refuses to work towards building relationships with the opposite sex and do anything to develop mutual understanding with girls (Hemingway 3).

Thanks to his experience of serving in the Marine Forces, Harold understands that being single should never be a tragedy for a man, which makes him rather different from other young men that happen to be addicted to sexual relationships.

Hemingways work effectively proves that traumatic events can destroy young peoples essential curiosity, obsession with new experiences, and the ability to enjoy life. After returning home, the main character constantly demonstrates the signs of apathy, as well as indifference towards many things that he used to like. Even though he is still a young man who has multiple opportunities in life, Harold often behaves in a way that makes him similar to elderly people who are sure that life is over and emphasize the negative side of everything. As an example, Hemingway stresses that Harold had never been allowed to drive the family motor car before he left the family and joined the military forces (4).

After Harolds return, his mother observes his strange behaviors and finally understands that something special is needed to make him happier and more enthusiastic about life. Eventually, in an attempt to impress her son, she tells Harold that his father allows him to take the car out in the evenings if he wants it (Hemingway 3). Instead of gladness and excitement, her son makes a cynical comment to say that she must have urged the father to say it (Hemingway 4). With that in mind, the detrimental change is evident when it comes to the depth of Harolds emotional reactions to events that he used to desire before going to war.

Next, the story sheds light on certain disorientation that affects veterans after coming home from wars and encourages them to find ways to get distracted from memories and thoughts about traumatic events. After reuniting with his family in Oklahoma, Harold tries to find some new hobbies and eventually starts playing pool on a regular basis (Hemingway 2). Visiting the pool room becomes an essential part of his daily routine quite quickly, and Harold actually likes playing and polishing his skills (Hemingway 2).

On the one hand, his willingness to play the game on a daily basis is indicative of Harolds desperate attempts to recreate a sense of order in his life that has been destroyed by the war (Donehoo 40). This desire is understandable since the life of a soldier basically lacks order and regularity, and the risks of unexpected events are high all the time. There is an opinion that the very nature of the game and its rules could help Harold to change his way of thinking and finally regain order and return to normal life (Donehoo 40).

On the other hand, it is possible that Harold sees the game of pool as a good way to engage in intellectually challenging activities and, therefore, reduce the amount of time that he spends suffering from his destructive thoughts about the past.

The work by Hemingway is also interesting since it demonstrates that participation in armed conflicts affects peoples overall health. Harolds emotional and psychological problems after military service include a sort of emotional stupidity (he even tells his mother that he does not love her) and anxiety (Hemingway 6). The way of how Harold talks to his mother and answers questions that require him to be really delicate and polite may be indicative of some psychological deformations resulting from living in uncertainty during the war. After saying that he does not love his mother, Harold is urged to lie that he was just angry at something and did not mean that specific thing (Hemingway 7).

Another problem affecting his overall health is that he finds it difficult to set new goals to pursue, which is indicative of depressive moods. Much of what Harold experiences aligns with the common symptoms of depression and PTSD in veterans, but his problems do not seem to be taken seriously by others (Haynes et al. 235; Salam and Abualadas 100). In the absence of help from qualified professionals, Harold struggles to make his experiences meaningful and overcome fears by improving his knowledge and reading books on war history (Salam and Abualadas 100). Thus, it is possible to say that the story encourages society to recognize the need for special services and resources for veterans.

To sum it up, in Soldiers Home, Ernest Hemingway manages to demonstrate that the consequences of war trauma can reduce a persons ability to function in society to a large extent. In particular, the short story contains details that shed light on problems that are common among recently deployed veterans, such as the urgent need to feel safe and engage in particular activities on a daily basis to return to normal life as soon as possible. Reintegration can be extremely challenging for veterans, and the story about Harolds difficulties and attempts to do anything to relieve stress effectively supports the need for services to help veterans to transition back to civilian life.

Works Cited

Donehoo, Molly J. The Significance of the Game of Pool in Ernest Hemingways Soldiers Home. 2018. Georgia Southern University, Masters thesis. Web.

Haynes, Patricia L., et al. Cognitive Behavioral Social Rhythm Group Therapy for Veterans with Posttraumatic Stress Disorder, Depression, and Sleep Disturbance: Results from an Open Trial. Journal of Affective Disorders, vol. 192, 2016, pp. 234-243.

Hemingway, Ernest. Soldiers Home (1925). So Many Books. Web.

Mahmood, Snoor Ismael. After-Effect of War on Characters in Ernest Hemingways Soldiers Home and Katherine Mansfields The Fly. Journal of the University of Garmian, vol. 6, 2019, pp. 360-367. Web.

Salam, Wael, and Othman Abualadas. Trauma Theory: No Separate Peace for Ernest Hemingways Hard-Boiled Characters. International Journal of Applied Linguistics and English Literature, vol. 6, no. 7, 2017, pp. 97-102. Web.

Introduction

Hemingways The Soldiers Home is a story of a war veteran who faces the dilemma of choosing between being a welcomed member of his old social circle and staying true to his morals and ideals. When the books main character Krebs returns to his hometown, he is forced to deal with the fact that no one there accepts him for what he has become after the war. In his desperate attempt to get any sort of recognition, the protagonist gets himself deep in a web of sickening lies. As the plot unfolds, the moral burden grows more oppressive every day until Krebs cannot sustain the pressure anymore.

About the Author

The author, Ernest Hemingway, was born in Oak Park, a small town near Chicago on July 21, 1899. He was not only a prolific writer, but also a trendsetter and an influencer  his style had a significant impact on the literature of the 20^th century. In addition to producing many brilliant novels and short stories, and winning the Nobel Prize in 1954, Hemingway served his country in the First World War as an ambulance driver in the army. Similar to Krebs, his life after the war was far from smooth; it was ridden with danger and suffering and eventually ended when Ernest committed suicide in 1961.

Plot and Setting

The story begins when a young war veteran Krebs returns to his home town in Oklahoma in the summer of 1919. He does not get any recognition because people seemed to think it was rather ridiculous for Krebs to be getting back so late, years after the war was over (Hemingway, 1925, pp. 91). While at first, the lack of attention does not bother Krebs, who does not want to talk about the war anyway, when he changes his mind, it becomes a problem. To interest people in his stories, the protagonist has to lie, which gives him a distaste for everything that had happened to him in the war (Hemingway, 1925, pp. 92). Ultimately, the half-fictional stories do not excite anyone either, as there are already much more extreme ones.

As Krebs forfeits his attempts to gain attention, he begins to spend his days partaking in various forms of leisure activities. The protagonist notices that nothing about the town has changed from the time he left, except that the young girls had grown up (Hemingway, 1925, pp. 93). Despite liking the girls appearance, he does not want to become involved with them. He does not object to having a girl, but he hates the thought of what getting one would take, he does not want to lie anymore.

The final episode of this short story takes place in the kitchen, where Krebs sister Helen asks him to watch her play baseball that afternoon. After that, Krebs has a talk with their mother, at the end of which she asks, Dont you love your mother dear boy? to which he replies without thinking No (Hemingway, 1925, pp. 97). Realizing his mistake, he apologizes, and the mother prays for him before he leaves the house to see Helens game. The story ends with Krebs going to Kansas City to live a quiet life.

Characters

Krebs is the central character of this story; he is a young veteran tired of complications and seeking a simple life. Helen is Krebs favorite younger sister; she likes indoor baseball and thinks her brother is a hero. Krebs father never makes an appearance in the story; the author describes him as non-committal (Hemingway, 1925, pp. 92). Finally, Krebs religious mother tries to show interest in her sons war stories but is unable to give him her full attention.

Language, Tone, and Style

The story is written in Hemingways classic subtle, and understated style. It is so short that it feels like the author is talking to a friend, not writing a book. Following that, the tone of the narrative is also fairly relaxed and light, even though the characters life is far from trouble-free. The language is uncomplicated, and short sentences such as He sat on the front porch are common (Hemingway, 1925, pp. 94). However, the simple format does not impede the storytelling in any way, and the author manages to convey complex themes and emotions.

Themes and Symbols

The story contains four broad themes that overlap with each other. The most obvious is the theme of war and trauma, which is manifested through Krebs struggle to return to a normal life. Directly connected to this is the theme of suppression, which is seen in the way the story is written. The simple sentences like There was something else represent the Krebs difficulty expressing his feelings, by making the reader guess what the protagonist is feeling (Hemingway, 1925, pp. 93). The pictures described at the beginning of the story further symbolize the failure to create a lasting connection to the good memories of the heros past.

Perhaps the most profound theme of the story is lies that affected Krebs so much, despite being seemingly unimportant. The two lies told at the beginning of the story completely devalued Krebs memory of doing the one thing, the only thing for a man to do, easily and naturally. (Hemingway, 1925, pp. 92). By lying about the war, Krebs killed the only memory of a time when he acted like the man he aspired to be. He virtually destroyed the part of his personality that was keeping him strong.

Finally, the theme of gender is also portrayed in this work. The main character was supposed to be happy about the prospect of driving his fathers car, a symbol of ambition, and dating girls selected by his mother  an example of gender expectations (Trout, 2000). The way Krebs sees girls also reveals his views on women, which are themselves a symbol of conformity, shown to have almost no defining traits. To him, they are a good looking decoration, but he is strongly opposed to talking to them and getting to know them. Instead, he would keep seating at his porch and watching them walk; this symbolizes the characters lack of action in life. Interestingly, the author does not seem to condemn this attitude in any way.

Conclusion

The Soldiers Home is a short story with a plethora of implications. It is written in a manner that is simple yet powerful. Proving its greatness, this piece of literature covers themes that are relevant to this day in ways that do not feel too forced or too hidden. Along with Hemingways other stories, this brilliant work of art is definitely worth reading.

References

Hemingway, E. (1925). The Short Stories of Ernest Hemingway (pp. 91106). New York, NY: Simon and Schuster.

Trout, S. (2000). Where Do We Go From Here? Ernest Hemingways Soldiers Home and American Veterans of World War I. The Hemingway Review, 20(1), 5-21.

Concept “femininity”. Hemingway’s theory of omission

Over the last years, femininity along with masculinity have been widely discussed and defined. What do people understand from the term “femininity” is that it refers to “the distinctive ways of acting and feeling on the part of women” according to a Dictionary of Sociology from 1998. In this way, femininity is linked to women while masculinity is linked to men, but recent studies and researches tried to change these views and educate the people to avoid thinking anymore in binaries. Also, it is known that these two terms are clearly tied to our conception of gender which has evolved so much during the last years.

Characteristics as submissiveness, compassion, caring towards the others, elegance, fragility have been identified as feminine traits while competitiveness and power were defined as being masculine ones. However, time has shown that a woman can be as powerful and competitive as a man and, on the other part, men can take care of the others or be as sensitive as women are. Sexes are divided by nature, but not by gender as nowadays many people identify themselves as genderless and even nature is not unchangeable taking into account the fact that monthly around the world are born intersex people who are not anymore male or female, but both . Also, a new form of gender has evolved being called “asexual”, a term which is defined and analyzed in the book “Understanding Asexuality” as the lack of sexual attraction but also as a Western phenomenon or a protest against traditional categories of sexual identities.

Femininity is perceived different around the world. What is considered feminine in one country, may be very masculine in another and vice versa. Some things have changed over the time as the colors pink and blue which were associated pink with boys and blue with girls, but now it is exactly the opposite or high heels that were a masculine type of shoes now became the symbol of attractiveness for women and many more other examples as body alteration for aesthetical reasons. Many writers as Virginia Woolf, Simone de Beauvoir and Betty Friedan debated the idea of ideal feminine and contributed to the change of view upon women and upon femininity in general. In popular culture, there have been some serious issues with the proclaiming of Barbie as being the icon of femininity by Mattel in the United States which started a series of controversies around the world especially in China, Iran and Saudi Arabia.

Not only female writers, but also male ones wrote about femininity and its manifestation upon their characters. One of the most notable one is Ernest Hemingway whose short-stories and novels became prominent for their minimalist style and attitudes towards femininity. In “Ernest Hemingway: machismo and masochism” it is discussed the problem of his sexuality (many suspected that he was homosexual) and the tag of misogynist which was used by many critics while describing his persona. The question of Hemingway inclination towards misogyny and feminism has been on everybody’s lips for years and it is still a subject of debate today. Whether he was or not a man who hated the women his writings contain female characters that depict strength, intelligence, independence and emancipation. The “theory of iceberg” which was coined by Hemingway influenced the reading of his novels and short-stories. In order to understand his writings, this theory needs to be studied.

Known also as the “theory of omission”, the author talks for the first time about it in his book “Death in the afternoon”, a book apparently about bull-fighting but which is more than that for this sport becomes for Hemingway a sort of ritual: “If a writer of prose knows enough about what he is writing about he may omit things that he knows and the reader, if the writer is writing truly enough, will have a feeling of those things as strongly as though the writer had stated them. The dignity of movement of an ice-berg is due to only one-eighth of it being above water. A writer who omits things because he does not know them only makes hollow places in his writing.”

In other words, the writer encourages the others to write fewer, but deeper. It is not the number of words that make a text good, but the feelings and reactions that it sends. The reader must see beyond sentences and phrases and sense the things that the author wanted to state. Alike an ice-berg the written text is only the tip of it and the meaning behind is the body of the ice-berg which is usually under the water so beyond the text on the paper.

This theory is essential in order to understand the attitude Hemingway has on femininity and how his characters are depicted and constructed. In some of his short-stories (“Hills like white elephants”; “Cat in the rain”) and novels (“The sun also rises”; “A farewell to arms”) Ernest Hemingway has built strong characters, with interesting personalities and also described the movements that occurred during his time as the “New Woman” and Ecofeminism which brought a new view upon the reading of his texts. From the “Flapper girl” to interpreting a text through its connection to nature, his minimalist style is a true characteristic of modernity.

“The sun also rises” and influences of the “New Woman”

This chapter focuses on the novel “The sun also rises”, it’s characters and the influence of the “New Woman” and how it is depicted by the author in the text. The novel was published in 1926 and was perceived by many readers as a “scenario of expatriate life outside the Prohibition-restricted United States” because of the setting (Paris and Spain) and the adventurous life the characters had there (both socially and sexually). The main characters (Jack Barnes, Lady Brett Ashley, Robert Cohn) travel from Paris to Pamplona, Spain to watch the bullfights but find themselves in a more complicated situation than they expected. The American expatriate Barnes and the Englishwoman Brett are involved in a love triangle with Cohn due to Barnes friendship with Robert and Brett’s affair with him. Lady Brett Ashley’s behavior is perceived as a specific one for the 1920s when bobbed hair, affairs and sexual freedom were signs of that time.

According to Rabinovitch-Fox the “New Woman” was shaped by a generation of women between 1890 and 1920 that challenged the gender norms and demanded freedom and independence. They activated in numerous domains as work, entertainment, politics and education and built a modern understanding of femininity which placed the women more in the public sphere than the private one. This new model became soon mainstream and influenced the socially changes of the twentieth century. From the Gibson girl to the New Negro Woman up to The Flapper Girl, these varieties of the New Woman brought something new, something inovative that would place the women in the sphere of modernity.

The “flapper” girl represented the modern woman, a woman who was not afraid to feel free and show it through her look and behaviour. The hair cut short, the make-up on their faces and the sexual liberation they were claiming, the flapper girl detached from the former looks and tight corsets. Usually identified with youthness, these women were depicted in advertisements for cars, cosmetics, clothing that pictured the modern life. Every woman could become a flapper girl regardless of her age because if they felt young, than they were young even though they were fifty or sixty. Their look was described as being androgynous or even boyish because of the slender figure and traits as smoking were seen as being masculine . In this way, the flapper girl is a whole new woman whose main job was not to bear children, but to be free from any point of view. The “new sexual order” of 1920s also discussed by Rabinovitch-Fox brought into attention the fact that the premarital sex, pleasure, sexual expression and commercialization were inclined towards heterosexuality and normality where homosexual desires and inclinations were excluded from. So, this new sexual order did not help in liberating the women sexuality, but to promote it toward and for men.

Through the character of Lady Brett Ashley Hemingway managed to portray the New Woman in his novel. Her relationship with Jack Barnes does not imply intercourse due to Jack’s impotence, but displays a more than friendly interaction. It was something usual for a new woman to have male friends. They know each other pretty well and act as old friends when they meet. However, he breaks frindship with Robert Cohn when he finds out that Brett had an affair with him. These attitudes reflect the changing of sex role patterns in the western society where the Victorian model was still in use. An Englishwoman showing American behaviour in Europe seemed an anomaly at the beginning of the twentieth century. Only Robert Cohn remains to the values at that century displaying a traditional, romantic character .

“Cat in the rain” vs. “Hills like white elephants”. Ecofeminism

This chapter deals with the link between the characters and nature and how feelings and actions are depicted around them. “Cat in the rain” was published in 1925 in the collection “In our time” while “Hills like white elephants” was published two years later, in 1927, in the collection “Men without women” both being heavily read and discussed by the readers and representative for the minimalistic style specific to Hemingway. At first, the action is quite similar: an American couple (married or not) is on holiday in Europe (Italy or Spain) and has a conversation on a specific subject (a cat out in the rain or an operation) which bears more then it seems.

The two short-stories can be analyzed from the ecofeminism point of view they imply characters which seem to connect with nature and the things around them. Greta Gaard describes ecofeminism as a theory that evolved from various fields and its “basic premise is that the ideology which authorizes oppressions such as those based on race, class, gender, sexuality, physical abilities, and species is the same ideology which sanctions the oppression of nature.” In this way, this movement tries to end the oppression of these targeted groups and to liberate nature .

After World War One, many war heroes returned to an unrecognizable society that had majorly changed both materialistically and emotionally since they left. These men came back as outcasts to a society that evolved without them despite their sacrifice of fighting for its survival. “In Soldier’s Home” and “Hills Like White Elephants” Hemingway reveals how soldiers’ inability to communicate with others leads to feelings of meaninglessness.

After such a terrifying and deadly war the soldiers came back heavily changed while the civilians oblivious to the change in the world remained the same. While anti german sentiment heightened tremendously among civilians, the soldiers sat in the trenches fighting against those Germans and their allies. These young men suffered from misinformation or lack of information at all. They joined the military to feel patriotic and heroic (The Impact of World War I on the United States). Unexpectedly though they encountered trenches constantly bombarded by the opposing forces (The World War I Allied Trenches). The horrific events that these young men witnessed like their friends getting blown up into pieces right in front of them caused them to suffer from shellshock. Shellshock similar to post traumatic stress disorder caused fatigue, hearing and vision problems, confusion and many other symptoms. At the time people did not understand this condition so doctors could not treat it. Many civilians believed that the symptoms resulted from cowardice. Eventually with the help of Charles Myers alot of World War One soldiers received psychiatric treatment for shellshock, but for others this physiological condition meant they could not function regularly in a civilian function which often caused isolation (Jones). Upon their return to civilian life many American soldiers received help from the government as well as from organizations such as the AEF to find jobs and to get rehab. Despite this help many soldiers who returned after the passion from the the soldiers’ initial homecomings and victory parades wore off struggled to get help and to integrate into society (Coming Home). Before these men came home trying to reintegrate back into society and work to provide for their families someone had to do this for them. As men left overseas in droves the women back home had to fill out the workforce. This made women more independent and ambitious for more equal rights as they proved they can do a man’s job. This caused post war women to stand up for themselves to men who subdue them (striking women).

As someone who served in World War I, Hemingway wrote about the war’s aftermath from his own experience (“Ernest M. Hemingway.”). Born on July 21, 1899 in Oak Park Illinois found interest in nature and writing. When he got older World War 1 swept Europe so he wanted to help (Ernest Hemingway). Hemingway volunteered as an ambulance driver in the war. At eighteen years old, he got shot by the Austrians and suffered a severe wound. Hemingway received the silver medal of valor for saving his fellow soldier despite his injuries. Hemingway discovered through this injury and near death experience the lack of individuality in life as every man goes through the same pain and so the pain becomes the normal (Putnam). Though this injury led Hemingway to his love Agnes, it also led him home where he felt out of place. His journey back home started by finding out that Agnes would not join him and instead break up with him (Short Stories For Students 26). He then returned to find that though he changed dramatically as a result of the war, the people back home did not (Putnam). The extremely different experiences between those who fought in the war and those who stayed home made it impossible for them to properly communicate (Smelstor). After living with no love Hemingway suffered of depression causing him to commit suicide on July 2,1961 in Katchum, Idaho (Ernest Hemingway).

Krebs returns to a practically unchanged society in “Soldier’s home” that cannot and do not want to comprehend the war from the soldier’s real point of view. Returning home later than many of his fellow soldiers, Krebs did not experience the homecoming atmosphere that they did. Changed dramatically by the war, Krebs felt like an outcast in his own hometown (Putnam). Because Krebs could not translate his wartime experiences into normal civilian life, he became an outsider. He could not function in a normal society with a normal job and a normal family household. His own mom becomes no different to him then all the other civilians who cannot understand his experiences (Baerdemaeker). Asked by his mom if he loves her, Krebs responds “I don’t love anybody” (7), he no longer felt particularly about any individual as he now saw them all as the same (Smelstor). He seems to only have a relationship with one person, his sister Helen. Because of the social norms surrounding siblings, and his sister’s male characteristics, Krebs can communicate with her in any way to make up for his lack of relationships. Realizing that he does not fit into society, Krebs starts observing society and its norms as a spectator. He spectates, longing more structure and longing for the norms of his life in Europe to replace the norms in his life in America. Unfortunately he cannot achieve this as it would require him to initiate change in a society that will not listen to him. Because in Europe Krebs spent his time with other men he could not follow the American norm of love. He could not possibly fall in love with a woman as he does not connect with them at all. Meanwhile he could not love men according to society. He feels restricted as society teaches to love but prohibits him from it at the same time. His voice silenced, his experiences unwelcomed, his love non existent, and him misunderstood, the hero moved from the home that he fought for into isolation to live with the one person who heard and understood him, himself (Baerdemaeker).

The two characters in “Hills Like White Elephants” attempt to resolve their conflict of differing mindsets. The setting of “long and white” hills on one side and the “brown and dry” countryside on the other shares a similar contrast to the two characters (Weeks). Brown and dry refers to the man’s blunt personality and rejection of change and nature. Long and white represents the woman’s more open adventurous personality as these words all have positive connotations. Though the woman controls the conversation, the conversation seems as plain as the man. While the woman attempts to start a conversation about the beautiful nature surrounding them, the man shuts her down as he continues to drink (Hardy). One important separation of the two characters’ mindsets comes in their reasoning. The man lives his life with nothing but reason. Happy with what he has, he reasonably does not give it up or risk doing so by putting a burden on himself such as a child. The woman though does not care much about reason and thinks of the child as a new life that adds true meaning to the life of the family. Her lack of reason allows her to think that the mountains look like white elephants. The white elephant also symbolizes “a sacred beast in some cultures, but in Europe and America something that is only apparently valuable and is in actuality more trouble than it is worth”. Europe and America represent the man and his feelings towards the baby and the other cultures represents the woman’s views towards the baby. While the man represents a close minded majority of the postwar society the woman tries to escape that bleak world (Holladay).

His statement about not loving anyone including his mother served as the only truth Krebs told at home, but he realized that the truth hurt people too much and so he covered this one up with more lies (Smelstor). As much as the truth wanted to escape Krebs, the people of Oklahoma did not accept it. The civilians did not want to hear about his real war experience. Instead they wanted to believe the lies told to them by the government about heroism. Krebs gave into society and started spewing lies about his experiences. He painfully spoke the same lies that dragged him into the war and that he despised (Baerdemaeker). Krebs does not do this only to lie to the public but also to himself about his military experience. He wants to believe that he fought well and heroically when he knew that he did not show such high quality as a soldier. Therefore Krebs denied the effect of his lying psychologically as it made him believe what he wanted to believe (Kobler). As he let his lies set in as his reality “All of the times that had been able to make him feel cool and clear inside himself when he thought of them; the times so long back when he had done the one thing, the only thing for a man to do, easily and naturally, when he might have done something else, now lost their cool, valuable quality and then were lost themselves” (2). Krebs though longed for the memories while also not wanting some of the knowledge that came with them. No longer could Krebs live a normal simple life with the loss of his most important memories. For example he lost interest in love as love became too complicated. He viewed love as more lies and a woman who would not understand him. No one could possibly love him for him as no one understood the real him. He did not want to be known for or loved for being a hero that he was not (Baerdemaeker). Without a chance at love and with all the lies he told taking away his real memories of war and hence its purpose, Krebs’ life lost purpose.

It only becomes apparent many lines into the story that the two characters’ unborn child will serve as the main topic in this story. While the woman wants the child so that they could have real meaning in their life instead of just looking at things and drinking the man wants her to have an abortion (Holladay). Though they both want the same thing, to stay together whatever choice the woman makes will most likely lead to their breakup because it would result in one of theirs’ unhappiness. Even though the woman knows what decision she will make as the consequences would not differ based on which decision she makes, she still asks the man for his opinion. The man, in no position to make the decision for the woman lies that “it’s an awfully simple operation…” (2), to convince her to do it. The whole dialogue therefore had little reason to begin with the choice already made and little reason to continue as it only produced pointless lies. The dialogue, meant to surround the most important decision in the characters’ lives had no meaning thus rendering the characters’ lives meaningless(Short Stories for Students 6) . While the man claims that if she does not agree with him she can make her own choice, he clearly does not want such a significant change in their life. He seems to view a child as an unnecessary burden and he would rather continue living comfortably even if it means living without real meaning. Like many in the post war generation the man has given into an empty society with constant lies and hypocrisy (Holladay). He prefers this simple way of life to a complicated life with real responsibilities and real problems. Through this preference not only does the man give up the bad that comes from living a real meaningful life but also the good like love, curiosity, ambition and much more (Hardy).

“In Soldier’s Home” and “Hills Like White Elephants” Hemingway reveals how soldiers’ inability to communicate with others leads to feelings of meaninglessness. Using his own experiences Hemingway depicts in Soldier’s Home how soldiers could not reconnect with the innocent civilians in their communities. Hemingway also shows that in order to fit in one must give up the entire meaning of their life. In Hills Like White Elephants, Hemingway uses an argumentative dialogue surrounding the biggest topic of the characters’ life, full of lies and lacking off any progress to show the meaninglessness of their lives caused by a lack of communication. Using these stories Hemingway portrays how the inability to understand others through communication led the postwar generation to lose meaning in their lives. This lack of communication in some ways has only gotten worse as people refuse to listen to each other making much of the argumentative climate meaningless.

In literature, some themes may be treated differently by different authors. It does not matter if the authors are contemporary and compatriot or not, their styles, techniques and ways of approaching to a theme differ in accordance with that writer’s personal choice and experience. The different or similar functionalities of the same themes in Ernest Hemingway’s “Indian Camp” and Graham Greene’s “The Innocent” can be comparable examples so as to underscore the variation between different authors who lived in the same century.

In Ernest Hemingway’s “Indian Camp”, three men—Nick Adams, his father Dr. Adams, and his uncle George— set off to the American Indian camp in order to help a sick native woman. Unexpectedly, Dr. Adams has to improvise cesarean on the woman because the baby’s position is not as it is supposed to be. Nick Adams spectates the whole process. During the process, the woman’s husband kills himself by cutting his throat. Later on, they return to their home. In Graham Greene’s “The Innocent”, the narrator takes his flirt to the place where he spent his childhood, thinking that it would be an interesting experience. However, he regrets his decision and wishes to be alone because he gets nostalgic when he remembers his childhood. Then, they visit a place in which the narrator finds a paper he and his childhood love put there once. The picture on the paper seems obscure to him at first glance. Later, he realises at the end of the story that what made the picture look something sexual is nothing but his corrupt mind.

In order to begin with the similarities between the two stories, the most crucial point to look at is the fact that they are both initiation stories, whose overall plot is concerned with putting the protagonist through a particular sort of experience, initiation into something for which his previous experience had not prepared him. In Hemingway’s story, the young protagonist is exposed to a bloody childbirth and, unintentionally, to a violent death. He was not expecting to experience such a horrible incident. His experience is certainly traumatic for him because he will never forget the misconceived connection he made between life and death. Meanwhile, in Greene’s story, the adult protagonist realises something that he has been failing to notice for a long time when he sees the drawing.

Both stories start with a journey; thus, it can be said that the both protagonists’ epiphanies are triggered by their journey to somewhere else. The stories are narrated in the past tense. In “Indian Camp”, the protagonist Nick Adams, his father and Uncle George arrive at the American Indian camp on the other side of a northern Michigan lake. In “The Innocent”, the unnamed narrator takes his flirt, Lola, to the place he was born and spent his childhood. Thus, their destinations are somewhere they do not currently live in. Both protagonists know that they may encounter with unusual situations. However, Nick Adams is more aware of it since his father was taking him there with the purpose of teaching him several life lessons even though things do not go as he planned. Moreover, young Nick Adams is taken there by his father whereas Greene’s protagonist goes there by his own decision. In “Indian Camp”, Nick’s father tries to explain the situation to him during the birth of the child.: “‘See, it’s a boy, Nick, he said. ‘How do you like being an interne?’ Nick said, ‘All right.’ He was looking away so as not to see what his father was doing” (Hemingway 68). Here, it would be useful to give the definition of interne: it is someone who works, usually without a pay, at a trade or occupation in order to gain work experience. Nick witnesses a medical operation which affects him so deeply that he comes to a conclusion about life and death although he is just a child. The same situation of inexperience is seen at the beginning of the other story: “It was a mistake to take Lola there, I knew it the moment we alighted from the train at the small country station” (Greene 1) . The fact that he looks back and considers it to be a mistake indicates his lack of experience and his initial carelessness about the consequences of taking his mistress to the place that would turn out to be dear to him because of his childhood memories.

In both stories, there is the sense of innocence and naiveté. It is the most noteworthy matter that makes these stories analogous. The stories demonstrate the possibility of different attitudes towards a similar theme. Nick Adams, as a young person, awakens to the fact about the close relationship between life and death. Greene’s protagonist learns that the cause of his seeing the picture as obscene is his depravement. At the end of the stories, the protagonists learn something about life and about themselves. However, their process of getting their differs. In other words, for instance, the stories’ viewpoints are different. Hemingway’s story is narrated by a third person point of view whilst that of Greene is narrated by the protagonist himself. Even though it does not make a big difference, the degree of reliability and sincerity changes. The unnamed narrator’s story seems more intimate as he himself concludes the story by extrapolating upon his mindset, he says: “I began to realise the deep innocence of that drawing. I had believed I was drawing something with a meaning unique and beautiful; it was only now after thirty years of life that the picture seemed obscene” (Greene 3).

Another difference between the stories is the different processes the protagonists undergo. In other words, Nick Adams’ perspective changes due to what he witnessed, yet the unnamed narrator comes to a realisation after interpreting his own thoughts. So, changing and realising are the two main actions. In “Indian Camp”, the change happens after Nick Adams’ association of birth and death. In the story the situation is narrated as: “In the early morning on the lake sitting in the stern of the boat with his father rowing, he felt quite sure that he would never die” (Hemingway 70). Moreover, this shows that the means of reaching to these intellectual phases are products of natural human experience. Both death and sexuality are the concepts that any human being goes through for sure. They are the undetachable parts of the human nature and they are even interrelated in that sexual intercourse begins the cycle and death ends it.

The phenomenon of suicide is mentioned in both stories. In Greene’s story, it is given as a past event the narrator experienced when he was only 5: “We came up over the little humpbacked bridge and passed the almshouses. When I was five I saw a middle-aged man run into one to commit suicide; he carried a knife, and all the neighbours pursued him up the stairs” (Greene 1). The fact that he was not unable to comprehend the concept of one’s killing oneself was because of his innocent mind. He understands what the man did only now. Similarly, in Hemingway’s story, as a child, Nick Adams cannot understand the reason why the woman’s husband killed himself. Furthermore, this incident arouses his curiosity. He asks to his father: “Why did he kill himself, Daddy?’ I don’t know, Nick. He couldn’t stand things, I guess.’ […] ‘Is dying hard, Daddy?’ ‘No, I think it’s pretty easy, Nick. It all depends’” (Hemingway 69). The change in Nick Adams is observed in his behaviour. For instance, when they were going to the camp, Nick was sitting next to his father; on their way back, Nick changes his seat. This incident may be given as an evident showing his growing up.

In conclusion, Hemingway shows the effect of birth and death on young Nick Adams. On the other hand, Greene shows the effect of realising the loss of innocence on the unnamed narrator. The stories share something common in their essence, only their ways of conveying it differ. Both approach to the same topic from different points of view. The reason why they use different techniques may be because they lived at different places and times, or their personal experiences or even all of them.

Works Cited

1. Greene, Graham. ‘The Innocent’. Univer.Kharkov.Ua, http://www.univer.kharkov.ua/images/ redactor/anons/2016-02-15/prose_student.pdf.
2. Hemingway, Ernest. ‘Indian Camp’. Briancroxall.Pbworks.Com, http://briancroxall.pbworks.com/f/ Hemingway%2C+Indian+Camp.pdf.

“There is no friend as loyal as a book.” ― Ernest Hemingway

During the 1950s–1960s, more and more literature occurred in people’s lives. Ernest Miller Hemingway was one of the most popular writers from then to now. He was an American journalist, novelist, short-story writer, and sportsman. Hemingway’s writing style was known for its simplicity, and had a profound influence on the development of 20th century literature; many of his works are still very influential today.

Hemingway was born on July 21, 1899, in Illinois. His father, Clarence Edmonds Hemingway, was a physician, and his mother, Grace Hall Hemingway, was a musician. Hemingway’s mother frequently performed for the village; although Hemingway appeared to be hate his mother, he mirrored her energy and enthusiasm. From 1913, Hemingway attended Oak Park and River Forest High School. He participated in many sports such as boxing. He did well in his English class, which shaped his future success, that he took a journalism class. He became a reporter after high school, then became an ambulance driver as his applications to join the US Army, Navy, and Marines were rejected due to his poor eyesight. On his way to the Italian front, he stayed in Paris under German artillery bombing. He didn’t stat at a safe hotel, but, instead, he approached the battlefield as much as possible. Hemingway witnessed the cruelty of the war on the front line of Italy: an ammunition depot near Milan exploded, and a female corpse in a temporary morgue was more than a male corpse, which shocked him. On July 8, 1918, he was seriously wounded in the delivery of supplies, and was awarded the Silver Brave Medal by the Italian government. Later, Hemingway worked in a hospital of the American Red Cross in Milan. His early novel, “Farewell, Weapons,” was inspired by his wartime experiences, formed the basis for his novel. Hemingway regarded himself as the protagonist in the novel and carried out his own creation. “I remember that after we searched quite thoroughly for the complete dead we collected fragments.” Among his later works, the most outstanding is the short novel, The Old Man and the Sea: the story of an old fisherman’s journey, his long and lonely struggle with a fish and the sea, and his victory in defeat. In his life, he wrote many left him in pain and ill health for much of the rest of his life. Eventually, he ended his life in July 2, 1961.

Hemingway has excellent language control ability. He often expresses the most complicated content in the simplest vocabulary, expresses specific meanings with basic vocabulary, short sentences, and uses nouns and verbs to reveal the true colors of things. Hemingway habitually used the word “and” in place of commas. From the sentence pattern, Hemingway often uses short declarative sentences for expression. Because he began as a writer of short stories, Baker believes Hemingway learned to “get the most from the least, how to prune language, how to multiply intensities and how to tell nothing but the truth in a way that allowed for telling more than the truth.” Hemingway thinks that it is not necessary to use words to modify the carvings to sing the public—as long as the description of things is clear, the others are decided by the reader. Garcia Marquez, author of ‘One Hundred Years of Solitude,’ wrote an essay about the encounter between Hemingway and his wife on the Saint Michel Avenue, Paris, in the spring of 1957, and listed his failure to “Across the River and Into the Trees” as Hemingway’s best novel: “Without ‘Across the River and Into the Trees,’ there is no ‘The Old Man and the Sea.’”

Hemingway has a profound influence on American literature. Today, American literature is still influenced by him. In fact, Hemingway’s writing style has a great influence on most modern novels. Many writers want to imitate his writing style. James Joyce called Hemingway’s short piece ‘A Clean, Well-Lighted Place’ is one of the best short stories. In 1953, “The Old Man and the Sea” was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, and won the award of the Nobel Prize in Literature to Hemingway in 1954.

“In a calm sea every man is a pilot.” Ernest Hemingway was one of greatest minds in the world of literature. His works guided many writers and readers to their dreams, places only for oneself and his sea.

There is an undeniable gab between ordinary people and soldiers. People move on from war, but soldiers can’t. They leave home and when they return back to their normal life, nothing has changed. But the soldier has experienced a tremendous amount of trauma and have seen things that have changed them forever. According to the Mayo Clinic, PTSD, otherwise known as Post-traumatic stress disorder, is a mental health condition that’s triggered by a terrifying event by either experiencing it or witnessing it. Ernest Hemingway wrote “Soldiers Home” to show people what it’s like for post-war veterans. The protagonist, Harold Krebs, returns home after serving in World War I. He returns home which has not changes, everything is exactly the same, but he has changed. There are several symptoms of PTSD that Hemingway illustrations through Krebs. He faces many challenges throughout the story such as flashbacks, emotional detachment, and lying. Hemingway shows his readers the hardships soldiers face once they return home from war and the ways they deal with trauma.

Harold Krebs was just like any normal person before going to war. He had a good relationship with his family and was attending college to get an education. Krebs went off to war and came back to the same life but was a different person. He no longer was close to his family or wasn’t doing anything that he was partaking in before he left. He wasn’t interested in girls and does nothing but sleep in late and go for an occasional drive in his dad’s car.

Krebs is confused by the fact that nothing other than him, had changed. His father’s car was still parked where it had been before he left. “The car always stood outside the First National Bank building where his father had an office on the second floor. Now, after the war, it was still the same car” (Hemingway 2). I understand how people think it’s strange to think that war cold change someone. I’m at home, doing the same thing while a soldier is living a completely different life. It’s terrifying, people are dying around you and your witnessing things that people should never be subjected to see.

The only thing that had changed were the girls, they grew up. Krebs loved watching the women. “He liked to look at them from the front porch as they walked on the other side of the street. He liked to watch them walking under the shade of the trees” (Hemingway 2). Although he liked to look at women, he wanted nothing to do with them. He said that he wanted a girl, but he didn’t want to put in the effort. He didn’t want the complications that came from women. Girls have their fights and cliques with one another and Krebs steered clear from that. Now this could be any normal guy just not wanting to put I effort and not want drama in his life. But, Krebs just decides to be anti-social and isolate himself from society. It would have been easier for Krebs to come back and notice that changes had been made. Maybe his family made renovations to their home, his dad had gotten a new car. Krebs was delighted to see that at least the girls had gotten older and Physically changed. Krebs doesn’t want to admit to himself that the war changed him because he didn’t want to change. But the war changed him without his permission or knowledge.

Krebs is vulnerable and unable to talk about his experiences during the war. He wants nothing more than to be able to talk to is family and the people closest to him, but they won’t listen. He believed that to get people to listen to him, it was easier to lie. War experiences and stories are things people are far too familiar with. So, what does Krebs have to say that would catch someone’s attention or something knew that they have never heard? Krebs believes that people will get bored with his story. Krebs isolates himself from everyone because he keeps everything bottled in and silences himself.

Krebs is unable to move on and is ultimately disconnected from society due to the fact that when he’s to ready to share his experience, he decides lie. Krebs would occasionally go and meet with other soldiers. He would hear them talk about their experiences and would try to talk about his own. He shared stories that weren’t his own. He talked about things that other people has seen, done, and heard about. He felt uneasy with it as “Krebs acquired the nausea in regard to experience that is the result of untruth or exaggeration” (Hemingway 1). He felt sick about lying, but he physically got sick when experiencing flashbacks. As a result, he threw up. I don’t know if Krebs lies to seem cool, or if he uses it as a coping mechanism because he can’t talk about his own trauma. I look at it as if you were to ask a soldier if they have ever killed a person. They may lie and say no to try to forget about the “terrible” things they did while serving. Now, ordinary people see killing another as terrible and horrific, but that is what a soldier is trained to do. They do whatever necessary to protect their fellow soldiers. So, I believe that Krebs is using the tool of “lying” to try to escape his own personal issues.

The war and trauma also made Krebs emotionally unstable and essentially feeling numb to any and all feelings. An example would be when his mom asks, “Don’t you love your mother, dear boy?” and Krebs responds by saying “I don’t love anybody” (Hemingway 6). In a way, Krebs believes his lie is consoling his mom, but it only makes her more upset and she starts to cry. The disconnect comes from the fact that Krebs mom simply can’t understand him or see where he is coming from. Krebs wants to express himself and tell his mom about the pain, but he feels that he can’t. Even when Krebs’ sister asks if he loved her, he responded with “uh-huh.” (Hemingway 5). He isn’t capable of saying the phrase “I love you,” similarly to when his mom asks him.

Hemingway has created several pieces of work dealing with trauma, coping, and post-war veterans. I think he tries to raise questions and show people what veterans are forced to go through, and how America forgets about them. In the 1920’s, before PTSD was discovered, it was known as “shell-shock.” Lewis Yealland was a British clinician, who published a writing in 1918 called Hysterical Disorders of Warfare. He described brutal treatment that veterans faced and saw shell-shock or PTSD as personal failure. Yealland treated a patient for nine months and told him, “You will not leave this room until you are talking as well as you ever did; you must behave as the hero I expect you to be” (Yelland 9). Patients were subjected to electric shocks, branding, and all other kinds of horrific torture. To expect someone to experience a traumatic event and not be affected by it is ridiculous! Inflicting more torture on someone that just got back from war, I think would only make that person worse.

A soldier who suffered from shell-shock during this time was seen as a weak individual. Soldiers are supposed to be strong and courageous men. So, when they come home not being able to talk about what happened, experiencing flashbacks, they are seen as being a coward and weak. Basically, a “true soldier” should be able to go to war, come back home, and act as if nothing ever happened. Essentially, they should “snap out of it.” So, I think it’s interesting to see Krebs’ perspective, even though it’s a story, it relates to so many other veterans. They are not allowed to show emotion and we see that with Krebs as he is unable to express his emotions. He was upset with the fact that nothing in his old life had changed. He hoped for change so that he wouldn’t have to face reality; that war did change him.

The story also seems to suggest that Krebs lost his religious faith after the war. His mom says, “God has some work for everyone to do.” Krebs responds by saying, ‘I’m not in His Kingdom” (Hemingway 6). He says this with no emotion, suggesting that the war took away his beliefs. It’s common for soldiers to lose some beliefs after war. The experience of the war shapes people’s beliefs. One may ask, “Why would God allow for this type of violence?” Many believe god will protect them from death and from harm, and he doesn’t. This is all hypothetically speaking but guessing from Krebs personality; not wanting anything to do with anyone, destroyed any remainder of faith.

PTSD disrupts someone’s everyday life. Krebs only exhibits a few of the characteristics, which are flashbacks, emotional detachment, and lying. I think it’s normal for some people to expect for someone who comes back from war as themselves; nothing has changed, because we could never understand. I think in the end, that’s what Hemingway is getting at. Throughout “Soldiers Home”, Krebs was having trouble coming to terms with the fact that the war had changed him. In many ways, it takes a traumatic event in order for someone to change. That’s not saying that’s a good or bad thing. But, while people are home, living their normal lives, not much is changing around them. A soldier is in foreign territory and living a compete different life. So, it’s hard for Krebs to talk to his family about what caused him to change. The consequence of becoming a soldier is changing once you leave.

Ernest Hemingway is an American author, short-story writer, and essayist who was granted the Nobel Prize for Literature. He was noted both for the extraordinary manliness theme of his composition and for his courageous and generally public life. His concise and clear composition style has an incredible impact on American and British fiction. His works are popular because of the themes of love, hatred, war, gain, and loss he has included in his literature. Ernest Hemingway’s “The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber” is a short story illustrating a third-person omniscient story with snapshots of an untrustworthy interior monologue displayed mainly through the perspective of leading characters. The story presents the protagonists of the story, Francis Macomber, who needs the courage to live his life of manhood. Francis’s wife, Margot who needs money instead of love. Also, Wilson who is a hunter who knows how to guide and hunt. The entire circumstance in the story, Francis lost his courage because his wife demotivates him by saying he is a coward. Integrated into the plot, Hemingway’s real theme of this story is courage, masculinity, a failed marriage, and domination. In this story, psychoanalytical criticism is used to reflect the effects of these themes through the use of characters, symbols, and settings of the story.

The main characters of this story are Francis Macomber, Margot Macomber, and Robert Wilson, who have reflected the theme of the story through their nature and activities. The protagonist of the story, Francis Macomber, is a young American man on a safari in Africa. He is wealthy, but he lacks power and conviction. His target was to kill a lion in that safari, but he failed many times because of the fear of that giant wildlife. According to Harold Bloom, “Macomber flees, ‘bolting like a rabbit’ and leaving Wilson to shoot the lion again and again as it forces itself toward him.” This shows that Francis had fear inside him which discourages the hidden power inside him. However, at last, he achieves his manhood by killing the lion. Also, he shows his masculinity to his wife. He dominates Margot in many scenes such as in the car, while hunting, and while having breakfast with others. His stubborn nature is focused on his aim which can be seen in his happiness after killing the lion and buffalo.

Margot Macomber is Francis Macomber’s extremely beautiful and well-kept wife. She is a socialite and former model who knows how to control men. Margot is a female predator who opposes images of distant femininity by intensely attesting her excellence and examining riches rather than love. She is with Francis because of his wealth. According to Abby Werlock, “The Macomber marriage is on shaky ground, but Margot was too beautiful for Macomber to divorce her and Macomber had too much money for Margot ever to leave him.’ Thus, she is rendered despicable, her existence without her husband was grim in light of the fact that he continues her daily life and prosperity.

Robert Wilson is a British “white hunter” who is hired by an American, Francis Macomber, to get help in the African safari. The author presents himself through this character in the story as he was a hunter in his age. Wilson seems like a cool guy who is supporting women in her wrongdoing; Margot kills Francis and Wilson gets the chance to be closer by giving sympathy to her. He is a hunter who hunts women. In the story, the skeptical nature of Francis, the unsatisfied nature of Margot, and the attractive nature of Wilson have created conflicts that lead to the death of Francis. After killing her husband, Margot is getting sympathy and help from Wilson to overcome the murder of her husband.

Besides the characters, symbols have significant roles in the story to enhance the theme of masculinity, courage, risk, and domination. Mainly, the author has focused on two symbols to portray the theme. They are the lion and the car. The lion is a symbol of courage and the power of masculinity. This is the animal Francis encounters first while hunting. The lion causes fear in him. The sound of the roar of a lion in his tent makes him awake with weakness due to fear. This disturbing sound of the giant, life-threatening animal plunged him into paralyzing fear, which prevents him from killing the lion. This event caused him to be embarrassed in front of Margot and Wilson. According to Hemingway, “It had started the night before when Francis had wakened and heard the lion roaring somewhere up along the river. It was a deep sound and in the end, there was sort of coughing grunts that made him seem just outside the tent, and when he woke in the night to hear it he was afraid”(21). From the beginning, Francis is afraid of the lion even with its roaring, which presents a character with fear and who needs courage and power to face the lion.

The car represents the risk, rush, and control in hunting. The car that Wilson and Francis use to hunt is striking since it is prohibited. It is a symbol of development, masculinity, and mankind’s endeavor to rule the natural world. It reveals all through the narrative, encouraging the two parallel hunters and bearing characters between the campground and the hunting ground that is among safety and threat. The hunters should not use cars to hunt and shoot creatures since this gives them an advantage and it is unsportsmanlike. The car is itself a space of security that isolates people from conceivably awful creatures. However for Margot, who is kept in the car while her husband and Wilson hunt, the car is a symbol of imprisonment. It is doorless and box-bodied, enabling her to observe the safari but preventing her from being a part of the hunting. Her femininity keeps her apart from the space of the hunt, where manhood rules. Along these lines, the car symbolizes a central conflict between power, uncertainty, and defense both the hunt and sexual attraction between characters.

Along with the characters and symbols, the settings of the story “The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber” has supported the theme of the entire story by shadowing the beliefs of that time and the territory where the scenes were captured. As per the time, this story was set in the 1930s which reflects the stereotypes of that time. Amidst the Great Depression, the way that Francis can stand to take an extravagance excursion takes on incredible significance. It indicates that they are far expelled from the substances of their day, which incorporate neediness, monetary unsteadiness, and general hopelessness. In a time before present-day feminisms were held, the thoughts of what established a genuine man or a genuine woman were regularly those dependent on custom. Men were bold, fearless, and chivalric, and women were feminine, refined, and respectful to men. Hemingway additionally used this female generalization, especially in the character of Margot Macomber. Oliver states, “…..she would like to leave Macomber, she is afraid she would not be able to attach herself to anyone else with as much money.” She does not adore her husband and has been unfaithful. Nevertheless, he is extremely rich which is why she does not leave him. The readers, at that point, can decipher her plan to kill him and turning into a rich widow all the while, as the activity of a femme fatale. Hemingway, whose works much of the time remark on the idea of masculinity, considered himself to be a paragon of manhood through his affinity for hunting, fishing, and bullfighting.

The entire story takes place in Africa, in a safari. Margot’s reference to Nairobi may show that the safari is someplace in Kenya, yet nothing precise about the safari area is indicated. In the story, Francis and Margot Macomber are well off Americans for whom hunting creatures on a safari is something fun. For some, rich outsiders, hunting for wild creatures in safaris is just a game; they could not care about the prosperity of creatures or about the way that they devastate valuable pieces of the natural world. Francis certainly chose to go hunting in the African safari since it was a casual adventure for him because he was not genuine in hunting.

Hemingway’s story ‘The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber,’ has presented various conflicts and scenes of rising activity by using characters, symbols, and setting of the story, which lead to an extraordinary ending. The contentions Francis has with himself, nature, and man prompts a demonstrated fear of the wild, and his deficiencies. These events lead to the unanticipated climax of the story where the actions of both Francis and his wife are addressed. It is also amusing that his wife, the real person who ought to secure him, is the reason for his death. Furthermore, the way that it might have been Margot’s drive to secure Francis which devastates him makes the peak of the story interesting. Hemingway uses the logical inconsistencies to give enough ambiguity in the account for the result of the story to be uncertain. Even though Francis’s life was short in years, it was admittedly cheerful as he had the option to confront his feelings of fear and beat his greatest deterrents. At last, he dies as the prime of his own life.

Audience Profile:

I write this to the students/teachers who don’t know the true impact Ernest Hemingway has had on our modern literature. I’m not trying to criticize anyone who doesn’t know this individual, I only want to inform people of the consequences of writing because of him. I also had zero knowledge of Hemingway and was resistant to want to read another book about another person that did another something until I did some background knowledge. My findings saw me digging deeper and deeper on his past and the actions that have proven he shaped literacy today. He’s so fundamental in our modern writing that he is considered the “grandfather of literacy”.

My goal isn’t to force students and teachers to instantly go out and gather all the knowledge they can on him, my goal is to try and get teachers to ask the question on why he isn’t incorporated as a major part in modern-day education system. The same way we teach so much about the founding fathers of our political system, we should shine the same light on the fathers of our literacy system. So, with teachers and students making up the educational system, they are my audience.

Objective Summary:

On writing by Ernest Hemingway is a difficult book to summarize. The difficulty comes from the fact the book itself is a combination of many of his writings put into one. The book is more like a picture book throughout his writing career. This book goal is diving deeper in Hemingway’s natural writing process, the way he comes up with his ideas, what personality to put in the writing, and his work habits.

The editors took a lot of time in making this book perfect, most of the short stories and advice is explained and elaborated in a way that gives you access to the writing process of Hemingway. This book is important to the writing community as for the first time Hemingway’s most valuable advice was all in the same cover, this gives any reader the ability to learn and benefit from Hemingway’s brilliance. It’s a great way for a reader to gain knowledge about writing that has been left out of our common educational path. It also requires a different attitude when reading, going into the book with the mentality that it will be like any other autobiography will only result in confusion and frustration. There’s no storyline in the book because it isn’t telling a story, that’s not the intention of the book. The book is supposedly written by Ernest Hemingway, which is partially true as most of the book is his writing. However, the book was put together by Larry W. Phillips who picked the most well known and most impactful parts of Hemingway’s life work. So yes, all the text in the book is Hemingway’s but, the credit of bringing the work of one of the greatest authors of the 20th century into a couple of hundred pages goes to Phillips.

Throughout Hemingway’s life he refused to write about writing, he said it was bad luck. Over time in his writing, more advice to writers was present. For example, “I love to write. But it has never gotten any easier to do and you can’t expect it to if you keep trying for something better than you can do.” This quote was one of the first times Hemingway talked about writing and one of the first times advising other writers on writing. I know that sounds very confusing, but Hemingway had some hunch about writing, most of his work was deep stories that usually had a bigger meaning by the end with some sort of life advice. So, advice about writing coming from Hemingway is rare. This book goes into deep into Hemingway’s life and a powerful quote from the book says “What is the best early training for a writer?….. An unhappy childhood.” This book is full of advice and an entire history lesson of Ernest Hemingway. With Hemingway having such an impact on our modern writing, it’s always influential to see where it all came from and how it started.

Critical Engagement:

Why is Ernest Hemingway not taught regularly? It’s a question I didn’t have at first, in fact I couldn’t even remember the name. It was only after research I found out he was the author who wrote “Old Man and the Sea”, a book I read in High School. After reading “Ernest Hemingway: on Writing” I found his writing style and process was short and to the point but leaves a lot of room for personal engagement and questioning. It allows the reader to hear his advice and interpret it in their way, allowing the reader to apply the counsel to their own life. I did a little research before reading and just after glimpsing quickly at his google search, I could see he was an important figure in the literary world. So, after finishing the book I was still confused about the extent of his influence on literacy. This all leads to my question, why didn’t I know who or what he did? If he’s this influential why didn’t I know him? I didn’t go to an uncanny school, I went to a regular public school, following the normal educational system. Yet my knowledge of the “Greatest 20th Century Writer” is next to none, why?

It’s a crazy thought that in our educational system we all are taught who founded the country or who fought who 200 years ago, but we don’t know who a founder of literacy is. We use writing more then we will ever use history, yet we know nothing of its origins or its development. Going off the normal criteria taught in schools, the only time Ernest Hemingway was ever brought up was an assignment to read “Old man and the Sea”. Even with one of his most influential and well-known books, the purpose of the book was to find the message in the book not to be conscious of the author or his influences. So, the larger question is, why are commanders of ancient wars praised more than one of the most influential 20th-century writers.

In our deconstruction of the mystery, we can discuss the possibilities he’s left out. One of the first reasons that can be called to question is his questionable opinions on women. Leslie A. Fiedler has said that he is only comfortable making his characters men without women. His women characters are stereotypical with no depth or importance to the story. This can because of Hemingway’s belief that women were the same in society; they had little to no importance in society and were best left in the background. This controversial opinion could have sacrificed his potential to be a household writer name. Leslie A. Fiedler also criticized that Hemingway learned to write “through the eye rather than the ear. If his language is colloquial, it is written colloquial, for he was constitutionally incapable of hearing English as it was spoken around him. To a critic who once asked him why his characters all spoke alike, Hemingway answered, ‘Because I never listen to anybody”. This can be seen as another way that stopped any chance of Hemingway deserving the recognition he’s earned. If critics have been protesting his style of writing since the beginning, then maybe that’s a cause to never being credited by the education hierarchy. He was considered to have some bad practices at the time of his rise. These bad practices cause a bad taste in the mouth before he was ever allowed to influence. Ernest Hemingway fits the criteria for a futurist. He was scrutinized for his work due to the fact it was different than anything done before which caused questions of his legitimacy as a writer. In a clear point of view, the commanders in ancient wars were recorded down as heroes, so now the history we learn is how they were heroes to their respected people. With Hemingway, he was always recorded down as a delusionist. This creates the gap where his influence was lost because of the different views and ideas he had on writing. This is where this book comes into play. The books goal was to fit the writing mind of Hemingway in a few hundred pages. Give the public a real view on the goals of Hemingway’s writing. This is exactly what the book showed me, I was able to learn about this individual’s influences that have been covered up for years. I was given the chance to learn of the writer behind the change in short stories, poems, and personal character engagement; something a majority of current writing is based off.

Now to discuss what makes Hemingway described as the greatest 20th-century writers we can explore his style of writing and the ways he made short writing powerful. His short and efficient writing style can be seen in most of modern-day story writing. This new style showed the new wave of writing that sometimes less is more. Instead of describing every detail to a story or conflict make it blunt and allow the reader to conflict with themselves over the conflicts at hand. This conflict created with the reader started the new theme of captivating stories with lots of room to interpret and spark controversy. Repetition and a lack of dialogue were also characteristics of Hemingway’s writing, also following with the style of short and captivating.

A theme of this personal war in Hemingway’s writing was also a defining characteristic inside his novels. He was able to captivate feelings of disagreement and frustration of the entire human race towards the wars. Hemingway’s peace views and anti-war messages in his novels was the entire gist of his novel “The Lost Generation’. Hemingway took a stand against the battling nature of governments and people and he served as a symbol of resistance that influences authors to this day. This action to rise is another reason Hemingway can be described as some as a futurist. Usually, a futurist isn’t credited until years after their impact on the modern world, in this case, Hemingway is being denied titles for his accomplishments.

Now the question sits with you. Is Ernest a futurist and revolutionist of modern writing or is a writer who only created this style of writing by accident by just wanting to write less as his ideas could only take him so far being a “writer by eye”. Take a look back and grab a greater perspective. Story novels and poems now and days are very straightforward, grabs your attention quickly and getting you invested in the character’s conflict. All of this wasn’t how it use to be; letters, plays, stories all examples of writing that when looking at before Hemingway’s influence are very long and very descriptive. Think about a movie where it’s an Englishman reading a letter and it seems to go on and on when all they had to say was “I’m on a dangerous voyage, I love you and I’ll see you soon”. This was the norm of writing until Hemingway fought the system and made stories shorter and more captivating than anything before them.

Works Cited:

1. “Contributions to Literature.” Ernest Hemingway: A Legend of the Lost Generation, ernesthemingwaymca.weebly.com/contributions-to-literature.html.
2. “Ernest Hemingway.” Ernest Hemingway, www.u-s-history.com/pages/h3801.html.
3. Hemingway, Ernest, and Larry W. Phillips. Ernest Hemingway on Writing. Scribner, 1984.