Literature 3

I would like to thank my dissertation director, Dr. Wendell Aycock, for the instruction he gave me while a student in his classes and agreeing to work with me on this project. I will forever be grateful for your advice, encouragement and patience. I would also like to thank Dr. Sara Spurgeon, Dr. Bryce Conrad, and Dr. Scott Baugh for their ideas and willingness to serve on my committee. I have appreciated the advice and kind words of many of classmates and friends who have been supportive and excited about this project.

Thanks for listening to my ideas and allowing me to vent my frustrations. I would also like to thank Annie, my wonderful wife, for reading my work and putting up with me for the past few years. I look forward to future adventures with you. Finally, I dedicate this dissertation to my children–Taylor, Connor and Ashton. ii Texas Tech University, Jeremy Robert Bailey, December 2010 TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ABSTRACT LIST OF FIGURES CHAPTER I.

INTRODUCTION Minimalism in Visual Arts Minimalism in Music Minimalism in Literature Rationale and Methodology II. ERNEST HEMINGWAY’S CONTRIBUTION TO LITERARY MINIMALISM Repetition in “Big Two-Hearted River: Part I” Heavy Dialogue and Ambiguity in “Hills Like White Elephants” III. RAYMOND CARVER: “THE FATHER” OF AMERICAN MINIMALISM A Minimalist Version of the Unreliable Narrator in “So Much Water So Close To Home” and “What We Talk About When We Talk About Love” Silence as a Form of Communication in What We Talk About When We Talk About Love IV.

The Term Paper on Minimalism In A Glass Cage

Minimalism, as used in the context of a musical term, incorporates many different elements that when applied to compositional works, can make their overall classification difficult to define. Within the term itself there exists alternate views and definitions regarding the concepts surrounding it and what it actually is. Is it a style, or a technique -- as I believe, or is it simply a term that ...

AMY HEMPEL: A CONTEMORARY MASTER OF MINIMALIST FICTION Metafiction and Minimalist Techniques in “What Were the White Things? ” Repetition and Ambiguity in “The Annex” iii ii v vi 1 3 10 11 21 38 45 52 67 77 89 94 96 104 Texas Tech University, Jeremy Robert Bailey, December 2010 V. CORMAC MCCARTHY: A NEW FACE IN AMERICAN MINIMALISM Minimalist Punctuation and “Short, Declarative Sentences” Narration and Dialogue in The Road and The Sunset Limited A Minimalist Version of the Unreliable Narrator in The Crossing 15 116 121 134 VI. CORMAC MCCARTHY: FROM FAULKNER TO HEMINGWAY CONCLUSION 141 160 167 VII. BIBLIOGRAPHY iv Texas Tech University, Jeremy Robert Bailey, December 2010 ABSTRACT This dissertation presents a series of readings that exemplify a wide range of important minimalist techniques in American literature. The study stems from my interest in the works of Cormac McCarthy, and particularly the question of both how and why McCarthy has developed into the highly minimalist author that he is today.

My initial plan was to propose a book length study on McCarthy’s latest minimalist works, but my research on other minimalist writers, particularly Ernest Hemingway, Raymond Carver and Amy Hempel soon revealed that the technique of minimalism, and particularly how minimalist characteristics can influence and heighten a reader’s understanding of a story, should also be examined in this study. I have included a chapter on works by Hemingway to trace the early roots of literary minimalism, and a chapter on Carver to outline many of the important minimalist trademarks found in works written during the highpoint of American minimalism.

The chapters on Hempel and McCarthy, two contemporary writers that have published a number of noteworthy minimalist stories in the past few years, bring this study into the present day. v Texas Tech University, Jeremy Robert Bailey, December 2010 LIST OF FIGURES I. II. III. Lever Hanging Structure (with stripes) Fulcrum 5 7 9 vi Texas Tech University, Jeremy Robert Bailey, December 2010 CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION The term “minimal,” the root word of “minimalism,” is defined as something that exists in the smallest amount or degree.

This simple definition is neither positive nor negative, but in a world where people often consider “more” to be better than “less,” something described as minimal can bring to mind phrases such as “barely adequate,” or “just scraping by. ” For this reason, some authors, including Raymond Carver, “the father” of American minimalism, cringe when classified as minimalist writers. 1 When critics consider the complex, confusing, and at times even derogatory nature of the term as it pertains to written texts, it is not surprising that they have yet to agree on a universal definition of literary minimalism.

The Essay on Short Stories Carver Writer Isn

Too close for comfort Yet the similarity between these two stories raises some interesting questions about how we read Carver. That he is adored as few late-century American writers are is not news -- as Bloom points out there's almost a cult of Carver. Readers treasure not only his taut, bleak, deeply moving short stories but the legend of his life, as well: unhappy, alcoholic, stifled by ...

This fact complicates matters for scholars attempting to write on socalled minimalist stories, and poses a particular challenge to those interested in examining both how and why authors choose to employ minimalist techniques in their works. Because the term itself is difficult to define, many critics choose to discuss certain aspects or characteristics common to minimalist writers and stories in place of arguing over highly subjective definitions of the term.

For example, in “A Maximalist Novelist Looks at Some Minimalist Fiction,” Linsey Abrams addresses the ambiguous nature of minimalist literature when she writes, “Minimalist fiction, at its best, draws resonance from simple understandings, accumulated into structures where the whole is greater than the In an interview with Mona Simpson, Carver remarks, “. . . somebody called me a ‘minimalist’ writer. But I didn’t like it. There’s something about ‘minimalist’ that smacks of smallness of vision and execution that I don’t like” (210).

1 1 Texas Tech University, Jeremy Robert Bailey, December 2010 um of the parts. At its worst, those same simple understandings are presented linearly, rendering them simplistic, if not inauthentic” (24).

Kim Herzinger examines the reader’s role in understanding a minimalist text in his introduction to the 1985 winter edition of Mississippi Review: “The reader of minimalist fiction is being asked to face the characters in the story the way we face people in the world, people who do not—in my experience at least—ordinarily declare their personal histories, political and moral attitudes, or psychological conditions for my profit and understanding” (17).

Chuck Palahniuk, a contemporary minimalist writer best known for his novel Fight Club, states the following with respect to minimalism: “In minimalism, a story is a symphony, building and building, but never losing the original melody line. All characters and scenes, things that seem dissimilar, they all illustrate some aspect of the story’s theme” (2).

The Essay on Family and Life Story Work

?In this assignment I aim to discuss life story work: which can provide the care worker, and care receiver a better understanding of each other’s needs, and provide the care worker with information that can help support the care receiver in the best way. The carer needs to possess certain skills sensitivity, confidentiality, empathy, trustworthiness, and have commitment to seeing the story to the ...

These statements which highlight important characteristics of minimalist texts can help readers to better understand the literary minimalist tradition, but because a single, all-encompassing definition of the term has yet to be agreed upon, readers are often asked to choose whether or not a particular story fits their own particular definition of minimalism. 2 With such limitations in mind, the following list highlights what may be considered to be the most common and important elements of contemporary minimalist fiction: a) b) 2 Simple, unadorned prose Heavy dialogue with little to no exposition

Kim Herzinger discusses the problematic nature of the term “minimalism” when stating, “The point is that minimalism is not a good term. It is not a useful term. We would like to get rid of it, to replace it with something appropriately descriptive, something not derived from painting nor sculpture nor architecture nor music. It has shown itself to be, at best, misleading, and at worst devaluative. But it is, for now, what we have” (9).

2 Texas Tech University, Jeremy Robert Bailey, December 2010 c) d) e) f) g) h) i) j) k) l) m) n) o) p)

First (sometimes second) person narration Ambiguous (sometimes unreliable) narration Present tense narration Repetition of words, phrases or ideas Informal, relatable and familiar tone Generally domestic and “safe” setting Stories generally include one or two simple, middle-class characters Stories are contemporary and realistic, often dealing with common place subject matter Textual omissions/gaps are used to highlight main ideas and also to create ambiguity Silence used as a form of communication Minimal action and plot Stylistically sparse (punctuation, speaker tags, personal identifiers, etc. re often limited or omitted) Important action often takes place outside the story, or just prior to the beginning of the story Open-ended conclusions Critics Cynthia Hallett, Kim Herzinger and Arthur Saltzman, praise minimalist writers for their ability to do away with all unnecessary information in order to focus exclusively on necessary events and actions. Others, like John Biguenet, Robert Dunn and Raymond Federman criticize the technique, fearing that relatively plotless, formally sparse works must somehow be incomplete.

The Essay on Margaret Olley and Her Works of Arts

Olley is considered to be one of the most prized still and interior painters in Australia and born in Lismore in 1923. The exquisite arrangement of fruits, flower, and objects can seduce her viewer with her inherent grace and technical virtuosity. Her subject is her own home which is elegant. Her painting are also casually appended because it is not difficult to image just like the his famous figs ...

Because both supporters and opponents of the minimalist tradition make valid arguments, it is necessary to begin a study on literary minimalism by examining both the history of the minimalist movement and the primary characteristics common to most minimalist works. Minimalism in Visual Arts The term “minimalism” is generally used by critics of visual arts and music to describe the technique of “stripping down” a work in order to allow viewers and 3 Texas Tech University, Jeremy Robert Bailey, December 2010 listeners to focus exclusively on important and fundamental elements of the piece. The term gained popularity in the world of visual arts in the early 1960s, approximately a decade before “minimalism” was commonly tied to works of literature. In Small Worlds: Minimalism in Contemporary French Literature, Warren Motte writes, “Centered primarily in Manhattan, the [minimalist] movement included such figures as Carl Andre, Dan Flavin, Donald Judd, Sol LeWitt, Robert Morris, Richard Serra, Mel Bochner, Tony Smith, Robert Smithson, and Walter De Maria” (1).

With the exception of Robert Smithson, who is known primarily as an “earthwork artist,” the men who make up this select list are best known as sculptors.

It is worth noting that paintings and other forms of artwork can also be classified as minimalist, but, as Motte’s list of artists suggests, the definition of minimalism as it applies to the visual arts is most commonly and easily recognized in sculpture. Although a variety of different materials such as brick, plywood, concrete, Plexiglas, styrofoam, fluorescent lights, aluminum and felt are used to create the minimalist sculptures, all of the artists on Motte’s list seem to share a collective goal—the desire to create a meaningful experience in the minds of viewers through simple means.

Because the term “minimalism” was first used in America to describe certain facets of visual art, and eventually led to the term’s adoption and application to works of Warren Motte examines and defines how the term “minimalism” applies to artwork: “Minimal art describes abstract, geometric painting and sculpture executed in the United States in the 1960s. Its predominant organizing principles include the right angle, the square, and the cube, rendered with a minimum of incident or compositional maneuvering . . . In the most radical minimalist experiments, the focus on the thing itself is intended by the artist to clear away all traces of received narrative, metaphor, and figure in order to provide the viewer with an open, unmediated experience” (8, 14).

The Term Paper on Henry Moore Art Work Sculpture

"I think I was probably about eleven when I first decided I wanted to be a sculptor. I remember quite clearly the instant. As a boy, at school, I liked the art lessons, I liked drawing. I used to get my elder brother to draw horses and other things for me from as early as I can remember" (The Documents of 20 th Century Art, Philip James, 31). Henry Moore was born on July 30, 1898 in the small coal ...

3 4 Texas Tech University, Jeremy Robert Bailey, December 2010 literature sharing similar dominant traits, it is helpful to begin a discussion on the history of minimalism by examining a few works of minimalist sculpture. Carl Andre is regularly considered one of the founding fathers of minimalist art.

The majority of his sculptures are composed of ordinary materials and characterized by the repetition of shape, size and material and the unique juxtaposition of form (predominantly flat in nature) with open space. His 1966 work, Lever, typifies minimalist sculpture for a number of reasons. The piece consists of 137 firebricks placed side by side in a single straight line beginning at the gallery wall and extending into the open space of the room. In Lever, Andre uses the geometric form of the rectangle, a primary shape used by both artists and architects, to create a clean, unified line on Fig. . Carl Andre, Lever 1966. The AMICA Library. National Gallery of Canada. Ontario, 2003. Web. Dec. 2007. the floor. As with many of his other “floor-pieces” such as Equivalent VIII (1966), 36 Copper Square (1968), and Aluminum Steel Plain (1969), at first glance, Lever almost appears too simple to be considered an actual work of art. Critic David Joselit expresses the following regarding Lever and minimalism in general as it applies to the visual arts: “In Lever as in most 5 Texas Tech University, Jeremy Robert Bailey, December 2010 inimalist works, the ‘ground’ against which forms appear is the actual floor of the gallery, and the viewer is consequently embraced within the ‘composition’ rather than standing outside it” (American Art Since 1945 108).

Lever is certainly simple when one considers the material used (industrial firebricks) and the form of the sculpture (a single straight line), but as is true with most minimalist works, Lever forces viewers to actively participate and question whether or not they are missing something.

Joselit continues: “the categorical indeterminacy of such works—their refusal to settle into any particular medium or message—shifts the burden of interpretation onto the viewer who must ‘invent’ a meaning for them” (109).

The Review on Ecocritical Elements in Works of Indo English Writers

Nexus of Man, Nature and Literature in select works of Amitav Ghosh, Anita Desai and Kiran Desai Introduction Nature and literature have always shared a close relationship as is evidenced in the works of poets and other writers down the ages in almost all cultures of the world. Today the intimate relationship between the natural and social world is being analyzed and emphasized in all departments ...

As an art critic, Joselit is primarily concerned with defining certain aspects of minimalism pertaining to the study of visual arts; his definition also supports the argument that readers of minimalist literature must “step inside” the text for true and lasting meaning to occur. Does it matter that Andre’s sculpture consists of exactly 137 bricks? What role does the title of the piece play?

Why does Andre use firebricks in this sculpture in place of a different material? Instead of providing concrete answers to complex questions, the ambiguous nature of minimalist works invites participants to question seemingly simple, even trivial issues. Cubes and squares play an important role in many of Sol LeWitt’s sculptures. In “Serial Project No. 1,” a 1966 text accompanying a sculpture titled “Serial Project,” LeWitt defines a major element of minimalism when discussing his reasons for using squares and cubes in the work: “The square and cube are efficient and symmetrical . . . A more complex form would be too interesting in 6 Texas Tech University, Jeremy Robert Bailey, December 2010 itself and obstruct the meaning of the whole. There is no need to invent new forms” (373).

In his minimalist sculptures, LeWitt relies on the simplicity and uniformity of squares and cubes to create meaning by allowing viewers to experience what he believes to be the most essential element/s of the works.

Similar to Serial Project, LeWitt’s Hanging Structure (with stripes) consisted primarily of cubed, square and rectangular shaped objects. The squares, cubes, and straight lines used in the sculpture are common elements of both art and architecture, but the large number of repetitive lines and shapes used in the work, mixed with the fact that the piece hangs from the ceiling, add a certain level of complexity to what might at first be considered a simplistic Fig. . Sol LeWitt, Hanging Structure (with stripes) 1961. LeWitt, Sol. Sol LeWitt: A Retrospective. New Haven: Yale UP, 2000: 53. Print. sculpture. In a sense, Hanging Structure represents the inverse of Hemingway’s “Iceberg Principle” as seven-eighths of the sculpture is clearly seen, while just the upper eighth of the piece, the part of 7 Texas Tech University, Jeremy Robert Bailey, December 2010 the sculpture facing the ceiling, is actually excluded from view.

Art critic Robert Rosenblum states the following in response to LeWitt’s use of cubes and squares in his minimalist sculptures: [T]he deadpan, inert simplicity of a fundamental component—an open or closed cubic volume, a square plain crossed by parallel lines, or simply a line drawn between two designated points on a surface—is swiftly but logically multiplied by and combined with related components until suddenly the eye and the mind are boggled by the irrational, cat’s cradle complexities that can spring from such obvious foundations. 257) Hanging Structure succeeds as a minimalist work primarily because LeWitt uses simple forms in an interesting yet unorthodox way; namely, LeWitt uses “deadpan” cubes and squares to create a complex sculpture that demands viewers to actively participate as they visually “take in” the work from multiple perspectives. All but the topmost surfaces of the individual pieces are clearly seen, but the repetitive yet jumbled arrangement of shapes and lines make Hanging Structure a visual maze, with deep meaning seemingly hidden in plain view. Richard Serra’s Fulcrum (1987) stands at the west entrance to the Liverpool Street Railway Station.

The term “small” naturally relates to the term “minimal,” but Fulcrum proves that the physical size and weight of an object doesn’t necessarily affect whether or not a work should be considered minimalist. 8 Texas Tech University, Jeremy Robert Bailey, December 2010 The sculpture stands an impressive 55 feet in height and consists of five plates of Cor-ten steel, each weighing many tons. Fulcrum is similar to many of Serra’s other works like One Ton Prop (House of Cards) (1969), Spin Out (197273), and the once controversial and now dismantled Tilted Arc (1976), as steel is used as the sole material in each of these sculptures.

The massive size and weight of the sculpture is far from minimal, but the common material used in the sculpture and the manner Fig. 3. Richard Serra, Fulcrum 1987. Wikimedia Commons. Photo by Andrew Dunn 17 Aug. 2005. Web. Dec, 2007. in which the sculpture is erected represent certain minimalist characteristics. Prior to assembly, each of the steel plates were intentionally rusted to add a natural color and weathered look to the sculpture. The most impressive element of Fulcrum is that the sculpture is free-standing; nothing but the massive weight of the individual plates keeps the work upright.

Most critics agree that the primary purpose of Fulcrum and many of Serra’s other 9 Texas Tech University, Jeremy Robert Bailey, December 2010 minimalist works is to display in a simple yet creative way the enormous weight and natural strength of steel. Minimalism in Music In 1968, a few years after the term “minimalism” was first applied to works of visual art, composer Michael Nyman used the term to describe a new, experimental type of music. The term directly descends from, and is used in many of the same ways as in the world of visual arts.

Tom Johnson, a composer and self-professed minimalist, defines minimalism as it applies to music in the introduction to his collection of articles on the “new music in New York”: The idea of minimalism is much larger than most people realize. It includes, by definition, any music that works with limited or minimal materials: pieces that use only a few notes, pieces that only use a few words of text, or pieces written for very limited instruments, such as antique cymbals, bicycle wheels, or whiskey glasses.

It includes pieces that sustain one basic electronic rumble for a long time . . . . It includes pieces that slow the tempo down to two or three notes per minute. (2) Johnson’s definition highlights many of the important trademarks that a listener might notice when hearing minimalist music. His definition does not, however, address why certain American musicians, like Terry Riley, Steve Reich and Philip Glass, frequently employed minimalist techniques in their music during the late 1960s and early 1970s.

Because that which isn’t included in a minimalist work is 10 Texas Tech University, Jeremy Robert Bailey, December 2010 often as important as what is included, to truly appreciate, or in some instances even begin to understand a minimalist work, a viewer, listener or reader must actively participate in the creative process. Critic Warren Motte supports this notion when writing that minimalist musicians, like minimalist sculptors, painters and writers, “hold the encounter of the audience with the work to be of central importance . . . the subject of the minimalist work is the work itself and the audience’s encounter with it” (21).

Without active participation, a viewer of minimalist artwork, listener of minimalist music, or reader of minimalist literature is simply a passive observer who fails to partake in the full and rewarding experience offered by minimalist works. Minimalism in Literature The term “minimalism” was first applied to works of American literature in the 1960s, but a number of prominent writers had previously employed minimalist techniques in both novels and short stories.

In Minimalism and the Short Story, Cynthia Hallett names five well-known, highly influential writers as precursors to the 1960s minimalist movement. Hallett writes: The seeds of artifice that inform both minimalism and the short story can be traced to such otherwise diverse writers as Edgar Allan Poe, Anton Chekhov, James Joyce, Samuel Beckett, and Ernest Hemingway—all of whose conscious codes of omission were designed to make an audience feel more than they understood: Poe’s notion of unity and singleness of effect; 1 Texas Tech University, Jeremy Robert Bailey, December 2010 Chekhov’s maxim that he must focus on the end of a short story and ‘artfully’ concentrate there an impression of total work; Joyce’s minimal dependence on the traditional notion of plot, renouncing highly plotted stories in favor of seemingly static episodes and ‘slices’ of reality; Beckett’s efforts ‘to present the ultimate distillation of his inimitable world-view . . to compress and edulcorate [purify] traditional genres’ (Hutchings 86); and Hemingway’s method of communicating complex emotional states by seemingly simple patterning of concrete detail, what he called the ‘tip of the iceberg’ effect . (12) Following the trends previously established in art and music, writers became increasingly interested in minimalism as a literary technique in the late 1970s and early 1980s.

During this time, the number of writers appearing on scholarly lists of minimalist writers grew exponentially. The names on lists of minimalist writers vary from critic to critic, but the following contemporary writers of American fiction are consistently mentioned and considered important to the study of literary minimalism: Alice Adams, Frederick Barthelme, Ann Beattie, Raymond Carver, Bret Easton Ellis, Amy Hempel, Bobbie Ann Mason, Chuck Palahniuk, Grace Paley, Mary Robison, Elizabeth Tallent and Tobias Wolff.

Although the term “minimalism” as it applies to literature was adopted from the world of visual arts and music, certain differences exist between a “minimalist” story and a “minimalist” sculpture or musical composition. As Hallett writes, “the tendencies with minimalism in the visual arts is to avoid any 12 Texas Tech University, Jeremy Robert Bailey, December 2010 mplications or meaning beyond the subject/object itself and to aim at a kind of phenomenological purity, whereas the tendency in literature is to evoke within a minimal frame some larger issue by means of figurative associations” (1).

In other words, where viewers of minimalist artwork, or listeners of a minimalist composition are invited to take a “what you see (or hear) is what you get” approach, a reader of a minimalist text must adopt a “there is more than meets the eye” approach to find lasting meaning in the text.

Hallett further elaborates on the figurative nature of minimalism as it pertains to literature when discussing the relationship between minimalist works and short stories in general: “as a literary style minimalism is as the short story does—at the most basic level and in a leaner format. Both are compact, condensed, and contracted in design; both are especially dependent on figurative language and symbolic associations as channels for expanded meaning” (4).

Hallett later addresses the important role that readers of minimalist texts must play in order to find “rich” and lasting meanings symbolically embedded in the text: “At first reading, many minimal narratives can seem internally disconnected, the sentences detached from one another, the ending as much a beginning as the first line; but when the stories are read closely, oblique references and dim designs combine into a rich texture of trope—exposing a pattern of meaning within the symbolic structure” (12).

Readers of minimalist texts must first discover particular patterns seemingly hidden in the “oblique references and dim designs” true of minimalist texts before learning from, or perhaps even beginning to understand, what the author is suggesting in their story. Once the unique pattern or patterns used in the 13 Texas Tech University, Jeremy Robert Bailey, December 2010 inimalist text are discovered, readers are invited to combine the seemingly “simple” ideas expressed in the story with their own, often complex life experiences, ultimately resulting in a meaningful union between the fictional story and what consists of reality as far as the particular reader is concerned. In Small Worlds, Warren Motte discusses why minimalist writers might choose to address and focus on “simple” things in their works, such as straightforward plotlines, ordinary characters and plain, even laconic dialogue between characters.

Like Hallett, Motte attempts to counter the anti-minimalist argument that “simplicity” in and of itself might suggest that a work is less complete or perhaps even unfinished. According to Motte: Simple things are free from complexity, devoid of intricacy or ruse, unembellished, unaffected, plain . . . . [S]imple things are apparently artless, and indeed the accusation of artistic vacuity is one of the dangers that awaits any minimalist undertaking. It is important to understand, however, that the minimalist aesthetic does not valorize vacuity as such.

Rather, vacuity is the surface effect of a deliberate process of eschewal and restriction intended to clear away conventional rhetoric in an attempt to approximate the essential. (4) As Motte notes, minimalist writers intentionally “eschew” or “restrict” readers from knowing certain facts that would likely be revealed in a “conventional” text in order to bring the most important information to the forefront. The “missing” information might initially confuse readers, or perhaps even be interpreted as a 14 Texas Tech University, Jeremy Robert Bailey, December 2010 areless oversight by the author, but supporters of minimalism argue that skilled writers, including the four whose works are closely examined in this study, purposely use omissions to underscore main ideas and invite readers to use their own knowledge and experience to fill in the blanks in whichever way works best for the particular reader. Motte closes his introductory chapter by examining a few works that he considers important to the study of minimalism, focusing primarily on Breath, Samuel Beckett’s twenty-five second mini-play.

According to Motte, Breath represents “the zero degree of minimalism” (24).

Motte cites Breath to show how “simple things” and methods, especially when used by skilled minimalist writers, wield a surprising level of power in that they can have a meaningful and lasting effect on readers. Motte continues, “… for all its insistence upon fragility, Breath itself is a very strong text. In its formal concision, its concentrated laconism, its simplicity, in the way it plays both upon broad traditional thematics and the conventions of the theater, it is in a real sense inevitable and irrefutable” (25).

As early as the mid-1920s, Ernest Hemingway was employing a number of striking minimalist techniques in stories like “Cat in the Rain,” “A Canary for One,” and “Hills Like White Elephants. ” Not until the 1960s, however, was the term “minimalism” actually tied to Hemingway and applied to contemporary works of American literature by prominent literary scholars. In the early 1970s, this “new type” of short story featuring ordinary characters facing commonplace questions and truggles began to appear in popular magazines and well respected newspapers, most notably The New Yorker. Literary minimalism 15 Texas Tech University, Jeremy Robert Bailey, December 2010 reached its height in North America in 1985, when writers such as Raymond Carver, Amy Hempel and Mary Robison dominated the short story market. As quickly as the movement gained in notoriety during the late 1970s and early 1980s, by 1990, just two short years after the untimely death of Raymond Carver, the minimalist trend fizzled to the point of near extinction. It is certainly true that fewer “minimalist” works have been published in the past three decades than were published in the 1970s and 1980s, but during the past thirty years, a number of valuable minimalist works, some of which will be labeled as “minimalist” for the first time in this study, have been written by Mary Robison, Tobias Wolff, Amy Hempel, Cormac McCarthy and other influential contemporary American authors. The omission of seemingly important details is often the first issue opponents of minimalism address when considering works of literary minimalism.

Without question, minimalist writers consciously omit what they consider to be “bulky,” unnecessary details in order to focus on the most important ideas expressed in a story. In a non-fiction book titled, Death in the Afternoon (1932), Hemingway first introduced his “Theory of Omission,” a theory also known as the “Iceberg Principle. ” According to Hemingway: Roland Sodowsky attempts to trace all of the short stories published in prominent magazines such as The New Yorker from 1970-1990 to find the exact number of minimalist texts published during this time frame.

According to Sodowsky, “The ‘heavy’ years in The New Yorker began in 1981 (12 minimalist stories) when Beattie, Robison, and Mason were joined by F. Barthelme and Carver. Twelve were published in 1982, 14 in 1983, eight in 1984, and nine each in 1985 and 1986. By the time the outcry of writers and critics such as Dunn, Iannone, Bell, Newman, and many others against minimalism had gained some momentum, the phenomenonor literary phase, or fad; all of these terms have some validity—was over: only three minimalist stories appeared in the New Yorker in 1987, one in 1988, and three in 1989. There were none in 1990” (533).

Although Sodowsky’s list is helpful, because the “definition” of “minimalism” differs from critic to critic, I find it difficult, if not impossible, to conclusively list the exact number of minimalist stories published from 1970-1990. 4 16 Texas Tech University, Jeremy Robert Bailey, December 2010 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 iceberg is due to only one-eighth of it being above water. 192) As Hemingway suggests, in well-written stories that which isn’t directly stated is often equal to, if not more important than what actually is stated on the page. Naturally, and as Hemingway points out in his theory, an unskilled writer can certainly damage a story by omitting information that is absolutely necessary for the reader’s understanding of a story. By examining both how and why Hemingway and others use the minimalist technique of omission in their works, I propose in the following chapters that omissions can actually strengthen a story as they invite readers to become actively involved in finding meaning in a story.

Successful minimalist writers often fill the void seemingly left by certain omissions by creating a sense of comfort and familiarity for readers in other ways. For instance, minimalist stories are generally set in safe, domestic places like living rooms, bedrooms, kitchens or even cars. Characters in minimalist stories are often shown eating and drinking while discussing seemingly trivial things. Minimalist writers also tend to employ first-person narrators that speak in the present tense. This particular narrative voice is primarily used by authors to create an informal, “chatty” tone that most readers can relate to in one way or another.

Though seemingly important details such as names, occupations, and perhaps even the very reason why the characters are found talking in the first 17 Texas Tech University, Jeremy Robert Bailey, December 2010 place are commonly withheld in minimalist works, a sense of familiarity is often created by the “comfortable” setting, first-person narration, and even the subject matter itself, inviting readers to actively engage in the story. 5 This argument supports Herzinger’s statement that reading minimalist fiction is “a conjugal act— an intimacy shared.

Both parties must participate wholly, if the act is going to work” (15).

Attempting to understand a minimalist story can certainly challenge, and even discourage readers who feel most comfortable when knowing exactly what is taking place in a narrative, but when such readers allow themselves to look past what isn’t included in a text and “intimately” connect to what minimalist writers do choose to express in their stories, seeming “omissions” can strengthen the stories and direct readers toward lasting meanings waiting to be discovered in the text.

Minimalist stories are generally populated with one or two primary characters often depicted as simple, middle-class people struggling to both speak and act. Ironically, most characters in minimalist stories appear to have important things to say, but they regularly choose not to talk, or when they do attempt to speak, their message is unheard, misinterpreted, or even ignored by other characters. For instance, silence is the norm throughout Sherwood Anderson’s Winesburg, Ohio, a short minimalist novel that William Faulkner Linsey Abrams discusses how readers of minimalist texts can benefit by “encountering the familiar. According to Abrams, “There is a satisfaction, a concurring, in encountering the familiar; we too have watched these same TV shows or used these same products. Either that, or we, along with the author, perceive that if not ourselves, a lot of other Americans are caught in a net of proper names they never even saw get lowered over their heads. As readers, we are in a privileged position, that of a safe distance from this mental, social predicament. Identification on the part of the reader is in this case not the psychological process of connection with an ‘other’ to find shared human ground not previously recognized.

Instead, it is the process of feeling connected to a character perceived to be entirely like ourselves, according to shared surface details” (28).

5 18 Texas Tech University, Jeremy Robert Bailey, December 2010 praised for its “simplicity. ”6 George Willard, the main character, is a struggling newspaper reporter that tends to report on mundane, even meaningless facts. Many of the characters found in the novel enjoy George’s company and talk exclusively to him about their innermost troubles and desires, but speech alone affects nothing in Winesburg.

In the “Paper Pills” chapter, for instance, Dr. Reefy chooses to record his intimate thoughts on tiny pieces of paper, keeping them safely hidden in his pocket in place of sharing his thoughts with others. When Dr. Reefy finally opens up and shares some of his precious thoughts with his wife, she dies shortly thereafter, forever silencing her husband. Similarly, in “The Teacher,” George’s former school teacher looks George in the eyes and makes the following, highly minimalist statement: ‘“If you are to become a writer you’ll have to stop fooling with words . . . You must not become a mere peddler of words. The thing to learn is to know what people are thinking about, not what they say’” (89-90).

Though verbal communication appears important and valued in Anderson’s story, as is true in most minimalist texts, the characters in Winesburg, Ohio are unable to verbally communicate in ways that are lasting and meaningful. Most critics agree that the characters in minimalist stories are contemporary, as is the common-place subject matter examined by minimalist authors. In many of Amy Hempel’s works, for instance, characters struggle to deal with day-to-day challenges such as divorce, living with a serious illness, or See Dallas Morning News 26 April 1925, Part 3: 7. Print. According to Kim Herzinger, “Minimalism’s characteristic mode is realist (even hyperrealist), and not fabulist; its characteristic subject matter is domestic, regional, quotidian, and banal” (23).

7 6 19 Texas Tech University, Jeremy Robert Bailey, December 2010 coping with the death of a loved one.

In her highly regarded and frequently anthologized story, “In the Cemetery Where Al Jolson is Buried,” the unnamed female protagonist spends a number of difficult weeks in an intensive care ward with her terminally ill friend. Although the narrator wishes to comfort her friend in any way possible, she isn’t allowed to discuss the actual illness. Instead, the dying friend makes the following request in the opening lines of the story: “Tell me things I won’t mind forgetting. . . . Make it useless stuff or skip it” (29).

Because the narrator is asked not to discuss the illness with her friend, it soon becomes impossible for the narrator to accept the fact that her friend is about to die. When the friend ultimately does die, the narrator describes the event in the following way: “On the morning she was moved to the cemetery, the one where Al Jolson is buried, I enrolled in a ‘Fear of Flying’ class” (39).

Because the narrator had not been allowed to vocally express her worries and fears with her friend leading up to her death, the narrator ultimately speaks of her friend’s death as if it were little more than a temporary move from one locale to another.

On the surface this contemporary and highly realistic story appears to be about illness and dying, but as Hallett notes, “In the Cemetery Where Al Jolson is Buried” is really about the “language of grief. . . about those left behind when someone dies—the yet living and yet grieving—trying to deal with what is now the past” (92).

Hempel’s story succeeds primarily because she uses the minimalist technique of silencing the main character throughout the story to remind readers that the act of talking about sickness and death is often as difficult, if not more difficult, than witnessing the actual events leading up to the death of a loved one. 0 Texas Tech University, Jeremy Robert Bailey, December 2010 The physical structure of a story must be considered before determining whether or not a work should be classified as minimalist. In “A Few Words About Minimalism,” John Barth divides his “definition” of minimalism into individual parts. He first writes of “minimalisms of unit, form and scale” which would include both “short-short stories” and how short words, sentences, chapters and titles are commonly used by minimalist writers (Section 7; Page 1).

Many of Hempel’s stories, including “In a Tub,” “San Francisco,” and “A Man in Bogota,” qualify as structurally minimalist as they are extremely short, around just four-hundred words in length. Barth also speaks of a “minimalism of material” which addresses issues such as minimal plot, minimal action, and minimal exposition (Section 7; Page 1).

Hemingway’s “Hills Like White Elephants” and Carver’s “What We Talk About When We Talk About Love,” two of the minimalist stories examined in this study, fit this classification. In both of these stories, dialogue dominates and little to no exposition is provided by the narrators.

There are certainly additional factors to consider when defining, classifying, or simply discussing a minimalist text, but the technique of using heavy dialogue and minimal exposition in a story is one of the most important and regularly used minimalist techniques as it invites readers to rely heavily on their own personal experiences and knowledge when attempting to understand the work. Rationale and Methodology In Chapter II I discuss Hemingway’s “Theory of Omission” and provide detailed readings of “Big Two-Hearted River,” “Hills Like White Elephants,” and 1 Texas Tech University, Jeremy Robert Bailey, December 2010 The Old Man and the Sea to establish a foundation on which to build and expand the current argument pertaining to literary minimalism. Hemingway was a prolific writer of both novels and short stories, but only a small handful of his works continually surface in discussions on minimalism. As mentioned earlier, “Cat in the Rain,” “A Canary for One,” and “Hills Like White Elephants” are the three works most commonly classified as minimalist texts.

These works are labeled as minimalist for different reasons, but they share striking similarities in terms of how dialogue functions in the stories. With the exception of the short, expository paragraph introducing the setting and situation, dialogue is used almost exclusively in “Hills Like White Elephants. ” Robert Paul Lamb notes that on at least six different occasions in the story, the unnamed American man repeats close variations of the statement, ‘“I only want you to do it if you want to,’” to his lover, Jig (11).

To some readers, this vague statement (“it” refers primarily to a possible abortion) might appear as chivalrous. However, the minimalist techniques used in the story suggest that the man wants Jig to abort the baby for purely selfish reasons. According to Lamb, Jig understands that the man is not at all concerned about her personal interests with regards to the baby, so she responds by either repeating his words back, “things will be like they were,” or through self-deprecating statements such as “Then I’ll do it. Because I don’t care about me” (11).

In these instances, and as is often true of minimalist stories, the way things are said, and not the actual statements, is what matters most. Jig’s final statement, “There’s nothing wrong with me. I feel fine” (278) further supports this argument. Considering the 22 Texas Tech University, Jeremy Robert Bailey, December 2010 frustrating and extremely vague nature of the conversation which dominates the story, Jig’s concluding remarks couldn’t be further from the truth. Ultimately, Jig’s statement forces readers to question whether or not she will follow through with the abortion.

Without extensive reader participation, not only might the primary topic of discussion be missed since the terms abortion, baby and pregnancy are never actually used in the story, but the feelings and motives of both characters might be misinterpreted as well. A study on literary minimalism would be incomplete without a chapter dedicated to Raymond Carver, the man commonly referred to as “the father” of American minimalism. Carver lived a short, fast-paced life. He married young and worked a number of menial jobs to support his wife and two children.

Many critics attribute Carver’s early minimalist stories to the fact that he was given limited amounts of time to write, due in part to his new-found familial responsibilities. 8 To further complicate matters for the aspiring writer, Carver became an alcoholic during his twenties and battled the disease throughout most of his adulthood. Not only did alcohol and other forms of substance abuse lead to Carver’s early death, substance abuse also destroyed his first marriage. Though Carver considered the 1960s and most of the 1970s to be his “dark years,” some of his best and most loved stories were produced during this

In an interview with Larry McCaffery and Sinda Gregory, Carver discusses how “daily distractions,” “family responsibilities,” etc. limited his writing to short periods of time: “When I started out as a writer, I was moving around a lot, and there were daily distractions, weird jobs, family responsibilities. My life seemed very fragile, so I wanted to be able to start something that I felt I had a reasonable chance of seeing my way through to finish—which meant I needed to finish things in a hurry, a short period of time” (72).

23 Texas Tech University, Jeremy Robert Bailey, December 2010 challenging period of his life. 9 Carver’s minimalist stories which often feature middle-class characters struggling in the same ways that he and many others were struggling during the 1970s, gained instant popularity. Chapter III examines how Carver uses a minimalist framework in many of his stories to tackle difficult issues such as failed or failing relationships, alcoholism, stifled speech, middleclass working conditions and even feminism.

The characters in Carver’s stories generally choose to deal with difficult challenges in a passive aggressive manner, and often speak in short, simple sentences. When Carver’s characters actually decide to act, the action is quick and generally shocking. The actions themselves, however, just like the failed attempts to speak and communicate, usually result in nothing worthwhile. The 1974 collection, What We Talk About When We Talk About Love, is Carver’s minimalist masterpiece. In part, Chapter III aims to further establish a solid, historical framework with respect to the American literary minimalist tradition.

For this reason, I include various approaches to Carver’s well-known stories “The Bath” and “What We Talk About When We Talk About Love,” in this chapter. Because one of the primary intents of this study is to bring both “new” and “less-mentioned” stories into the current discussion on minimalism, I conclude the chapter by analyzing a number of “lesser” known, but highly minimalist stories found in Carver’s collection. A year before his death, Carver stated in the McCaffery/Gregory interview, “My life is very different now than it used to be, it seems much more comprehensible to me.

It was previously almost impossible for me to imagine trying to write a novel in the state of incomprehension, despair, really, that I was in. I have hope now and I didn’t have hope then— “hope” in the sense of belief. I believe now that the world will exist for me tomorrow in the same way it exists for me today. That didn’t used to be the case. For a long time I found myself living by the seat of my pants, making things terribly difficult for myself and everyone around me by my drinking” (64).

9 24 Texas Tech University, Jeremy Robert Bailey, December 2010

Fourteen of the seventeen stories in the What We Talk About When We Talk About Love collection deal in part with alcohol or substance abuse, and all of the stories in the collection revolve around failed or rapidly failing relationships. In “Why Don’t You Dance? ” the first story in the collection, the protagonist pours himself a glass of whisky in the opening line and continues to drink throughout the story. Alcohol abuse certainly plays a prominent role, but readers are never told whether or not the man’s alcoholism is to blame for the couple’s apparent separation.

Readers next learn that the man has moved both his and his wife’s primary belongings, including the bed, television, couch, record player, and a number of lamps into the front yard, only to reorder the belongings and connect the appliances as if nothing had changed but the physical location. A young, married couple arrives on the scene and the trio discusses prices as if the man were holding a garage sale. After selling a few items, the protagonist puts on a record and asks, “Why don’t you dance? The story ends with the girl telling friends and co-workers about the man and the impromptu garage sale, yet her attempts to learn more about the man and episode are futile. In this highly ambiguous story, the girl’s final attempt to talk through the events fails to shed further light on the strange occurrence. As in most of Carver’s minimalist works, the characters in “Why Don’t You Dance? ” appear highly realistic, but a discernable plot is virtually nonexistent. Readers, like the young woman, are left to decide what to make of the man’s strange actions, as all of the seemingly important questions remain unanswered. 5 Texas Tech University, Jeremy Robert Bailey, December 2010 Because opponents of literary minimalism often favor stories containing traditional plotlines, they are often quick to attack relatively “plot-less” stories like “Why Don’t You Dance? ” Without question, the success of many literary masterpieces such as Miguel De Cervantes’ Don Quixote de La Mancha, Herman Melville’s Moby Dick and Toni Morrison’s Beloved, is due in large part to the strong and compelling storylines. For minimalist writers, however, plot is never the primary concern. Why Don’t You Dance” may not be Carver’s best or most well known story, but it succeeds as the opening work in his most minimalist collection for a number of reasons. Carver concludes the story with the narrator speaking the following lines on behalf of the bewildered female character: “She kept talking. She told everyone. There was more to it, and she was trying to get it talked out. After a time, she quit trying” (10).

In “Why Don’t You Dance? ” and the other sixteen stories that follow, Carver suggests that “talking it out” is often a useless endeavor.

Rather than filling in the blanks and providing readers with a simple alternative to talking, Carver challenges readers throughout What We Talk About When We Talk About Love to ponder life’s common yet difficult questions in an attempt to better understand certain experiences and situations that all people face at some point in their lives. Verbal communication is again stifled throughout Carver’s “A Serious Talk. ” In the story, a man returns home for Christmas, hoping to spend a few quality moments with his wife and children.

The “couple” eventually exchange presents: the man gives his wife a cashmere sweater, and in return, she gives him a gift certificate. The symbolic nature of the gifts suggests that the man’s 26 Texas Tech University, Jeremy Robert Bailey, December 2010 feelings for his wife are deeper than her feelings for him. To further complicate matters, the man’s Christmas visit is cut short by an unnamed visitor who calls and later arrives to visit the wife. Upon learning of the mysterious visitor, and also angered by his wife’s lack of attention, the man returns the next day with plans to have “a serious talk. For the second consecutive day, the man attempts to share his feelings and perhaps begin some sort of marital reconciliation, but his attempt is again interrupted and ultimately thwarted by a phone call. When the wife demands that he hang up the phone so that she can take the call in the other room, the protagonist hastily responds by cutting the phone cord. Although this telling and unexpected act initially startles the wife, instead of sitting down and having the much needed “serious talk,” the man abruptly leaves the house and the story ends.

As is often the case in Carver’s minimalist stories, the relationship appears doomed as communication and any chance at reconciliation between the characters appears impossible. I conclude Chapter III by examining “One More Thing,” the final story in Carver’s 1974 collection. In the story, a woman named Maxine returns home from work to find L. D. , her inebriated husband, verbally abusing Rae, their fifteen-year old daughter. Much like the vague discussion between Jig and the American in “Hills Like White Elephants,” Rae and L.

D. argue about some mysterious, unnamed problem, said to be “all in his [L. D. ’s] head” (156).

Because she is both exhausted from her day at work and emotionally fed up with L. D. ’s words and actions, Maxine decides that she has no choice but to throw L. D. out of the house: “L. D. , I’ve had it. So has Rae. So has everyone who 27 Texas Tech University, Jeremy Robert Bailey, December 2010 knows you. I’ve been thinking it over. I want you out of here. Tonight. This minute. Now. Get the hell out of here right now” (156).

Both drunk and angry, and perhaps knowing that a verbal response will get him nowhere, L. D. responds to his wife’s demands by picking up a jar of pickles and throwing it through the kitchen window (157).

The story and collection ends with L. D. facing his wife and daughter a final time just moments before leaving the house: He put the suitcase down and the shaving bag on top of the suitcase. He drew himself up and faced them. They moved back. “Watch it, Mom,” Rae said. “I’m not afraid of him,” Maxine said.

L. D. put the shaving bag under his arm and picked up the suitcase. He said, “I just want to say one more thing. ” But then he could not think what it could possibly be. (159) As is often true of Carver’s minimalist stories, the final lines of “One More Thing” can be interpreted in a number of ways and the episode leaves readers with more questions than answers. It is certainly possible that L. D. fails to remember the “one more thing” that he wishes to share with Rae and Maxine simply because he’s drunk.

It is also possible that the mental condition that is still a mystery to readers causes L. D. to forget what he had wanted to say to his wife and daughter. Or, in a fitting conclusion to a masterfully written collection full of troubled relationships peopled with alcoholic and tongue-tied characters, perhaps 28 Texas Tech University, Jeremy Robert Bailey, December 2010 the final lines of the story are written not only to conclude the story, but also to echo the lines first stated in the opening story of the collection: There was more to it, and she was trying to get it talked out. After a time, she quit trying” (10).

Perhaps more than any other short story collection, the fruitless conversations which dominate Carver’s What We Talk About When We Talk About Love express that in minimalist stories, problems are rarely, if ever, simply “talked out. ” Contemporary short story writer Amy Hempel continues to make a number of important contributions to the study of literary minimalism.

Although two of Hempel’s stories “In the Cemetery Where Al Jolson is Buried” (1983) and “The Harvest” (1998) are regularly anthologized, with exception to Cynthia Hallet’s work, Minimalism and the Short Story—Raymond Carver, Amy Hempel, and Mary Robison, few critics have written extensively on Hempel’s works. Furthermore, Hempel has recently published two short story collections, Tumble Home (1997) and The Dog of the Marriage (2005) which include seventeen “new” minimalist stories that are not mentioned in Hallet’s study.

Because one of the goals of this study is to examine contemporary minimalist works which are either under-represented or not previously mentioned by literary scholars, in Chapter IV I place a heavy emphasis on the stories found in Hempel’s two most current collections. Not only is Hempel a gifted and intriguing writer, but stories like “In a Tub,” “The Annex” (1997), “Jesus is Waiting” (2005), and “The Afterlife” (2005) exemplify how the physical size of a work has little to do with the overall complexity of the story. Because Hempel “strips” her stories to a much greater 29 Texas Tech University, Jeremy Robert Bailey, December 2010 xtent than the other writers examined in this study (many of Hempel’s stories are less than two pages in length), readers must pay particular attention, and often read sentences, paragraphs, or perhaps entire stories a number of times to find lasting meaning. Chapter V, the final chapter in this study, examines how minimalist characteristics influence a number of works written by American novelist, Cormac McCarthy. Prior to 2006, the year in which McCarthy published both his Pulitzer Prize winning novel, The Road, and a screenplay, The Sunset Limited, the works of McCarthy were rarely abeled minimalist by literary scholars. However, with these recent publications, and to a lesser extent the publication of No Country for Old Men, McCarthy has begun a new and radically different chapter in his complex and impressive writing career by continuing to employ increasing amounts of minimalist techniques in his stories. The overwhelming attention given to McCarthy’s latest works by both literary critics and mainstream readers supports my argument that when used by skilled authors, minimalist writing can have a profound effect on readers.

The Road and The Sunset Limited are McCarthy’s newest and most minimalist texts; therefore, I focus much of my attention in Chapter V examining both how and why minimalist characteristics are used in these two works. The Road can be classified as a minimalist novel for a number of reasons. The novel consists of just two primary characters, a young boy and his father; neither of the characters is given a name in the work. Furthermore, readers never learn the exact ages of the characters, and because former education, work status, and 30

Texas Tech University, Jeremy Robert Bailey, December 2010 other historical information no longer matters in the post-apocalyptic world of the novel, such personal identifiers are also omitted. Readers learn a great deal about the father and son by watching their actions, observing memories of the past related by the narrator, and also through a number of dream sequences expressed by both the narrator and the father, but as is common in minimalist stories, the frequent bursts of dialogue between the father and son are always abrupt and to the point.

Early in the novel, for instance, the following lines comprise an entire short section of the work: He was a long time going to sleep. After a while he turned and looked at the man. His face in the small light streaked with black from the rain like some old world thespian. Can I ask you something? he said. Yes. Of course. Are we going to die? Sometime. Not now. And we’re still going south. Yes. So we’ll be warm. Yes. Okay. Okay what? Nothing. Just okay. Go to sleep. 31

Texas Tech University, Jeremy Robert Bailey, December 2010 Okay. I’m going to blow out the lamp. Is that okay? Yes. That’s okay. And then later in the darkness: Can I ask you something? Yes. Of course you can. What would you do if I died? If you died I would want to die too. So you could be with me? Yes. So I could be with you. Okay. (10-11) Reminiscent of Hemingway’s “Hills Like White Elephants,” this particular section of the novel consists almost exclusively of dialogue.

The father answers his son’s questions during the brief discussion, but his responses are short and to the point. The dialogue is certainly used to inform readers that the man and son are suffering as they travel south in search of a warmer climate, but more importantly, the minimalist technique of omitting all unnecessary information invites readers to focus their attention on what is stated between the lines and matters most in this particular novel—the father and son share a deep and loving bond that can never be broken.

Unlike traditional minimalist stories like Hempel’s “Rapture of the Deep” or Carver’s “They’re not your Husband,” which generally take place in comfortable indoor settings, The Road is set in a number of different venues because the characters are constantly on the move and struggling to survive. In the story, the 32 Texas Tech University, Jeremy Robert Bailey, December 2010 protagonists travel through mountains, sleep in dilapidated houses and vehicles, and eventually make it to the beach, their final destination.

Although minimalist stories are generally set in a single domestic space to create a feeling of comfort and familiarity, the mix of desperate, even deadly indoor and outdoor settings employed in The Road in a sense still classifies as minimalist because no matter where the journey takes the characters, the world is burnt, dying, or dead. Gray is the primary color used in the story as ash covers everything in sight. Also common to minimalist works, the main action that destroys the world in which the boy nd father live takes place before the novel begins. Furthermore, the act itself is mentioned only a single time in the novel and not until the novel is well underway. The devastating event which leads to the apocalypse is related by the narrator in just two vague sentences: “The clocks stopped at 1:17. A long shear of light and then a series of low concussions” (52).

This short description seems to suggest a series of bombs, but because nothing more is mentioned about the incident, a careless reader might miss this vital detail altogether.

The physical structure of The Road is also minimalist in nature. The title itself is extremely simple, yet it suggests a myriad of possible meanings. Does the title simply refer to the actual road on which the father and son travel? Does the title perhaps metaphorically represent the journey of the two main characters? Does the road symbolically represent a final beacon of hope? The novel is also related as one continuous narrative with no sections, chapter breaks, or headings.

This minimalist choice works well, considering that McCarthy wants readers to focus on the difficult journey of the father and son 33 Texas Tech University, Jeremy Robert Bailey, December 2010 and their endearing relationship more than anything else. Like many of McCarthy’s earlier novels, punctuation marks are used sparingly in The Road. Rather than slow the action or halt the journey with commas and periods, McCarthy regularly uses connecting words like “and” and “or” throughout The Road.

McCarthy uses this technique to describe one of the most beautiful memories shared in the novel: “In that long ago somewhere very near this place he’d watched a falcon fall down the long blue wall of the mountain and break with the keel of its breastbone the midmost from a flight of cranes and take it to the river below all gangly and wrecked and trailing its loose and blowsy plumage in the still autumn air” (20).

Reminiscent of Hemingway in stories such as “A Clean, Well-Lighted Place,” McCarthy also omits all unnecessary reference tags like “he said,” “she said,” “the doctor said,” etc. hroughout The Road. In McCarthy’s minimalist play, The Sunset Limited, two characters, referred to only as “Black” and “White,” sit in Black’s small tenement apartment discussing their past lives and distinct world views. The primary action which brought the two strangers together has already occurred—Black saved White’s life by pushing him off the tracks of the Sunset Limited subway train, thwarting White’s suicide attempt. As suggested by McCarthy’s subtitle, “A Novel in Dramatic Form,” dialogue takes center stage in this particular story.

Both characters have much to say, but productive communication between the two is often impossible because the characters are radically different. Without question, Black is generally concerned about White and hopes to convince him that life is still worth 34 Texas Tech University, Jeremy Robert Bailey, December 2010 living. However, White is highly educated and extremely well spoken, whereas Black is uneducated and struggles to express himself through words. These and other issues pose serious problems in the characters’ attempts to communicate, as White’s ideas are often extremely complex.

Early in the story, for example, White invents a character named Cecil to explain why his life is no longer worth living. Instead of focusing on the main idea expressed by White in the analogy, Black is instead sidetracked by the fact that he doesn’t personally know the man named Cecil. Similarly, because Black is a God-fearing Christian, he often uses Biblical references in his attempt to save White from attempting suicide once again upon leaving his apartment.

Unfortunately for Black, White doesn’t consider himself a Christian, or even a believer in a Higher Power. For this reason, Black’s religious-based attempts to save White’s life are useless. Because all attempts at effective communication between the two characters fail, the story ends with White leaving the apartment still intent on killing himself. Black has done all he can to save White through his words, but as is often true in minimalist works, “real” communication is ultimately impossible.

Although McCarthy’s highly philosophical novel The Crossing is in most ways a non-minimalist text, I argue that the unreliable narrators used throughout the work, including both the primary, third-person narrator and many of the secondary narrators and characters epitomize the minimalist definition of the unreliable narrator. Carver scholar Gunter Leypoldt effectively discusses how the minimalist version of the unreliable narrator differs from the traditional definition in his article, “Raymond Carver’s ‘Development. ’” Leypoldt writes: 35

Texas Tech University, Jeremy Robert Bailey, December 2010 [The] minimalist version of the unreliable narrator achieves its destabilizing effects precisely because its unreliability cannot be relied upon. By offering merely faint intimations that there may be a slightly neurotic or compulsive element involved, an occasional blurring of perspective, the text does not ironize the speaker completely, but merely puts the story’s voice in invisible quotation marks, intimating that parts of the narration may be flawed without, however, stating exactly which ones. 326) Similar to how Leypoldt uses the minimalist definition of unreliability to examine Carver’s “So Much Water So Close To Home,” I propose that McCarthy infuses The Crossing with subtle clues, suggesting that most of the primary narrators in the novel are “slightly neurotic” or confused; this in turn forces readers to question whether or not the narrators should be trusted.

Although statements made by a number of important characters suggest that The Crossing is “a story about storytelling,” because the reliability of characters such as the ex-priest, blind man, gypsy, trapper and even the primary narrator is questionable at best, ambiguity dominates the novel and readers are left alone to decide exactly what to make of the various stories.

I conclude Chapter V discussing how McCarthy’s writing continues to evolve from a dense and highly complex style that was once commonly compared to Faulkner to a simple, and in many ways more accessible style, that, beginning with No Country for Old Men, borrows from and adds to the minimalist framework laid by Beckett, Hemingway and other early minimalist writers. In this 36 Texas Tech University, Jeremy Robert Bailey, December 2010 ortion of the chapter, particular emphasis is given to how the minimalist tool of repetition is used throughout No Country for Old Men to both heighten suspense and reinforce important information vital to a reader’s understanding of the novel. 37 Texas Tech University, Jeremy Robert Bailey, December 2010 CHAPTER II ERNEST HEMINGWAY’S CONTRIBUTION TO LITERARY MINIMALISM Ernest Hemingway is arguably the best known and most influential American fiction writer of the twentieth century. His innovative writing style is characterized by simple diction, understatement, and short, declarative sentences expressed primarily through dialogue.

Like Raymond Carver, Cormac McCarthy and countless other writers that continue to be influenced by his style, Hemingway is not exclusively a minimalist writer. However, in many of his highly acclaimed short stories, including “Big Two-Hearted River,” “Hills Like White Elephants,” “A Canary For One,” “Cat in the Rain,” “A Clean, Well-Lighted Place” and even in the Pulitzer Prize winning tale, The Old Man and the Sea, Hemingway uses a number of minimalist techniques such as heavy dialogue, repetition and ambiguous narrators and situations to shape the stories and forever change the landscape of American fiction.

According to Hemingway’s “Theory of Omission” that which isn’t directly stated in a well-written story is often equal to, if not more important than what actually is stated on the page (Death in the Afternoon 102).

Naturally, an unskilled writer can damage a story by omitting information that is vital for the reader’s understanding. Conversely, when performed by skilled minimalist writers, omissions can actually strengthen a story as they invite readers to apply their own ideas, life experiences and moral values to the work, potentially resulting in deeper and more meaningful readings of texts.

As Harold Bloom 38 Texas Tech University, Jeremy Robert Bailey, December 2010 notes in his introduction to Modern Critical Interpretations: Ernest Hemingway’s The Old Man and the Sea, “Hemingway’s greatness is in his short stories, which rival any other master of the form, be it Joyce or Chekhov or Isaak Babel . . . . The art of ellipsis, or leaving things out, indeed is the great virtue of Hemingway’s best short stories” (2).

According to Bloom, “Hemingway stated his pride in what he considered to be the aesthetic economy of The Old Man and the Sea” in an interview with George Plimpton: The Old Man and the Sea could have been over a thousand pages long and had every character in the village in it and all the processes of the way they made their living, were born, educated, bore children, etc. That is done excellently and well by other writers. In writing you are limited by what has already been done satisfactorily. So I have tried to learn to do something else.

First, I have tried to eliminate everything unnecessary to conveying experience to the reader so that after he or she has read something it will become part of his or her experience and seem actually to have happened. This is very hard to do and I’ve worked at it very hard. (1) Instead of praising the novella, Bloom argues that The Old Man and the Sea fails to showcase Hemingway’s trademark, economical style, and concludes his introduction with a scathing attack aimed at both Faulkner and Hemingway: William Faulkner praised The Old Man and the Sea as being Hemingway’s best work, but then Faulkner also considered 9 Texas Tech University, Jeremy Robert Bailey, December 2010 Thomas Wolfe to be the greatest American novelist of the century. The story, far from Hemingway’s best, cannot be both a parable of Christian redemption and of a novelist’s triumph, not so much because these are incompatible, but because so repetitive and selfindulgent a narrative cannot bear that double burden . . . . Hemingway himself is so moved by Hemingway that his famous, laconic style yields to uncharacteristic overwriting. (2-3) Bloom’s words are a bit surprising when one considers that he is introducing a collection f reviews and articles examining Hemingway’s best known work. Upon reading Bloom’s introduction, readers might expect to find a book packed with articles criticizing Hemingway’s novella, but this is hardly the case. William Faulkner’s review, which immediately follows Bloom’s introduction, begins, “His best. Time may show it to be the best single piece of any of us, I mean his and my contemporaries” (5).

Carlos Baker writes in the opening line of “The Boy and the Lions,” “The relationship between Santiago and the boy Manolo is of a special and memorable kind” (7).

Perhaps the most praiseworthy comment from another of Hemingway’s contemporaries is given by Delmore Schwartz in the opening line of “The Old Man and the Sea and the American Dream”: “The Old Man and the Sea, Hemingway’s most recent novel (1952), is not so much a masterpiece in itself as a virtuoso performance, a new demonstration of the novelist’s gifts far more than a new development of them” (21).

To be fair to both Hemingway and Bloom, I agree that The Old Man and the Sea is not the most “economical” or best Hemingway story, but it succeeds as a minimalist story on a 40

Texas Tech University, Jeremy Robert Bailey, December 2010 number of levels. 1 The story is certainly too long to be considered a short story, but this fact, in and of itself, does not necessarily suggest that Hemingway failed to omit all but the most necessary information; it would be difficult if not impossible to detail Santiago’s two-day struggle with the marlin in just a few pages. Furthermore, and as Hemingway notes in the interview with George Plimpton, the novella-length story “could have been over a thousand pages long” had he chosen to populate the “village” (1).

By focusing primarily on the events surrounding the fishing trip, Hemingway successfully limits the story to a novellalength work. In another minimalist move, the story both begins and ends with the elderly Santiago speaking with the youthful Manolin about seemingly trivial things such as baseball, food and fishing. Considering that both Manolin and Santiago depend on fishing for their survival, however, such conversations are more important than they initially seem. In both the opening and closing pages of the novella, the ialogue between the two characters is characteristic of Hemingway’s simple, trademark writing style: “What do you have to eat? ” the boy asked. “A pot of yellow rice with fish. Do you want some? ” “No. I will eat at home. Do you want me to make the fire? ” “No. I will make it later on. Or I may eat the rice cold. ” “May I take the cast net? ” “Of course. ” (16) “Hills Like White Elephants,” “A Canary For One” and “Cat in the Rain” are widely considered to be Hemingway’s most minimalist works. 1 41 Texas Tech University, Jeremy Robert Bailey, December 2010

Because Hemingway’s primary focus is that of telling a story of a single old man at sea, Manolin is absent for the majority of the novella. David Timms indirectly discusses the minimalist nature of the setting and characterization in The Old Man and the Sea when he writes: . . . [T]he whole situation of Santiago—he is far out at sea and is materially impoverished anyway—is one that admits of little in the way of physical description, but then that is my point: the novella is well-adapted to such narrow settings. The same is true of character, partly in simple quantitative terms: the novella finds it hard to accommodate a large cast.

The Old Man and the Sea abides by the suggestions of the form in having only two major parts (the fish and the man), one supporting actor (Manolin), and a few bit-parts. (160) For most of the novella, Hemingway provides readers with no choice but to focus on the difficult task at hand by confining Santiago to his small fishing boat in the middle of the ocean as he battles both a huge marlin and a handful of sharks. Santiago is a seasoned and capable fisherman, but moments after hooking the marlin, the minimalist tool of repetition is used to suggest that Santiago may be in trouble.

Echoing the early dialogue between Santiago and Manolin, Santiago continues to think about food, especially when his ability to eat is hampered by the fact that he is battling a fishing rod connected to a monstrous fish. Just a few 42 Texas Tech University, Jeremy Robert Bailey, December 2010 short moments after encouraging the marlin to “eat” the bait a “little more,” Santiago begins to think about his own need to eat (44).

This thought, or a variation thereof, is repeated in the text four different times: I. “No one should be alone in their old age, he thought.

But it is unavoidable. I must remember to eat the tuna before he spoils in order to keep strong. Remember, no matter how little you want to, that you must eat him in the morning. Remember, he said to himself” (48).

II. “Now I will pay attention to my work and then I must eat the tuna so that I will not have a failure of strength” (56).

III. “Now,” he said, when his hand had dried, ‘I must eat the small tuna. I can reach him with the gaff and eat him here in comfort’” (57).

IV. “He picked up a piece and put it in his mouth and chewed it slowly. It was not unpleasant.

Chew it well, he thought, and get all the juices. It would not be bad to eat with a little lime or with lemon or salt” (58).

Critics like Bloom might consider the repetition used in these particular passages to be a bit excessive, but Hemingway’s intent in repeating the idea is clear. In the same way in which he had encouraged the marlin to “eat” the bait, Santiago must continually encourage himself to eat. As Santiago finishes the final bites of tuna, the close, even loving connection between him and the marlin becomes clear: “I wish I could feed the fish, he thought.

He is my brother. But I must kill 43 Texas Tech University, Jeremy Robert Bailey, December 2010 him and keep strong to do it. Slowly and conscientiously he ate all of the wedgeshaped strips of fish” (59).

It is important to note that during this episode Santiago also repeats on six different occasions that he wishes the boy was with him. 2 In the first four instances in which the thought is mentioned, Santiago’s wish to have the boy with him directly relates to the fact that he could use Manolin’s help to land the marlin.

The fifth and sixth times that Santiago wishes that Manolin was present, however, indirectly expresses Santiago’s father-like love for the boy. Immediately after reminding himself to pay attention to his work and eat the tuna, Santiago states, “I wish the boy were here and that I had some salt” (56).

In the same way that Santiago connects himself with the marlin through his references to food, in mentioning “the boy” and food in the same sentence, the argument can be made that Manolin is equally, if not more important to Santiago than the fish that he now considers as a brother.

The final mention of his desire to have Manolin with him, “If the boy were here he could rub it [his cramping hand] for me and loosen it down from the forearm” (62) supports my claim that repetition is used throughout this episode to highlight both the special bond that Santiago had previously created with the boy, and the growing bond that continues to form with the fish during the lengthy battle at sea.

Throughout his career, but most notably during the mid to late 1920s, Hemingway practiced and honed many of the techniques expressed in his According to Gerry Brenner, Santiago’s wishes to have Manolin with him on the fishing trip can be interpreted in a number of ways: “Santiago utters these wishes, of course, because he needs help with the huge marlin. And Hemingway asks us to hear them as prayers. With one ear I do.

But with the other I hear their resentment and anger: that the boy, Manolin, is not with him, that Manolin obeyed his parents’ orders to fish in another boat, that Manolin has not vowed discipleship to Santiago. The malice in Santiago’s wishes makes me ask, is he truly a “strange old man,” as he calls himself; or is he quite ordinary, as much a hypocrite as the next person, as deficient in self-awareness as the rest of us? ” (142).

2 44 Texas Tech University, Jeremy Robert Bailey, December 2010 Iceberg Principle. ” The stories “Big Two-Hearted River” and “Hills Like White Elephants” highlight the most striking and influential minimalist techniques used by Hemingway in many of his works—the use of repetition as a means to present necessary information, including the repetition of words, phrases and ideas, and the use of heavy dialogue and limited exposition to create a sense of verisimilitude which invites readers to actively participate in the story-telling process.

Repetition in “Big Two-Hearted River: Part I” Hemingway first introduced American readers to his innovative style of writing in a collection of short stories titled In Our Time (1925).

The collection includes sixteen stories, seven of which follow the exploits of Hemingway’s first “hero,” Nick Adams. Minimalist trademarks including settings dominated by tight domestic places (“The Killers”), stories involving just two primary characters (“The Three Day Blow”), and ambiguous conversations often too complex for Nick to fully comprehend (“Indian Camp”) dominate many of the Nick Adams stories.

Most Hemingway scholars agree that “Big Two-Hearted River” is the best written work involving Nick Adams, but like most of the Nick Adams stories, its valuable contribution to the study of minimalism is often overshadowed by Hemingway’s other great minimalist works including “Cat in the Rain,” “Hills Like White Elephants” and “A Canary For One,” which were also written during the mid to late 1920s. 3 Sheridan Baker states that “Big Two-Hearted River” is “the central Nick Adams story” (142).

Elizabeth J. Wells argues that “Big Two-Hearted River” presents “the most extreme 45 Texas Tech University, Jeremy Robert Bailey, December 2010 In an interview with Hemingway following the publication of In Our Time, Dean Gauss and Scott Fitzgerald quipped with respect to “Big Two-Hearted River” that Hemingway “had written a story in which nothing happened,” and therefore, the story lacked “human interest” (Smith 88).

Hemingway responded to this accusation stating that as “ordinary book reviewers [Gauss and Fitzgerald] hadn’t taken the trouble to find out what he had been trying to do” (Baker 125).

Considering that Hemingway’s minimalist style of writing was new and unique in the mid 1920’s, it is not surprising that Gauss and Fitzgerald failed to understand what Hemingway was attempting to accomplish in his first collection of short stories. “Big Two-Hearted River,” the final story in the In Our Time collection, is much more than just a compelling story about a boy’s fishing trip. It is one of the first great minimalist texts in which repetition is used to both reveal and reinforce important ideas, seemingly hidden in plain view just below the surface of the story.

The narrator first uses repetition in the opening paragraph of the story to introduce Nick’s potential for positive change: The train went on up the track out of sight, around one of the hills of burnt timber. Nick sat down on the bundle of canvas and bedding the baggage man had pitched out of the door of the baggage car. There was no town, nothing but the rails and the burned-over country. The thirteen saloons that had lined the one street of Seney had not left a trace. The foundations of the Mansion House example of the Hemingway style (a model for a modern, no-nonsense, prose style) to be found in his earlier stories” (129).

6 Texas Tech University, Jeremy Robert Bailey, December 2010 hotel stuck up above the ground. The stone was chipped and split by the fire. It was all that was left of the town of Seney. Even the surface had been burned off the ground. (209) The narrator repeats the word “burned” or a variation thereof three times in the opening paragraph to describe the current state of the town. The word “fire” is also used to explain why the stone of the Mansion House hotel was “chipped” and “split. The narrator states multiple times and in distinct ways that Seney and the accompanying landscape was destroyed by fire in order to create a lonely feeling of desperation. Of the eight sentences used to open the story, seven relate either directly or indirectly to the “burnt” condition of Seney. The second sentence is of particular importance as it is used to position the protagonist amongst the ruins as the baggage man “pitch[es]” Nick’s bags at the doorstep of the charred city. The narrator never directly states that

Nick, like Seney, is experiencing a difficult time in his life, but a careful reading of the opening pages suggests that this is initially the case. Beginning in the second paragraph, however, the focus shifts from the town of Seney to Nick, and it soon becomes evident that in contrast to the doomed fate of the town, there is still hope for the protagonist. Throughout “Big Two-Hearted River” the narrator describes Nick’s every move but rarely enters Nick’s mind. For this reason, it is vital that readers consider the manner in which the highly objective narrator delivers information when outlining Nick’s actions.

For example, the narrator provides a detailed yet 47 Texas Tech University, Jeremy Robert Bailey, December 2010 minimalist description of the mundane act of balancing the weight of a backpack to emphasize Nick’s potential and growth: Nick walked back up the ties to where his pack lay in the cinders beside the railway track. He was happy. He adjusted the pack harness around the bundle, pulling the straps tight, slung the pack on his back, got his arms through the shoulder straps and took some of the pull off his shoulders by leaning his forehead against the wide band of the tump-line.

Still, it was too heavy. It was much too heavy. He had his leather rod-case in his hand and leaning forward to keep the weight of the pack high on his shoulders he walked along the road that paralleled the railway track, leaving the burned town behind in the heat, and then turned off around a hill with a high, fire-scarred hill on either side onto a road that went back into the country. He walked along the road feeling the ache from the pull of the heavy pack. The road climbed steadily. It was hard work walking up-hill.

His muscles ached and the day was hot, but Nick felt happy. He felt he had left everything behind, the need for thinking, the need to write, other needs. It was all back of him. (210) Had the focus of this paragraph been simply to provide a snapshot of the beginning of Nick’s journey by describing the weight of the pack, the idea could have been expressed in a sentence or two—“The heavy pack made it hard for Nick to walk,” or “Nick would not be able to carry the pack for long. ” From a 48 Texas Tech University, Jeremy Robert Bailey, December 2010 tylistic and metaphorical standpoint, however, this paragraph is much more than just a trivial passage about a backpack. The stuffed backpack is clearly heavy and literally hard to carry, but Nick’s “real” struggle, which is never directly revealed by the narrator, weighs much more heavily on the protagonist’s mind than does the backpack on his shoulders. The short, declarative statements inserted amongst the much longer and more detailed statements describing Nick’s actions reinforce this idea. The first declarative statement is presented in the second sentence of the paragraph: “He was happy. Had this observation been expressed in just this particular episode of the story, it could be dismissed as nothing but an unimportant, casual remark regarding Nick’s current emotional state. Because the thought is restated later in the passage as “Nick felt happy,” and expressed a total of four times in Part I of the story, the assumption can be made that Nick has not always been happy. In fact, it is quite possible that Nick has not been happy for some time. This particular reading provides a likely motive for Nick’s fishing trip; he wishes to be happy once again and hopes that the river will take his mind off of whatever is bothering him.

The final lines of the paragraph, “He felt he had left everything behind, the need for thinking, the need to write, other needs. It was all back of him” supports this particular interpretation of the text. Readers are never told exactly what is troubling Nick, but the second and third declarative statements found in the passage prove that Nick’s biggest struggle, which has occurred sometime and someplace outside the story, continues to affect him on an emotional level. The narrator states in lines three 49 Texas Tech University, Jeremy Robert Bailey, December 2010 nd four, again in direct reference to the weight of the backpack, “Still, it was too heavy. It was much too heavy. ” Through repetition, the narrator again reminds readers that just as the weight of Nick’s backpack makes it difficult for him to physically climb the hill, on a figurative, and more important level, the undisclosed mental burden is still “too heavy” for Nick to bear or even think about at this particular stage of the story. For this reason, in place of facing his mental demons, Nick seeks an escape route and heads for the river.

Immediately following the passage describing the weight of the backpack, the narrator returns for the second time to the town of Seney to build on many of the ideas expressed in the opening paragraph. In contrast to the bleak and hopeless tone of the opening section, in this alternative version of the introduction, the primary focus is on Nick’s potential, not the burnt landscape: From the time he had gotten down off the train and the baggage man had thrown his pack out of the open car door things had been different. Seney was burned, the country was burned over and changed, but it did not matter.

It could not all be burned. He knew that. He hiked along the road, sweating in the sun, climbing to cross the range of hills that separated the railway from the pine plains. (210-11) In this passage, Hemingway uses repetition to remind readers that Seney and the surrounding landscape was destroyed by fire and has no hope for recovery. The narrator’s description of the burnt town of Seney represents the beginning, but not the end of Nick’s journey. As Nick continues to walk away from Seney 50 Texas Tech University, Jeremy Robert Bailey, December 2010 nd toward his fishing hole, he comes to the realization that “not all [is] burned. ” Nick’s thoughts, much like the landscape itself, improve with each step, but he still faces a long and difficult journey. Much like the struggle detailed in the backpack episode, the final sentence states that Nick suffers and sweats as he continues his upward “climb” across the Northern Michigan hills. Nick’s two-fold journey, literally towards the river and figuratively towards mental healing, will continue to be challenging; but due to his positive attitude in the face of adversity, here is hope for Nick. One of the most noticeable instances of repetition in Part I of “Big TwoHearted River” is found in a short paragraph consisting of sixteen simple sentences used to highlight Nick’s greatest moment of success. At the end of the first day, Nick sets up camp and prepares for the night. The narrator then expresses Nick’s feelings with respect to the day’s events: Nick was happy as he crawled inside the tent. He had not been unhappy all day. This was different though. Now things were done. There had been this to do.

Now it was done. It had been a hard trip. He was very tired. That was done. He had made his camp. He was settled. Nothing could touch him. It was a good place to camp. He was there, in the good place. He was in his home where he had made it. Now he was hungry. (215) In an article titled, “A Statistical Analysis of the Prose Style of Ernest Hemingway: ‘Big Two-Hearted River,’” Elizabeth Wells supports the argument that repetition is primarily used in the story to plot Nick’s growth and potential. According to 51

Texas Tech University, Jeremy Robert Bailey, December 2010 Wells, “Repetition of the word ‘done’ expresses the finality of Nick’s accomplishment. Repetition of the word ‘now,’ especially at the beginning of the sentences, gives the impression of shelving the past and looking with hope toward the future” (134).

Wells’ interpretation is insightful, but it is also worth noting that Hemingway uses repetition in the opening lines to contrast Nick’s current “happy” state to the many “unhappy” days that he has experienced in the past.

Similarly, in the final lines of the paragraph the narrator repeats the phrase “good place,” first in reference to the camp, and then, more importantly, in reference to Nick’s current emotional state. Through hard work and perseverance, Nick has overcome all obstacles on the first day of his journey from Seney to the river. For at least the moment, Nick is “happy,” both physically and emotionally, to again be in a “good place. ” Heavy Dialogue and Ambiguity in “Hills Like White Elephants” Hemingway’s Hills Like White Elephants” was first published in a 1927 collection of short stories titled Men Without Women. As is true of most Hemingway stories, scholars have written countless articles examining all facets of the work. The ambiguous resolution, the striking symbolism of the setting and title, and also the strained relationship of the two characters are topics commonly examined by critics. 4 The unique and innovative manner in which dialogue is 4 For an insightful analysis of the symbolic nature of the title, see Lewis E. Weeks’ article, “Hemingway Hills: Symbolism in ‘Hills Like White Elephants. ” Nilofer Hashmi discusses both the ambiguous ending and the troubling relationship of the two characters in “‘Hills Like White Elephants’: The Jilting of Jig. ” Paul Rankin also discusses the strained relationship between Jig and the American. According to Rankin, “Hemingway’s unnamed American male protagonist dominates the meeker, weaker-sexed Jig—the other in terms of her femaleness, her youth (she is the girl as opposed to the woman who tends bar), and her foreignness (because he receives the 52 Texas Tech University, Jeremy Robert Bailey, December 2010 sed in “Hills Like White Elephants,” however, marks not only the most important minimalist element of the story, but arguably Hemingway’s greatest single contribution to literary minimalism. Similar to “Big Two-Hearted River,” little actually happens in “Hills Like White Elephants. ” The story begins and ends with a couple sitting in the shade outside a bar, waiting for a train en route from Barcelona to Madrid. The conversation between characters is expressed almost exclusively through dialogue and marks the most salient minimalist feature of the story.

As Robert Paul Lamb notes in “Hemingway and the Creation of Twentieth-Century Dialogue”: [Dialogue] is not generally effective as a means of exposition, of conveying necessary information . . . , it can express present relationships and, by implication, their past as well. But to do so effectively requires great talent; dialogue must imply subtly, suggestively, and never through direct statement. Usually, the way characters say something is more important than what they say. 455) Because narrative exposition is used sparingly throughout “Hills Like White Elephants,” readers must rely heavily, at times even exclusively, on what is directly stated by the characters. The conversation revolves around the man’s desire to abort his partner’s baby, but as many critics have observed, the words specific national identification, we may deduce that it’s meant to distinguish his from hers)—until, broken, she submits to his will and consents to aborting the child” (234).

I agree with much of Rankin’s argument, but the text itself never specifically mentions that Jig aborts the child. 3 Texas Tech University, Jeremy Robert Bailey, December 2010 abortion, baby and pregnancy are never actually used in the story. 5 Instead, the couple uses ambiguous terms such as “it” and “things” when referring to all matters related to the situation: “if you [Jig] don’t want to you don’t have to. I wouldn’t have you do it if you didn’t want to. But I know it’s perfectly simple” (275).

When expressed as dialogue, indirect language can quickly undermine a story if used to the extent that readers no longer find meaning in the work.

For instance, had Hemingway written “Hills Like White Elephants” primarily to educate readers about abortion, it would certainly be necessary to include the actual word somewhere in the text. Although the conversation between characters revolves around the issue of abortion and serves as the catalyst behind the argument, the minimalist dialogic patterns used throughout the story support the theory that “Hills Like White Elephants” is primarily about the man’s desire to regain control over Jig and the relationship through the abortion of the baby.

The story opens with a short narrative paragraph which sets the scene and introduces the two characters. The protagonists, called simply “the American” and “the girl,” sit at a station waiting for a train. At this early point in the story, the exact relationship between the two is a mystery. It is clear, however, that the couple is about to continue their journey to an undisclosed location, which, considering the conversation, might possibly be an abortion 5

Cynthia Hallett argues that Hemingway uses the pronoun “it” throughout “Hills Like White Elephants” in an attempt to make the debate between the man and Jig relatable on a personal level: “Because the actual source of the conflict between the couple is most often referred to simply as “it”—actually referring to the problem in various forms (it, the abortion; it, the baby; it, the problem)—the vagueness of this pronoun allows the conflict to be about anything that might complicate or contaminate the relationship between a man and a woman” (39).

4 Texas Tech University, Jeremy Robert Bailey, December 2010 clinic. The vague, at times heated conversation between the man and Jig begins in the second paragraph. Pamela Smiley writes in “Gender-Linked Miscommunication in ‘Hills Like White Elephants,’” “The dialogue contains the essence of the story’s power; for to read Jig’s and the American’s conversation is to recognize the powerless frustration of parallel interchanges—in different words, in different places, and on different topics, but all somehow the same” (81).

Similar to how the characters are positioned in the midst of the journey, waiting at a junction between Barcelona and Madrid, the ambiguous manner in which the two talk about the possibility of abortion suggests not only that the two have discussed this particular issue before, but also that the characters, and particularly the male protagonist, is not sure how he should approach the topic. The conversation between characters begins: “What should we drink? ” the girl asked. She had taken off her hat and put it on the table. “It’s pretty hot,” the man said. “Let’s drink beer. “Dos cervezas,” the man said to the curtain. “Big ones? ” a woman asked from the doorway. “Yes. Two big ones. ” (273) The verbal exchange between characters begins with a simple question—“What should we drink? ” The actual age of the female protagonist is never revealed, but because she is referred to as “the girl,” and not “the woman” both here and throughout the story, the assumption can be made that the female character is 55 Texas Tech University, Jeremy Robert Bailey, December 2010 younger than “the American,” who is referred to as “the man” throughout the story.

It is important to note that “the girl” (Jig) both begins the conversation and eventually ends the dialogue between characters when she states in the final lines of the story, “There’s nothing wrong with me. I feel fine” (278).

Jig is the primary character and the focal point of the entire discussion, but the dialogue is dominated by the male character, most notably when he attempts to convince Jig that she should have the “operation. ” It is evident from the first spoken line in the story that the man, not Jig, desires to control the relationship. Through a simple question, “What should we drink? the male character is placed in a position of power. Because there are no reference tags attached to the third and last statements of this initial exchange, “Let’s drink beer” and “Yes. Two big ones,” it is unclear which of the two characters is actually speaking. Because the male character orders the drinks, it is likely that he would also be the one to respond to the waitress’ question in the final line. It is less clear, however, which of the two characters speaks the third statement and actually chooses the drinks. In his minimalist stories, Hemingway commonly omits reference tags in dialogue.

This stylistic choice creates a sense of verisimilitude, as tags like “he said,” and “she said” are often unnecessary and therefore omitted from actual conversations. This trademark alone fits the “definition” of minimalism as it applies to the structure of a work, but in choosing to omit the reference tag in both the third sentence and other key moments, Hemingway opens the story to multiple readings. Considering that “Hills Like White Elephants” is a highly ambiguous story, the decision to omit certain reference tags should not come as a surprise 56