Category: Ernest Hemingway

There is no exact explanation about what the Lost Generation is because its meaning changed very quickly in a small amount of time. At first, it was referred as “youth culture”, but then the migration to European countries happened. Marc Dolan said that those authors have influenced “far beyond academic and literary circles in popular films, television series, used-clothing shops, and even theme bars”.

In spite of all of those misunderstandings, specialists and students of twentieth-century literature collected the authors that lived between the World War 1 (1914-1918) to the Great Depression (1929) and gathered a group named The Lost Generation. After the war, the world economy surprisingly increased in the 1920s. The financial crisis began approximately around the 4th of September (1929), but the stock market crash was the 29th of October, also known as Black Tuesday. It started in the United States and later it spread to other countries. It was devastating for everyone around the world.

The impact that caused the rapid loss of money and power the Americans experienced in the decade of 1920 made the artists of that period of time create a certain type of art. Not only did they captured the years of prosperity in their novels and their artwork, but they also described all those years of financial crisis that happened in the 1930s.

Nowadays, the Lost Generation it is very well known thanks to the type of culture it created. It has become a myth, and there are movies and TV series based on the writers biographies and their novels, just like Marc Dolan said.

F. Scott Fitzgerald: Biography

He was born on the 24th of September 1896 (St Paul). Fitzgerald wrote a short diary narrating some of his memories. In this Ledger he collects occurrences from his first to his seventh birthday and other matters. He also wrote a Thoughtbook.

It was noticeable the fact that he was very fond of books since he was a child. While his best friend wanted to play sports, Fitzgerald was busy going to the Public Library. It had to do with the places he used to live in when he was a kid, which were hotels and temporary apartments. He also lived with his grandmother, and that made him more of an indoor boy. In school he was sometimes rebellious. It is quite surprising, seeing that his interests included reading and learning in general. Nevertheless, the problem was definitely not studying, he was actually very smart and had a good memory.

Moreover, Fitzgerald was not popular between his classmates and used to write short stories while in class about them. His creativity led him to continue writing about everyone who crossed paths with him. He first went to St Paul Academy, then to Newman. It was in Princeton where he gained popularity. Not only did he meet Edmund Wilson and John Bishop there, but he also went out with Ginevra King for a while there. Fitzgerald left Princeton to join the army in 1917.

He met his future wife, Zelda Sayre, in 1918, but, until he got financial stability, she refused to marry him. He then went back to St Paul to rewrite a novel he began to write in Princeton. After his novel This Side of Paradise was published, he married Zelda and they had a child named Scottie. Those were their good years; they became very popular thanks to Scott´s first novel.

As years went by, Fitzgerald started to spend more and more time traveling to Europe (he and his family moved to Paris), but on January 1931 he visited America to attend to his father´s funeral. Fitzgerald’s mother died in 1936. By that time, Zelda was already struggling with her health and it became so bad that she had to spend a generous amount of time in different clinics. His husband had problems with alcoholism and fell in love with Sheila Graham while his wife was recovering.

Scott Fitzgerald died of a heart attack the 21st of December 1940, in Hollywood.

Career

Fitzgerald started publishing in the school magazine on his second year at the St Paul Academy. The first story he wrote for it was The Mystery of the Raymond Mortgage. He used writing as a way to escape from his situation at the schools he went to, where almost no one liked him.

As he was very fond of theatre, he wrote plays, and even songs for a musical that received good critics. But his best work were the novels he wrote. Thanks to This Side of Paradise Fitzgerald was able to make a name of himself. He published in the most prestigious magazines. The sudden fame affected him, and it shows in his next work, The Beautiful and Damned (1922). He was an excellent narrator and wrote many short stories, most of them were complicated by his family and published after his death in 1940.

Novels and short stories. The Great Gatsby

The characters of his compositions resembled real people he knew, even Scott himself appeared in them. Maybe that was a way to escape from reality, because his work reflected his frustrations with life and his feelings in general.

The novel that has made him go down in history was The Great Gatsby (1925). It was all about idealism and decadence. The main character Jay Gatsby is a mysterious man, known for his parties. He is obsessed with Daisy Buchanan, a woman that has an aristocratic background. Their affair ends up badly. No one attended Gatsby’s funeral when he died, and everyone that was around him continued living their lives as if nothing had happened. Fitzgerald wanted to show the excesses of that lifestyle, as it took place in 1922.

His work stands out because how real where his novels and short stories, even if they were all fiction. He captured his real feelings in every character he created, and if you read between the lines you will be able to grasp a little of his own personality and the people that surrounded him.

John Steinbeck: Biography

Steinbeck was born on the 27th of February 1902, in California. He enjoyed reading a lot, one of the books he used to read was the Bible along with Dostoevsky, Flaubert, George Elliot and Thomas Hardy. Steinbeck came from a family that had connections with religion, Jews. His ancestors migrated from Europe to the United States. This explains his tendency to get inspiration from Christianity. He contributed to the school’s newspaper when he was young, along with playing basketball and being the president of his senior class of 1919. The ones who knew him described him as shy, but very smart.

Then, Steinbeck went to Stanford to get an English degree, but he did not finish it. Still, his life was not that bad, as he earned some money thanks to the temporary jobs he took. When the “Big Boom” happened in 1925, he moved to New York and got a new job as a labourer thanks to his brother-in-law. He also was able to get another job as a reporter because of his uncle. He did not like that very much. Steinbeck later said he got involved too much on his work and it was hard for him to do his job because he felt bad when he had been rude in order to pull out information.

He had a rough start as an author because no one wanted to publish his stories at first, but he did not give up. When he moved back to California his writing career had already started. Steinbeck got married for the first time to Carol Henning in 1930. Thanks to his family he could live in a house with his wife when the years of the Depression came. His parents died at that time and it made him grief intensely.

He got divorced in 1942 and married again in 1943 to Gwendolen Conger. A year later his first son, Thom, was born. He lived through World War One and World War Two. Despite of the economic crisis at that time, he was lucky enough to have a well-paid job. He went to numerous journeys all across North America and wrote about it. In 1964, John Steinbeck was given the Medal of Freedom, just another prize to his large collection. He passed away on the 28th of December 1968 in New York City.

Career

John Steinbeck is known for his novels. He got three of them published although they were not a success. It was with Tortilla Flat (1935) when he began gaining popularity. He started working in the film industry when Of Mice and Men (1937) got a movie adaptation. That novella had been already taken to the stage as a play.

His most famous work is undeniably The Grapes of Wrath (1940). It won a Pulitzer Prize, which was a big deal, and it got a film adaptation too. He also wrote The Pearl (1947) and East of Eden (1952). In 1962 he received the Nobel Prize for Literature.

Novels. The Grapes of Wrath

The Grapes of Wrath tells the story of a poor family that is in a hopeless situation, exploited because of the economy changes that are happening at that time. This is not the first book of Steinbeck that talks about poverty. It has to do with the period he lived in, with the world wars and the Depression. But the Grapes of Wrath in particular, showed what life is being extremely poor and when no one can help you. Very much different from The Great Gatsby by Fitzgerald because they were situated in different periods of time.

This was not the only time Steinbeck wrote about the poor going through hard times. Of Mice and Men, The Pearl and East of Eden all talk about poverty. In East of Eden, the plot is all about religion and it represents stories from the Old Testament. It was adapted to cinemas too in 1955.

Ernest Hemingway. Biography

Hemingway was an American journalist, novelist, short-story writer, born in Oak Park, Illinois. He served in the Red Cross during World War I and was severely wounded in Italy, he moved to Paris in 1921. Devoted himself writing fiction, he had a strong influence on the 20th century fiction. Hemingway revolutionized American writing with his short, declarative sentences and terse prose. He won the Nobel Prize in literature in 1954 and won the Pulitzer Prize in 1953. He published six short-story, seven novels, and two non-fiction works.

Hemingway was considered part of ‘’The Lost generation ‘’ movement, but not only he was part of it, he was involved in its creation. He also used the term in The Sun Also Rises, which was a significant work of Ernest Hemingway. In order to understand the Hemingway’s work, it is important to have a general context of his life, to do that we are going to focused in some events that may conditioning it.

Like we say it before, he born at 1899 in Oak Park, Illinois, but he never wrote about Oak Park. Every summer he traveled with his family to their cottage on Lake Walloon in northern Michigan. This was an opportunity for him, an escape from all his duties that he had in Oak Park. Hemingway ended associating Michigan with a lost paradise. In his work exist this duality between social obligation and nature’s as a form to escape.

He had for sisters, this may be relevant in order to understand the fascination and the need of approval that Hemingway has towards woman. We can observe in works like Cat in the rain and Hills like white Elephants. The sympathy with woman stopped due to his mother, whom it is seen like a monster, when he writes about her. Hemingway’s father taught him to hunt, fish, and camp in the woods and lakes of Northern Michigan as a young boy. These early experiences in nature instilled a passion for outdoor adventure and living in remote or isolated areas. From 1913 until 1917, Hemingway attended Oak Park and River Forest High School. He took part in a large number of sports such as boxing, track and field, water polo, and football. He excelled in English classes.

Adolescence was a difficult time for Hemingway his father had to face a large depression and due to that, he abandoned his children. This situation did not go better and in 1928 he shot himself. In that scenario, Hemingway’s thoughts about what happened may be reflected at several of his stories, in ‘’From Whom the Bell Tolls’’, talks about the inability of the protagonist father’s to not let her woman bully him, leading to the father’s suicide.

He worked as a club reporter for The Kansas City Star six months, when he left high school. Some critics say that his style, such as the use of short sentences or use of a vigorous English, may be conditioned by his time working as a journalist. In 1918 he went volunteering with the Red Cross as an ambulance driver and embarks for Italy. It was for this time when he was wounded, indeed he is reportedly the first American wounded in Italy. He also felt in love with an American nurse, Agnes Von Kurowsky.

He worked at several magazines generally as a freelance like the Toronto Star. A few of his stories were rejected. In 1922 Hemingway moved to Paris. He was determined to have a literary career, and he left the Toronto Star to have all his energies into fiction. He also was very involved with the Spanish war because of his new love, Martha Gellhorn. He accompanied her to Spain and cover the war. He even wrote a novel about the events that were happened From Whom the Bell Tolls. He was fascinated about the Spanish culture and he attended at the festival of St. Fermin multiple times and felt in love with the bullfight.

Hemingway went on safari to Africa, but his life changed radically when he had to deal with the pain and several wounded, caused for two plane crashes that he had in Africa. In 1959, finally he bought a house in Ketchum, Idaho. It was in that same place where he committed suicide in 1961.

Career

In 1926 he published a novel call The Torrents of Spring. It was Hemingway’s first long work. The novel was written with the intention of been a parody of Sherwood Anderson’s Dark Laughter. In the same year he also published The Sun Also Rises. A Farewell to Arms (1929) was about the Italian campaign during the World War I. The inspiration of the title was taken from a poem of the dramatist George Peele.

In 1937 he published To Have and Have Not and in 1940 For Whom The Bell Tolls, work that we commented previously. It is about his time during the Spanish War. His most famous and influential novel was published in 1952 The old Man and the Sea. It was a short novel and thanks to this work, in 1954 he won the Nobel Prize in Literature.

Novels. The Sun Also Rises. The old Man and the Sea

We have decided commented this works for his big relevance and their particular style. The Sun Also Rises follows the life of two man, one American and the other English. Both of them travel from Paris to The Festival of San Fermín in Pamplona. The inspiration of this novel was a trip made to Spain in 1925. The characters are based on real people, friends very close to Hemingway’s, and some of the situation that happened are based on real experience. Hemingway explores themes such as love and death, the power of nature and the concept of masculinity. The Old Man and The Sea tells the story of a skilled fisherman call Santiago and a big marlin. Basically, is about the battle between them, but it is so much deeper than that. In order to understand this, it is important explain the iceberg theory. The iceberg theory is a writing technique that Hemingway use in his novels. He gave a definition is his non-fiction work Death in the Afternoon. He makes a simile between his writing style and an iceberg. Despite of the elements of the story can be seen as simple or have a minimalistic style, he thought the deeper meaning of it should shine through implicitly

The narrative of William Faulkner

Faulkner is considered one of the most celebrate writers in American Literature. He won the Nobel Prize. Faulkner besides of writing novels, he also wrote short stories, poetry, essays, and plays. He born in New Albany, Mississippi. He had four brothers and he was the older one.

Faulkner won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for their works A Fable (1954) and The Reivers (1962). He has several novels rank as the 100 best English-language novels of the 20th century or on other similar lists; like Absalom, Absalom! (1936) or As I Lay Dying (1930).

In this case we are not going to focus in his context life, because we are interested in the narrative and style of William Faulkner. In order to understand the complex world of Faulkner, we need to talk about the imaginary county of Yoknapatawpha, the fictional place where he sets their novels and short stories. He filled it with many characters and references that come and go from his novels to complete a particular mythology, a symbolic world that, as García Márquez has recognized was a real inspiration of the ‘’mythical places’’ created by later novelist.

Some critics thinks that he acts as a bridge between Joyce and the novelists of the second half of the century. It stands out for its slow and careful style, where the subordinate clauses are followed, and the chronological linearity is broken to link the present ant the past. In his main novels he displays a catalogue of different narratives voices and viewpoints. In The sound and the fury, we can appreciate four narrators. As I Lay Dying has an interior monologue of more than ten characters. Even in Absalom, Absalom! The reader must reconstruct the story. Like it can be observed, he had an experimental style and he focused on diction and cadence. This particularly style can be put in contrast with the work of Hemingway, we have seen before that it is characterized for been minimalist, but the work of Faulkner is often perceived as highly emotional, complex, cerebral with a variety of characters. He made a lot of use of the ‘’stream of consciousness’’ a narrative mode method.

Bibliography

1. Ott, M. (2014). Sea of change: Ernest Hemingway and the gulf stream’s contextual biography. Kent State University Press. (2014). Retrieved October 2019Moddelmog, D., & Del Gizzo, S. (2012). Ernest Hemingway in context. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. (2012). Retrieved October 2019
2. Young, P. (1964). Ernest Hemingway (Rev. ed., University of Minnesota pamphlets on American writers, no. 1) [Rev. ed.]. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press. (1964). Retrieved October 2019
3. Bloom, H. (2011). Ernest Hemingway’s the sun also rises. New York: Bloom’s Literary Criticism.
4. Baker, C. (1972). Hemingway, the writer as artist. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.
5. Parini, J. (2004). One matchless time: A life of William Faulkner. New York: Harper Collins Publishers.
6. O’Connor, W. (1964). William Faulkner (University of Minnesota pamphlets on American writers, no. 3). Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. (1964). Retrieved October, 2019

The short story, “Hills like White Elephants”, is unlike any normal story. This story lacked the typical foundation that a normal story might have: a beginning, middle, and end. This short story describes a discussion between a man and a woman, which leads to no real ending. Ernest Heminway, the author, included enough information into this story so that the reader could form their own conclusions. Hemingway’s life was not a walk in the park. He had many unfortunate experiences and misfortunes throughout his life, which had an influence on his writings. Hemingway’s experiences in war and relationships throughout his life had a tremendous impact on the story of one of his famous writings, “Hills like White Elephants”.

Ernest Heminway began his writing career at a young age. He started out as a newspaper writer for his high school and eventually accepted a job for a highly respected newspaper company after graduation. During this time period, World War 1 was taking place. Hemingway took a huge entrist in this war and attempted to enlist in the army. After being declined the opportunity to fight in the front lines, he accepted the duty of being an ambulance driver for the Red Cross. Hemingway was shipped to Italy, where he began his service. During his service to the Red Cross in WW1, Hemingway fell in love with a nurse who ultimately left him for another man. This unfortunate experience influenced the storyline for one of his first major stories, “A Farewell to Arms”. Hemingway’s unlucky turn of events with the nurse, began a journey of failing marriages, cheating, and divorces.

After returning from the war in 1919, Hemingway met a woman named Elizabeth Hadley Richardson. They eventually got married and moved to Paris. During Hemingway’s time in Paris, he joined a community of famous writers, such as Pablo Picasso. In this community, Hemingway learned and unique style of writing that involved communicating factually while limiting the amount of adjectives used. This style of writing is known as “minimalist” writing and became very popular in literature. Hemingway used this style of writing in almost all of his stories throughout his life, including “Hills like White Elephants”.

In 1926, a tragedy occurred that changed Hemingway’s life forever. His father, Dr. Clarence Hemingway, was reported dead from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. Hemingway blamed his mother for his cause of death, however it was later discovered that his father suffered from depression. His father’s death created a level of hatred towards his mother that remained for the rest of his life. This misfortune haunted Hemingway for the rest of his life, and influenced his future writings in a more depressing manner. He even admitted to considering in following his father’s foot-steps at some point in his life.

During Hemingway’s first marriage, he met another woman by the name of Pauline Pfeiffer. They were originally just friends at first and Pauline had no interest in Hemingway. Later they both fell in love, which created an issue. Hadley soon found out about Hemingway’s affair and made a deal with him to have a divorce. This divorce would only happen under one condition, which was that if Hemingway still loved Pauline after being separated for 100 days then they can have the divorce. This agreement affected Hemingway’s life and his works. After the separation was over, Hemingway and Pauline still loved each other and ended up getting married. During the early stages of their marriage was when Hemingway wrote “Hill like White Elephants”.

These experiences that Hemingway faced in his relationships throughout his life negatively influenced one his famous short stories, “Hills like White Elephants”. This story is about a man and a woman who argue about having an abortion. The man continues to persuade the woman to have the operation, however the woman remains passive about the decision. This storyline acts as an allegory for the problems that Hemingway was facing during his first marriage. Hemingway’s first wife, Elizabeth Hadley, was pregnant with his child and he believed he wasn’t ready to have the child. Hemingway attempted to follow through the same actions as the man in the story was doing. He believed that if he had this child, he would miss out on the traveling and hobbies that he was currently enjoying.

The setting of this short story is very important in the sense that it presents the reader the severity of the problem the couple is facing by the actions that are taking place. The story begins with the couple engaging in a conversation at a train station cafe. The man suggests in the first paragraph that they request for some beer. The couple could have requested for any beverage, however they asked for alcohol. Then they clarified on the size of the beer they wanted as “big ones” (1032). This acts as an indicator that the couple is dealing with a serious situation. They even ask for more later on in the story. When people drink beer, especially multiple servings, they usually do so because they are trying to cope with their problems. In relation to the author, he was known for being an alcoholic.

Ernest Hemingway, the epitome of machismo and misogyny for almost the whole 20th century, described himself as a boxer, hunter, fisher, and bullfighter. His contemporaries, though, most typically Zelda Fitzgerald, F. Scott Fitzgerald’s wife, remarked, “No one can be that macho!”. In a way, Zelda was right; Hemingway’s writing, aside from the obvious testosterone-ridden image he liked to paint, was also very emotional and filled with humour. However, for years the underlying progressiveness of Hemingway was ignored, together with his literature deemed ridden with toxic masculinity. Yet the women in his prose are often inspired by the women in Hemingway’s life and are thus multi-layered and nuanced. As a result, making them even more complex than the male characters. In addition, his writing shows various progressive ideas regarding gender-relations and sexuality. Gender fluidity and homosexuality, notably in stories such as The Sun Also Rises, The Garden of Eden, and The Sea Change, are prevalent themes in Hemingway’s writing, even though, for his time, they were deemed perverse. Hemingway simply changed the perspective and framed the sexual content in his stories as sexually inventive. In this essay, I will analyse Hemingway’s gender portrayals and how they undermine the typical relationship between man and woman, through the underlying theme of homosexuality.

First of all, what shaped Hemingway is his childhood, especially the relationship with his mother. As much as Hemingway portrays himself as a virile man and takes pride in his manliness, many authors argue this overt masculinity is a simple façade beneath which Hemingway conceals the childhood trauma his mother had inflicted upon him. Grace Hall-Hemingway liked to dress her son during his infancy similarly to his one-year-older sister and consequently presenting them as twins. In fact, his mother was so into having twin daughters, that she even held Hemingway’s older sister back a year in school, so both siblings could attend the same year. This peculiar parenting practice obviously left its mark on Hemingway, prompting him to develop a lifelong gender complexity. Hence his want to occasionally adopt a female persona in his heterosexual relationships and his hair fetish. Correspondingly, some of Hemingway’s stories have an important theme ‘Gender’, such as The Garden of Eden and The Sun

Also Rises. Both stories contain characters that have a very fluid relationship with gender, similar to Hemingway’s stance on gender inside a relationship.

The Sun Also Rises’ two main characters, Brett Ashley and Jake Barnes, both are a twist on the female-male stereotypes prevalent during Hemingway’s life. Brett Ashley is described as a promiscuous woman, twice divorced and involved with Jake as well as three other men, amongst them her fiancé. Brett’s character is a reflection of the New Woman in the ’20s. The New Woman was a feminist ideal, that pushed for equality between genders in a previously male-dominated world. Hemingway grew up during this sexual revolution. However, whereas the new woman valued self-fulfilment rather than self-sacrifice, the idea of self-restrained moral masculinity was replaced by an aggressive, sexualized virility. As a result, these changed gender rules demanded new forms of courtship, namely dating. But it was not until Hemingway moved to Paris that he came into contact with real people in these new unconventional relationships. This might be the reason a large part of The Sun Also Rises plays out in Paris, where

Brett’s cropped hair and homosexual friends were not as frowned upon as in America. Alternatively, Jake Barnes’ character suffers from a war injury which makes him impotent. By taking away his manhood, consequently his ability to have sex with women, Hemingway dissipated Jake Barnes’ masculine identity, putting him on the same level as the other homosexual characters in the book according to critics, although Barnes expresses frustrations towards these characters throughout the book, reflecting his sexual and gender anxiety. Hemingway’s writing also has been deemed homophobic, for it holds many gay slurs at the slightest affection between two men. This can be illustrated by the scene where one of Barnes’ friends expresses his affection towards him, but then quickly says he could not have been able to tell him this in New York for fear of being called a “faggot”. Furthermore, Jake and Brett’s relationship holds many plays on the stereotypes of traditional heterosexual relationships.

For instance, Brett’s overt sexuality contrasting with Barnes’ impotence, which leads to the downfall of their relationship because they both believe they cannot consummate their love. Yet, this statement is homosexuality erasure, because by Brett and Barnes’ standard, and thus by Hemingway’s as well, love between two partners cannot work if there is no traditional, heterosexual intercourse. However, homosexual couples do not have intercourse the way The Sun Also Rises expects couples to have, though that does not mean their love is less valid. Moreover, in The Sun Also Rises the emphasis lies on new gender roles and how they affect the relationship between man and woman.

Equally important in the study of gender fluidity and homosexuality in Hemingway’s literature is The Garden of Eden. The story starts with a newly-wed couple, Catherine and David, at the beach. There, Catherine cut her hair short “cropped as short as a boy’s” and convinces her husband to dye his as hers, in other words, their first step towards gender reversal. Hemingway does not explicitly describe the couple’s sexual encounters but invites the reader to imagine the reversed heterosexual encounterswith Catherine telling David in bed; “You’re my girl, Catherine”. Furthermore, at the hotel, the couple meets Marita and they both fall in love with her. Although Catherine and Marita’s relationship is homosexual, Hemingway writes them from a very heterosexual view. By all means, their lesbian encounter ends in disaster; the next stage in Catherine’s corruption. Yet, Marita’s encounter with David is another step in her conversion to heterosexuality, reflecting the male fantasy of converting a lesbian to another way of sexuality. Finally, when Marita and David end up together, they both have broken loose from their orthodox, black-and-white, sexuality; orthodox lesbianism and orthodox heterosexuality respectively. Although Marita and David continue their sexual endeavours with their gender roles reversed, this all happens within a heterosexual relationship. In this case, homosexuality, between Marita and Catherine, is labelled corrupt and Marita and David’s relationship, although genderfluid,is deemed sexually inventive.

Ernest Hemingway (1899-1961) was an American writer who burst onto the modernist literary scene in Paris during the 1920s and subsequently became one of the most famous authors of the twentieth century. Ernest Hemingway coined this theory when he determined that by omitting parts of a story, details that the writer and reader both inherently know, the story’s prose will the shortened and strengthened.

Ernest Hemingway’s Short Stories: The Iceberg Theory

“We are all tips of the iceberg”- Ashlecka Aumrivani once said when she was defining the invisibility of the whole picture of human nature as a mystery that makes our lives more interesting. In a similar manner, we can enjoy Hemingway’s style of writing that makes his readers think and guess if they want to fully understand the whole plot of his stories. To put it simpler, let’s figure out what “The Iceberg Theory” actually is about.

According to Hemingway’s Iceberg Theory, “If a writer knows enough about what he is writing about, he may omit things that he knows. The dignity of movement of an iceberg is due to only one-ninth of it being above water” (What is Hemingway). I would also add some important factors to that statement that probably makes that theory work. That is the readers have to share the author’s feelings and intentions in order to catch up with the omitted details. In other words, the readers have to be knowledgeable enough and have an intuitive mindset to pick up the omitted information.

I would like to analyze two short stories “Hills Like White Elephants” and “The Killers” to better understand the usage of “The Iceberg Theory” in practice. Starting from “Hills Like White Elephants”, when I first read the above short story for the first time, I honestly couldn’t comprehend the whole meaning of the story. What I could understand is that a man and a woman were sitting at the railway station, drinking beer and chatting with each other. There were a lot of things in their conversation that I couldn’t immediately understand. Although there was the word “operation” in the story, I still was confused about the meaning. Throughout the story, I was wondering what kind of operation it was. The man never talked or asked about her spouse’s health, so I rejected the assumption that the woman was sick. Once I had read the story one more time, I realized that the man and the woman were actually talking about abortion. I think that the omission of the actual word “abortion” adds an additional emotional impact to the story. “Hills Like White Elephants” was the first story that I have ever read in my life where I could observe such a literary tool as “words omitting”. I personally don’t find that theory easy to understand probably because I can’t call myself a sophisticated reader. However, I believe that those people who read a lot of Hemingway’s stories will truly enjoy the iceberg theory used in his works as it makes reading more interesting when only a portion of words can drag much more meaning further.

Having analyzed the language of the story, I found out that symbolism and lack of feelings contributed to the overall purpose of “The Iceberg Theory”. The symbolism in the story gives a clue to the readers and helps them pick up the important things that are unsaid. For example, the “white hills” symbolizes that the woman has a “hill” of her own, which emphasizes her pregnancy. Additionally, Hemingway gave a lack of feeling to the man about the woman’s situation. Thus the man was unable to consider an “abortion” as an event that might change the woman’s life. Hemingway used his writing style of omissions not only in “Hills Like White Elephants”; the short story “The Killers” was written with the “The Iceberg Theory” implemented.

In “The Killers” short story, I liked how Hemingway included a sense of mystery in his characters. When I read that story, I couldn’t see enough characteristics of the two men who were threatening to kill Ole Andreson. I think Hemingway deliberately omitted the important details in order to expose his readers to the dramatic tension of the plot and create a hostile atmosphere of the events. Moreover, the story lacks important details about the setting and location of the lunchroom where the main events were happening which gives the readers a chance to imagine. It’s also important to emphasize the specific characteristics of the dialogues’ structure, almost in all cases, the dialogues are concise and limited, with the “said” and “asked” words used a lot. We can observe that structure by looking at the sample below:

‘Got anything to drink?’ Al asked.

‘Silver beer, bevo, ginger-ale,’ George said.

‘I mean you got anything to drink?’

‘Just those I said.’

(Ernest Hemingway, The Killers).

The story left with lots of questions both about the main characters and their intentions. For example, I don’t know what drove those “killers” to commit such a crime. Those unanswered questions give the readers room for imagination and adaptation.

The title of the story “The killers” suggests that we will see the killers, but the title doesn’t show us how many of them will be in the story. By further reading the story, we may, in fact, see that there are only “two killers”. Perhaps, those are the killers which were mentioned in the title but, again, this is just our assumption.

In conclusion, I think that “The Iceberg Theory” is a very effective tool in writing as it gives the readers the opportunity to replenish the details in the stories that are omitted by Hemingway on purpose. However, I do believe that “The Iceberg Theory” must be used with much caution as if it’s not implemented properly, the readers will be lost in the plot and thus the author’s message will be misunderstood. In my opinion, a writer cannot cut the majority of details as it won’t give any leads to readers to discover the whole point of a story. The right balance between giving all the details and omitting them has to be implemented. The proportion of the above-mentioned factors is crucially important as otherwise the risk of losing the value of a story is quite high. Therefore, I think it is the art of using “The Iceberg Theory” in the right way, and only those writers who can determine the right proportion of what is supposed to be included and omitted will be able to gift their readers a chance to enjoy the true benefits of that literary style. I believe that Hemingway has successfully managed to implement that theory in his short stories!

References:

1. ‘Ernest Hemingway – The Killers | Genius.’ Genius | Song Lyrics & Knowledge. Web. http://genius.com/Ernest-hemingway-the-killers-annotated.
2. ‘What is Hemingway .’ Academia.edu – Share research. Web. http://www.academia.edu/33353933/What_is_Hemingway_Ice-Berg_theory.

The stories chosen for comparison are Ernest Hemingway’s ‘Hills Like White Elephants’ and Amy Tan’s ‘Rules of The Games’. The comparison would be conducted based on the aspect of protagonist’s isolation which is evident from both the stories in which each of the protagonists has their own world and has their own way to interact with the world. The thesis statement would be associated with the fact that in spite protagonists strong fight to win over their respective isolation, each has to resort to the world and the family making a wide variety of possible symbolic interpretations. The comparison would be conducted between both the protagonists in terms of their struggle with the world, acquaintances and the people around them to address their issues in isolation.

Comparing the lives of the girl in Ernest Hemingway’s ‘Hills Like White Elephants’ and Waverly Jong in Amy Tan’s ‘Rules of The Game’, it can be said that both the woman and the girl rationalize their attempts to deal with the issues in isolation. Both the protagonist in the story feel it necessary to make the compromises to please the people around them. In case of the girl referred in the ‘Hills Like White Elephant’, there is a constant struggle of the protagonist to decide to get an abortion. The protagonist in this story is in isolation as there seems to be pressure from the man to do the work but he also insists vaguely to not do it if she does not want to. There is a confusion bestowed upon the first who has to solely decide on whether to keep the baby or to agree to what the man wants implicitly. The protagonist in this story continues to gamble between keeping the baby or pleasing the man. On the other hand, the protagonist Waverly Jong has been in a constant psychological battle of wills with her mother. There is this isolated battle that Waverly Jong has been playing against her mother and brothers. Waverly’s mother imposes strict Chinese rules on her children which are biased against Waverly. This is evident from the fact that Waverly was relegated to doing chores while her brothers were free to pursue their interests. However, ultimately it is Waverly’s decision to grow her interest in chess and ultimately be a chess genius.

Protagonist isolation from the world can be justified in case of the ‘Hills Like White Elephants’ as there has been mention of the nature, mountains, hills, valley of Ebro and also the interaction with the waitress of the bar and presence of the people who were also waiting to the catch the train to Madrid. However, there was thoughtful isolation for the protagonist as her decision to undergo abortion was inherent and was oblivion for the world around her except for the man. The author has not presented any information or identity of the man in the protagonist’s life while it could assumed as the lover who wanted an illegitimate pregnancy to end or a husband not ready for the responsibility. However, statements like “if you don’t want to you don’t have to. I wouldn’t have you do it if you didn’t want to.”(Hemingway 645) have been confusing for the girl to take her decision in isolation. However, she insisted on the man to stop talking which could be an indication that the protagonist wanted isolation in her decision making and would not entertain any suggestion It is also unclear as to what would be final act of the girl although her ending line states “I feel fine,’ she said. ‘There’s nothing wrong with me. I feel fine”( Hemingway 646). Comparing such strong protagonist isolation in case of the girl, Waverly Jong has a contrasting life in which there is strong domination of the mother and the Chinese culture. It can be said that the Waverly also took an isolated decision to and ran away from her house for half a day. However, upon realizing that she can’t survive in isolation, she considers coming back only with angry eyes but considers her next move in her battle of wills against her mother by stating “I closed my eyes and pondered my next move” ( Tan 1513). Both the girl and Waverly was fighting for oneself and not for others and hence in spite of their isolation, they both have been raced down by others.

In conclusion, the purpose of the comparison was to understand the situation of each of the protagonist in situations to undertake decisions to win over their lives.. The girl in ‘Hills Like White Elephants’ has been struggling with the man to decide to keep the baby or not while Waverly was in a constant battle of wills against her mother. However, there is no decisive statement in each of the stories that ascertain who wins the battle as in whether the girl pursues her desire to keep the baby or abort it or whether Waverly would be ever allowed to play chess with support from her mother.

The short story “A Clean, well lighted Place” has been written by the author named Ernest Hemingway in the year of 1962. The story is basically a narration of different stages of life where the interest and thought process of people changes with time. Age is the biggest focus line of this story as people’s thought process changes with the growth in age.

The author had illustrated different stages of human life with the help of illustrating characters of old waiter, young waiter and an old man at the café. This paper evaluates the similarities and differences in the traits of all three characters.

The author had illustrated the younger age of human’s life to be full of excitement. The author has portrayed the character of the younger aged waiter as a young human who has his short terms goals. The author claims that the young waiter did not really felt considerate of the older persons around him.

To the young waiter, older people are filthy and clumsy who have nothing better to do in life (Hemingway). In the story, the author had described the traits of younger waiter’s personality as impulsive, inconsiderate of older people, focused to a conservative vision of sleeping with his wife and one who had no idea how death could come to his life in his later years of older age.

“I have a wife waiting in bed for me (Hemingway 28).”

The second stage of human life has been projected with the help of character of an old man who stays in the café till late night to drink. He does not spill a single drop of liquor on the counter and when he leaves the bar, he walks with dignity instead of unsteady walk. The older age of the man had been regarded to a stage where there are no hopes left but the fear of darkness at home (Hemingway). The darkness had been used as a symbol of death. Staying at the café for longer hours helped the older man to escape from the fear of darkness. The café was well-lighted that had been used as an escape from the darkness.

The light is very good and also, now, there are shadows of the leaves (Hemingway 62)

The third character which is quite similar to the character of old man is the waiter at the café who is also old. The young waiter asked him about the old man who stays for loner hours at the café late night.

“I wish he would go home. I never get to bed before three o’clock. What kind of hour is that to go to bed? (Hemingway 8)“

In reply to the question of the young waiter, the older waiter answers from his experience stating that older stage of life is full of fear of darkness (death). The older waiter states that the older man was in a progression towards old weary days that ends with death (Hemingway).

Through the above analysis of the traits of the three characters of the story A Clean, well lighted Place, it comes to our understanding that the old man was in a progression of an older age and had similar personality traits as the older waiter had. The younger waiter had been projected as a different human who is in his younger age and does not understand the fear of death and the need of light as an escapee in the older age.

Works Cited

Hemingway, E. A Clean Well-lighted Place. New York: Creative Education, 1990.

Introduction

“A & P” by John Updike and “Soldiers Home” by Ernest Hemingway are stories of two young men facing different situations in their lives. Krebs Harold had gone to war at a young age and had a rough experience all through. When he returned to his home community, his motherland did not appreciate his values and he found it very hard to cope with life.

He was living a life without joy. He was not able to love or appreciate the values of his community. This made him not to be appreciated since his age mates were already settling with good jobs and getting married. He lived an alienated life. On the other hand in A & P, Sammy has a life that was filled with sarcasm and humor. He was always sarcastic and interested in girls.

Setting and Character Development

In A & P, a nineteen year old boy Sammy had just completed his secondary education. He started working in a supermarket. His views about life were shaped in this place. His daily activities in the supermarket brought him across many girls. His encounter with them revealed his thoughts. The writer gave a vivid description of the girls:

In walks these three girls in nothing but bathing suits…She was a chunky kid, with a good tan and a sweet broad soft looking can with those two crescents of white just under it, where the sun never seems to hit, at the top of the backs of her legs. (Updike 1)

Sammy’s life was filled with humor. The writer used the first person and this gives the reader a direct message from the protagonist. Sammy was a young man whose transition from childhood to adulthood was posing challenges that made him wonder what life was all about. Initially, he had aspirations that he would become a greater person in the supermarket. The most striking thing while working was the presence of these girls who came in bathing suites.

The presence of the girls at the supermarket confused Sammy and at one time this confusion led him to make a second call to a customer that he had already called. The author used imagery to describe the situation at every given moment. He described the dressing of the girls as “They didn’t even have shoes on…the lips bunched together under here no se…With black hair that hadn’t quite frizzed right” (Updike, 1).

Sammy is seen to be a very complicated person as everything mattered to him. He was very hard working and looked forward to a great future in his career. He even aspired to hold a higher position in this job. However, after some time Sammy was seen getting bored with the job and he found it to be quite boring. Although Sammy’s parents en courage him to work harder, it was clear he had lost hope of progressing on that job.

Krebs in the story Soldier’s Home is depicted as a person who had gone through hard times. As a young soldier he experienced brutality in the war. He had a wish in his heart which he wanted to express when he went home:

He wished to tell the truth behind the engagements he fought in, while they bask in the glory their fictional tales of war and detailed accounts of German women found chained to machine guns in the Argonne forest. (DocShare 1)

It is shown that the home community did not provide him a conducive environment to express himself. The community provided a harsh environment that did not give him the freedom of expression. He therefore did not have an audience to share with. This made him to start telling lies so as to get people’s attention (Hemingway 1). This behavior that he adapted is seen to have changed his way of life especially in regard to the way he viewed people.

Krebs did not have a quick way of expressing himself and thus kept on feeling alienated alone. His father was not mostly involved with his issues. Krebs thought about girls he had encountered. He did not like the German and the French girls and seemingly he did not like girls at all; he claimed that a person just requires girls on when thinking about them. He viewed girls as being complicated and therefore thought that he it was only fair if people or rather men kept away from them (Hemingway 1).

Most of the things that Krebs did were in contrast to what he wanted. For example, he was forced to tell lies so as to get approval by those around him. Other things which occurred against his wish include the young man who came home: “He did not want to come home. Still, he had come home” (Hemingway 1). In a different setting, Krebs is seen not able to approach girls which he admired.

The story was set in a family setting where the character of the parents is revealed by the content. Krebs’ mother was very concerned about the son; she took breakfast to his bedroom. Krebs did not believe that his father cared for him; this was clearly shown when his father allowed him to use his car in the evenings and Krebs in turn was convinced that it was his mother who had convinced his father to allow the car to be used by Krebs.

Religious background is deeply rooted in the community. Krebs’ mum was deeply committed to the issues of the kingdom and this led to a conflict between her and Krebs when she reprimanded him in regard to his idleness: “There can be no idle hands In His Kingdom” (Hemingway 1).

In reply, Krebs informed his mother that he did not belong to that kingdom. She told him that she prayed for him all day long. One day his mother prayed for him while they were in the dining room as they were taking their breakfast. After this, Krebs felt uncomfortable being around home and consequently left to find a good place elsewhere (Hemingway 1).

The two stories expose two characters of people. In the first, Sammy did not have the wealth to enjoy. He appreciated the girls in every way and gave a detailed description. He lived in an environment that did not ignore him. This made him to have self confidence to live his life and did not pretend or deny his feelings. Krebs’ case was however different.

His parents’ approach to solve his problem only made the situation worse. He felt inadequate and unable to hold and cope with the pressure that his parents brought along. The two stories have a different place of setting and different time. A & P was told as Sammy worked in a supermarket while in Soldiers home Harold Krebs is raised in Oklahoma in 1917.

Both protagonists, Sammy and Krebs became dissatisfied with their environment. The relationship with girls is not clear as both do not have the courage to approach girls (Hemingway 1). Sammy was emotional while Harold was not.

Conclusion

The two stories are a good representation of two young men in different societies. They were in their time of transition from childhood to adulthood. They are seen to have chosen jobs without caution and not quite sure of what they wanted to do with their lives. As time took its course, they realized there was a need for them to take responsibility in order for them to enjoy the freedom that they needed. They moved out of their status quo to go and discover what life could offer them without the influence of the family.

Works Cited

DocShare. Ernest Hemingway’s Soldiers Home. Doc Share, 2011. Web.

Hemingway. Strong Brain, Ernest Hemingway: soldiers home. Strong Brain, 2010. Web.

Updike. A & P. Tiger Town, n.d. Web.

Introduction

In many of these works, Ernest Hemingway portrays male dominance and masculine power as dominant features of the main characters. Critics admit that the structure that Hemingway establishes for the telling of stories, the apparatus and technique he uses, is complex. As he essentially describes a psychic battle, he interprets his terms broadly and mythically. Male dominance and authority portrayed in his works are caused by life experience at war and hatred towards his mother.

Main text

Due to poor health, Hemingway was not enrolled in the army during WW!, but he joined the Red Cross Ambulance Corps. He took no orders and gave no orders, and came and went wherever he pleased. This allowed him to understand hardship and cruelty of war, communicate with soldiers and record their memories. During the First World War, the United States got into the fighting so late that an American with true war stories to tell, and a wound besides, was something of a rarity (Meyers 65). Such, of course, was Hemingway’s situation. Hemingway’s compromise indicates that even while writing The Sun Also Rises he was conscious of the problems his realistic language and sexual content could cause. Masculine dominance and language prevail in this novel. At the same time, Hemingway was not interested in challenging the censorship codes of the period. He often changed words to avoid such a confrontation. However, he was dedicated to his craft and to the integrity of his stories; an integral aspect of this dedication was presenting experiences as realistically as possible. The main characters of the novel, Brett Ashley and Jake Barnes experience psychological pressure caused by WWI. He says “A man can be destroyed but not defeated” (Hemingway 103). Consequently, he felt the language and sexuality of his characters had to support and reflect this realism. His major pattern associates the Fascists with the Apollonian and all that might be associated with that, and he largely places the cyclical, the “revolutionary,” with the Dionysian (Meyers 76; Meyers 198). These polar oppositions become in a broader perspective and another vocabulary masculine and feminine, and the struggle between them emerges partly as a solar battle in which male powers accept feminine control and the solar world yields to the lunar. Following Fantina, “

The heterosexual David Bourne shares the masculine identification that prevails in much of Bersani’s view of the gay man. Hemingway, of course, also identifies most emphatically with the masculine, and with phallocentric power arrangements as well. Here we can see how Hemingway’s masochism may not be entirely progressive” (84).

Certainly, in Hemingway’s style, as in any work of art, such basic oppositions are neither simplistic nor unvarying, while they serve to define a struggle between opposing forces.

Homosexual orientation and homosexual relations are often cited as main sources of Hemingway’s style and inspiration (Fontana 84). Thus, some critics reject this opinion stating that male bonding is caused by dual nature of his personality and a strong impact of his mother. His mother wanted twins but when she born a boy (further called Ernest) she was disappointed and dressed both of her children, Ernest and his sister in similar close. Following John Dos Passos “Ernest Hemingway was the only man he had ever known who really hated his mother (Lynn 395). This biographical fact explains male dominance and masculine features in many of his works. Lynn admits that it was partly his mother’s standards of beauty–elegant, inflated language supporting hypocritically held values–that Hemingway revolted against in his insistence on simplicity of style” (Lynn 395).

Similar to The Sun Also Rises, the majority of his works are based on a central male character who fights against life circumstances and destiny. His most popular short stories are The Killers, A Clean Well Lighted Place, The Snows of Kilimanjaro, and Indian Camp. Hemingway biographer Meyers links the author’s long-standing fascination with the American West to the development of his central male characters. Meyers points to a sharp break between the passive men of Hemingway’s early fiction and the self-reliant males who populate his books after 1928 (Lynn 76). A Clean, Well-Lighted Place is a unique story in which the characters do not come in total contact with death, but nothingness hints and causes death. The cup of “nada” represents the emptiness in the old man’s life. The old man’s attempted suicide is linked to the emptiness and death as well (Meyers 20). Indian Camp is considered one of the classic stories. Nick Adams is a young boy who lives in the North woods. Nick, his father, and his uncle George set out on a trip to an American Indian camp that sits on the other side of a lake. Nick’s father is a Doctor, just as Ernest Hemingway’s father was a Doctor.

Hemingway is spawning characters that are similar to his own life experience.

Nick’s father travels to the American Indian Camp because a young American Indian girl has been having severe labor pains for two days. She is still unable to deliver her baby, so Dr. Adams decides to help. When the family arrives the mother is in pain and her husband suffers from an axe wound to the leg from a few days earlier (Lynn 72). A group of four American Indian men holds down the woman and Dr. Adams performs a makeshift procedure. He uses his jackknife as a scalpel and performs a cesarean section on the pregnant woman. Hemingway, during his service in World War I was injured by Austrian mortar fire in both legs. His use of injured legs in Snows and Indian Camp is an obvious and personal inclusion of his own life. His own mortality is a reference point and the injured leg in each story is a successful attempt by Hemingway to make the reader feel what Hemingway feels. Following Forter: ”My own sense is that inventing a masculinity less committed to the sanctity of its borders would be the beginning of a genuinely revolutionary project about gender” (133).

Critics admit that masculine lifestyle and hobbies (hunting and fishing) had a great impact on his themes and motifs used in the works. In the novel For Whom the Bell Tolls Hemingway, moderate in height, sight, in his masculinity, and in his faith which he moderates because of love, he finally nearsightedly rushes towards death “blindly,” believing he is rushing towards his wife who calls his name. His final blindness is an important self-dethronement of the world, as it speaks of the substitution of the woman for sight (Lynn 23). The anomaly of Don Guillermo Martin speaks to the two worlds that are in delicate balance within him. On the simplest of levels, the reference to the lost eggs is, of course, to lost testicular power or male potency in the struggle for power and authority that Jordan has witnessed within the cave, a battle that has culminated in Pablo’s overthrow as he has been unmanned and cowed by Pilar as she, inverting her stirring spoon, has made the baton of her cyclical function the new emblem of power in the cave.

The theme of masculinity and male dominance is depicted through the theme of struggle and fight. For instance, in The Old man and the Sea people struggle with life similar to Santiago who could not catch a fish during eighty-four days and become the laughingstock. Despite his old age, Santiago is strong enough to continue his battle with nature and sea. “Everything about him was old except his eyes and they were the same color as the sea and were cheerful and undefeated’ (Hemingway 10). Male characters are depicted as the persons who are full of life experience, but still have not found the truth of life (Meyers 1997). For instance, Santiago says: “It is good that we do not have to try to kill the sun or the moon or the stars. It is enough to live on the sea and kill our true brothers” (Hemingway 75). In all of his stories and novels, Hemingway creates a powerful and true-to-life story about real experience of many soldiers who came home but felt lack of understanding and social support.

Summary

In sum, themes of male dominance and masculinity are caused by poor relations with his mother and personal experience during wartime. Hemingway underlines masculinity m order to impress the reader and convey the message. His structural and stylistic devices reveal a variety of interpretations as to the meaning in the novels. Through the theme of life struggle Hemingway describes that a person has only one life, which cannot be “restored”. Also, male characters in most of his works show the hopelessness and futility of people’ dreams when the life was to be taken as the true image of the human condition: frightened, lonely,

Works Cited Page

1. Burwell, R. M. Hemingway’s Garden of Eden: Resistance of Things Past and Protecting the Masculine Text. Texas Studies in Literature and Language, 35 (1993), 198-221.
2. Fantina, R., Hemingway’s Masochism, Sodomy and the, Dominant Woman. The Hemingway Review, 23 (2003), 84.
3. Forter, G. Hemingway’s Fetishism: Psychoanalysis and the Mirror of Manhood. The Hemingway Review 18 (1999), 133.
4. Hemingway, E. Sun Also Rises. Scribner, 1995.
5. Hemingway, E. The Old man and the Sea. Scribner; Reissue edn, 1995.
6. Lynn, K.. Hemingway. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1987.
7. Meyers, J. Ernest Hemingway: The Critical Heritage. Routledge, 1997.

Just like many of his contemporaries, including F. Scott Fitzgerald, William Carlos Williams, Thornton Wilder, and Hart Crane, Ernest Hemingway belonged to the so-called “Lost Generation”, which was a “group of expatriate American writers residing primarily in Paris during the 1920s and 1930s” (Lost Generation). Kevin Alexander Boon, in his book dedicated to Ernest Hemingway and his works, gives a very concise and yet comprehensive description of “Lost Generation”, saying that “it refers to the young men and women who were ‘blasted by the World War’ (World War I)… were disillusioned with the inability of political bodies to insulate the world against war… and rejected traditional forms” (39-40). Thus, it should come as no surprise that Hemingway’s writings are widely considered to be nihilistic. But first of all, before going into the detailed discussion of the manifestations of nihilistic symbolism in The Sun Also Rises, it is necessary to fully understand the concept of nihilism and thus define it. Merriam-Webster’s 11th Collegiate Dictionary defines nihilism as “a viewpoint that traditional values and beliefs are unfounded and that existence is senseless and useless” and also as “a doctrine that denies any objective ground of truth and especially of moral truths” (Nihilism). Both of these can be easily found in The Sun Also Rises, which swarms with symbols of nihilism. Thus, Ernest Hemingway makes extensive use of symbolism in order to convey nihilistic themes, because the main hero of The Sun Also Rises is a symbol of nihilism, the main heroine of The Sun Also Rises is a symbol of nihilism, and finally, and perhaps most importantly, Hemingway’s own life was nihilistic.

The protagonist of The Sun Also Rises, Jake Barnes, is a symbol of nihilism. The very first few lines show him as such: “Robert Cohn was once middleweight boxing champion of Princeton. Do not think that I am very much impressed by that as a boxing title, but it means a lot to Cohn” (Hemingway 11). Thus, he shows his

dislike of conventional value system and wants to distance himself from it. He goes on to say that “I never met any one of his class who remembered him. They did not even remember that he was middleweight champion” (Hemingway 11), thereby implying that no one cared about his title. Then, he goes on to say that he mistrusts “all frank and simple people” (Hemingway 12), clearly going against the widespread norms of morality. In addition to undervaluing other people’s achievements, Jake is also sceptical about their motives. Thus, describing Robert Cohn’s mistress, he says that she “hoped to rise with the magazine,” which Rober Cohn has established, but seeing “that the magazine was not going to rise, she became a little disgusted with Cohn and decided that she might as well get what there was to get” (Hemingway 13). Another facet of Jakes’ personality that qualifies him as nihilist is his biting sarcasm. Thus, when describing the smile of a girl he just met, he says that “she smiled and showed all her bad teeth” (Hemingway 24); then, introducing her to his friends, presenting her as his girlfriend, despite having just met her an hour ago, he says that “Georgette smiled that wonderful smile” (Hemingway 27), thereby showing his biting sarcasm. And since sarcasm is “a sharp and often satirical or ironic utterance designed to cut or give pain” (Sarcasm), it is obvious that it serves the author, as well as the narrator, the protagonist, as a way of showcasing his nihilism: even though he is with her and is seen in conjunction with her, definitely having the opinion of his friends about him somewhat influenced by her behavior and appearance, he cannot care less about how she looks, because he is above that: he has his code of honor. This is precisely the kind of Hemingwayesque outlook that Harold Bloom talks about in his critical study of Ernest Hemingway’s works, referring to Hemingway’s characters: “they have maintained, even in the practical defeat, an ideal of themselves… by which they have lived. They represent some notion of a code, some notion of honor, that makes a man a man” (30). This is all the more important considering the fact that Jake Barnes is in many ways a battered man suffering from unhappy past, as it is evident when he, falling asleep, leads a mental dialogue with himself: “I blew out the lamp. Perhaps I would be able to sleep. My head started to work. The old grievance. Well, it was a rotten way to be wounded” (Hemingway 38). Then, after describing some of his memories from the hospital, he dives deeper into himself and we see the colors of his attitude toward those who witnessed him suffer: “probably I never would have had any trouble if I hadn’t run into Brett… I suppose she only wanted what she couldn’t have. Well, people were that way. To hell with people… then all of a sudden I started to cry” (Hemingway 39). Thus, his past haunts him and makes him explicitly admit that it was all useless and futile – a waste of time: “to hell with it”: he just wants to get away from it and thus pictures himself as separate from all that. This gives him unity with himself, though separating him from the conventional morality. Thus, he makes up his own code of honor and lives according to its tenets, no matter how subtle this code of honor is. This was confirmed not only by various critics, but also by Hemingway himself, who has often summed it it up “by his phrase ‘grace under pressure’”, even though many observers have failed “to see that this ‘grace’ is not only physical and aesthetic, but also moral and spiritual” (The Sun Also Rises). Thus, this code of honor, lying at the very core of Hemingway’s fiction, as well serving as the emotional foundation of his characters, in that very particular instance of Jake Barnes, makes Jake’s life more bearable and gives him some comfort, not to mention its great vanity value of being able to distinguish “him from people who merely follow their random impulses and who are, by consequence, ‘messy’ ” (Bloom 30). Another manifestation of Jacob’s nihilism is his inner anger. When he talks about “a crowd of young men”, he says that even though he knew he was supposed to be “tolerant”, he “wanted to swing on one, any one, anything to shatter that superior, simpering composure” (Hemingway 28). “Anything to shatter” are the two key words here, showing not only nihilism but also symbolism in that it is Jacob’s way of saying: “to hell with you all! I am better than you!” While all of the above-mentioned examples may not be substantial enough proof of Jacob’s being a symbol of nihilism, there is yet another aspect of his personality, which, even though having been explored in this paragraph, has not been shown in its fullest form: this is his denial of everything positive. While this is clear from the previous examples, it would also be beneficial to look at the most glaring and raw example of it: “I was a little drunk. Not drunk in any positive sense but just enough to be careless” (Hemingway 29). Therefore, based on all of the above-mentioned examples, it is reasonable to assert that Jake Barnes, the protagonist of The Sun Also Rises, is a wry symbol of nihilism.

The main heroine of The Sun Also Rises, Brett Ashley, is likewise a symbol of nihilism. She has had love affairs with many men, jilted them when she felt like doing it, and does not shun talking about it, telling Jake at one point that she thinks “of the hell I’ve put chaps through” (Hemingway 34). But this facade of feeling guilty about one’s misdeeds should not be mistaken for the good soul, as she later seduces a nineteen-year-old bullfighter, not to mention her brief love affair with Jake’s friend, Robert Cohn. Thus, Xiaoping Yu, in her critical study of Brett’s character published in a scholarly journal, writes that Brett “also challenged patriarchy” (2). She then goes on to give examples of Brett displaying her masculinity, one of which includes Brett watching the bullfight and surprising “everyone by being completely unfazed by the fights” (Yu 2). Thus, it is clear that Brett is a symbol of both feminism and nihilism, as her sexual promiscuity borders on the extreme disregard of human morality.

The final proof of the fact that Hemingway has used symbolism to convey nihilistic themes is that his own life was nihilistic. Thus, according to Encarta Reference Library, “he wondered if the plane crashes and the premature obituaries published in newspapers around the world swayed the committee to award him the Swedish prize (the Nobel Prize in Literature)” (The Snows of Kilimanjaro). Another manifestation of his nihilistic lifestyle was the number of his marriages: four. Yet another, and perhaps the most important, manifestation of his nihilism is the fact that he “after treatment at the Mayo Clinic for major depression… returned to his Idaho home and shot himself on July 2, 1961” (The Snows of Kilimanjaro). This shows that he considered life according to his ideals more imporant than life itself. This fact has saturated his fiction and led many critics to see “his books as holding keys to the writer’s own character” (The Snows of Kilimanjaro). Thus, nihilism in his own life has saturated his fiction and found a reflection of itself in his books as a symbol of inner struggle.

Therefore, since the main hero and heroine of The Sun Also Rises are symbols of nihilism and Hemingway’s own life was also in a way a symbol of nihilism, it can be said that Ernest Hemingway makes an extensive use of symbolism. And even though it might seem unrelated to the main topic of this essay, I would like to end this essay with the words of Hemingway that have moved me the most and that can be in a way considered an extension of his nihilism – if the definition of nihilism be extended to include in itself a creation of new reality separate from the one in which we are living – thus his words are: “For a true writer each book should be a new beginning where he tries again for something that is beyond attainment. He should always try for something that has never been done or that others have tried and failed. Then sometimes, with great luck, he will succeed” (Ernest Hemingway – Banquet Speech).

Works Cited

Bloom, Harold. Ernest Hemingway. New York: Chelsea House Publishers, 2005. Print. Describes Ernest Hemingway both as as individual and as an artist, giving a wealth of facts, some of which have previously been unknown.

Boon, Kevin Alexander. Ernest Hemingway: The Sun Also Rises and Other Works. New York: Marshall Cavendish Benchmark, 2008. Print. Analyzes Hemingway’s most charactristic pieces of fiction, giving a wide picture of his genius, as well as a number of insights into his personal philosophy.

“Ernest Hemingway – Banquet Speech.” Nobelprize.org. 2010. The Nobel Foundation. 2011. Web. Provides the web page visitor with Hemingway’s Nobel Prize acceptance speech, both in text and audio formats.

Hemingway, Ernest. The Sun Also Rises. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2006. Print. The first published novel of Ernest Hemingway. It describes the life of American expatriate community in Paris, drawing on Hemingway’s own experiences and showing a picture of disillusioned generation – the so-called “Lost Generation”.

“Lost Generation.” Encarta Reference Library. Microsoft Corporation, 2005. DVD. An encyclopedia article describing “Lost Generation” and its main principles.

“Nihilism.” Merriam-Webster’s 11th Collegiate Dictionary. Merriam-Webster Incorporated, 2003. DVD. Defines nihilism.

“Sarcasm.” Merriam-Webster’s 11th Collegiate Dictionary. Merriam-Webster Incorporated, 2003. DVD. Defines sarcasm.

“The Snows of Kilimanjaro.” Encarta Reference Library. Microsoft Corporation, 2005. DVD. Provides a short biographical sketch of Hemingway’s life and discusses that story.

“The Sun Also Rises.” Encarta Reference Library. Microsoft Corporation, 2005. DVD. Provides a short biographical sketch of Hemingway’s life and discusses that story.

Yu, Xiaoping. “The New Woman in The Sun Also Rises.” English Language Teaching, Vol. 3, No. 3. 2010. Center of Science and Education 2011. Web. Provides an insightful analysis of Brett Ashley, proving that she was the prototype of The New Woman.

Ernest Hemingway emerged as one of America’s more colorful writers in the early to mid-1900s, presenting himself as the ultimate man’s man, worldly traveler, mighty hunter and hard-drinking spinner of tales. His short stories focused on the virtues held by men a generation or two earlier than him as well as the effects and aftereffects of war. Yet each story contained a deeper message within the lines, if the reader felt the desire to go searching for it. He believed in omitting extra details as a way of strengthening his stories. He compared this to an iceberg. Just like only the top 1/8th of an iceberg can be seen above the water with the rest remaining below the surface providing it with its momentum and dignity, Hemingway believed his stories should follow the same structure. Throughout his life, Hemingway struggled in his relationships with others, particularly women, and these struggles can be traced through many of his works including “The Short and Happy Life of Francis Macomber.”

In “The Short and Happy Life of Francis Macomber”, Hemingway reveals his latent fear of strong women and being dominated as he depicts the story of a middle-aged man who is finally beginning to understand his true worth. This man is accompanied by his wife, a woman who has nothing but contempt for her weak and cowardly husband. As the story progresses, it becomes clear that during this, the couple’s first safari, Francis fled from the sight of his first lion. This was an action that has taken place just before the opening of the story, and the audience is only aware of it, and the tensions it causes, by the reactions of the hunting party members around the camp that afternoon. The marriage relationship is shown to be full of contempt on the part of the wife and shame on the part of the husband, but nevertheless relatively stable. “They had a sound basis of union. Margot was too beautiful for Macomber to divorce her and Macomber had too much money for Margot ever to leave him” (Hemingway 22).

Margot Macomber is characterized throughout the story as a cruel, vindictive woman who will simply not allow her husband to forget his weaknesses and yet fears his increasing confidence. Throughout the story, she is described in unflattering and dominant terms such as ‘hard,’ ‘cruel’ or ‘predatory.’ From the beginning of the story, it is clear that Margot cannot stand the shame of her husband’s cowardice in running from the lion nor can she tolerate the thought of him growing beyond her as he begins to face his fears. As he stands down the charge of his second water buffalo, taking careful aim at the buffalo’s head, Francis “felt a sudden white-hot, blinding flash explode inside his head and that was all he ever felt” (Hemingway 36). Wilson’s reaction to the shooting seals the suspicions on the reader’s part that Margot intentionally shot her husband and suggests the reason she did. However, familiar with the wild beast within her, Wilson forces Margot to plead with him for his assistance following the ‘accident’.

However much Hemingway himself might have envisioned his character as an evil American woman, though, there remains a great deal of realism to her character, including hints that she is trapped within a specific role of her own. Her survival is based upon her husband’s ability, and willingness, to support her. As long as he remains an emasculated male, she is secure. However, in leaving her husband to sleep with Wilson, Hemingway suggests that Margot forces Frances, in order to keep her, to become finally fully male. When Frances discovers his own mature masculine drive, Margot’s survival in the greater world is threatened and she takes actions to protect it. However, Wilson ensures that in doing so, she must still relinquish her claims to masculine behavior if she wishes to survive. From this perspective, Margot emerges as a victim in her own right and begs the question why society would choose to foster such hostility among the genders.

Works Cited

Hemingway, Ernest. “The Short and Happy Life of Francis Macomber.” The Short Stories. New York: Macmillan Publishing Company, 1986: 3-37.