The Writings of Ernest Hemingway and Their Varying Degrees of Depth “Here is a story, if there ever was one, with what are called ‘unsuspected depths.'” (O’Faolain 112) The preceding quotation appropriately describes many of Ernest Hemingway’s stories, including “A Clean, Well-Lighted Place” and “Hills Like White Elephants.” The reader must not casually read through Hemingway’s short stories; he must go back over the story and attempt to dig deep into the text to reach the deeper levels. His stories cannot be taken at face value, for there are hidden meanings, or “deeper narrative structures,” (Sanderson 1) to each of his stories. For example, one theme that is evident once the reader sees through the text and into the meaning is that one of the characters in many of his stories represents Hemingway himself. Another commonality is the “characteristic setting” prevalent in many of his stories: “Clean, well-lighted, utterly anonymous,” (Wilson 217) Hemingway’s beginnings on the Kansas City Star (Magill 395) shaped his career as a writer. His “spare style has become a model for authors, especially short-story writers.” (Magill 393) His “technique is readily apparent in ‘Hills Like White Elephants.'” (Magill 396) The story has virtually no action, and has only three characters.
An American man, a girl, and a woman who serves them in the caf are the only characters. The first dialogue in the story contains “an underlying sense of tension” which “contrasts with the inconsequential nature of the subject of their discussion.” (Magill 396-7) The story continues with mindless chatter until the American finally reveals what is on his mind: abortion. The man assures her that “things will be fine if she only agrees to terminate her pregnancy” but “she knows that their relationship has already been poisoned forever.” (Magill 397) The summary of the story is inevitably an artificial construct that does not convey the sense of significance that readers get from discovering the larger issues lurking beneath the surface of the dialogue and description. This story is about choice, a vital choice for the woman, who must face the dilemma of either acquiescing to the man’s wishes or risking the loss of a man for whom she has had some genuine feelings of love. (Magill 397)”For many readers, [‘A Clean Well-Lighted Place’] exemplifies the existential plight of modern humanity.” (Flora 1) The story revolves around an old man at a bar who had tried committing suicide the week before.
The Essay on Earnest Hemingway Man Life World
In A Clean Well-Lighted Place, Earnest Hemingway focuses on the pain of old age suffered by a man that we meet in a caf late one night. Through the use of dialogue, Hemingway creates three characters that symbolize the stages of life: birth, living, and death. Additionally, the tone of the story is created in three ways. First, he contrasts light and dark to show the difference between the ...
The very presence of the old man annoys the younger waiter, for he wants to get home at a decent hour. In one passage, “the older waiter explains to the younger one that he must be patient with the homeless man sitting in the caf because everyone needs a clean, well-lighted place in which to stare at his aloneness.” (Howe 433)And the sleepless man-the man obsessed by death, by the meaninglessness of the world is one of the recurring symbols in the work of Hemingway. In this phase, Hemingway is a religious writer. The despair that makes a sleeplessness beyond insomnia, is the despair felt by a man who hungers for the sense of order and assurance that men seem to find in religious faith, but who cannot find grounds for his faith. (Warren 85) Symbolism is also strongly evident in much of Hemingway’s work. “Everything in the tale is related to the idea of fertility and barrenness Hills refer to the shape of the belly of a pregnant woman, and White Elephants is an idiom that refers to useless or unwanted things.” (Olmos 1) Everything in the story, no matter how unimportant, is symbolic, and represents something other than the obvious, thus showing the multi-level structure that is present in much of Hemingway’s work.
The Essay on Hemingways Man
Hemingway’s exploration of Man in The Sun Also Rises ‘It’s really an awfully simple operation, Jig,’ the man said. ‘It’s not really an operation at all.’ Much of Hemingway’s body of work grows from issues of male morality. In his concise, “Hills Like White Elephants,” a couple discusses getting an abortion while waiting for a train in a ...
“The train here symbolizes change, movement but in some way they are scared of it as movement is not always forward but it can also be backwards in this case in their relationship. It is the ‘train of life.'” (Olmos 1) Another commonality in Hemingway’s work is his use of Spanish words. “In this story [‘Hills Like White Elephants’] we can also see something typical of Hemingway, that is the use of Spanish words and sentences. He orders ‘dos cervezas’ to the bar lady.” (Olmos 2) In “A Clean, Well-Lighted Place, the word “nada,” or “nothing” in Spanish, is repeated frequently. Also, in “Hills Like White Elephants,” she orders “anis.”
Hemingway writes about himself in his stories, and it is plain for all to see in “Hills Like White Elephants.”When Hemingway’s first wife, Hadley, became pregnant in 1923, he complained that he was not ready for the responsibilities of parenthood and the imposition of his time that a child would represent. In an early sketch, Hemingway explored the central situation, writing in first person and calling the woman “Hadley.” The tone of this draft was positive, however, expressing the relief the two of them felt to be traveling away from the arguments that had ruined the Pamplona fiesta of 1925. When he returned to this subject in May 1927, he had divorced Hadley and was about to marry Pauline Pfeiffer, and he transformed the plot into a third-person narrative with a tense unstated conflict at the heart of the action. He retained the setting and the elephant simile of the earlier draft, but he changed the central figures into an anonymous American man and a woman called “Jig.” (Nagel 1)Just like Hemingway’s stories have multiple levels, characters interact on sub-levels as well. Clearly, little happens and not much is said, but just beneath the surface of these spare and dull events, a quiet but crucial struggle between these two characters as been resolved.
The future course of their relationship appears to have been charted in these moments, and the fate of their unborn child determined. (Magill 1018)The seemingly petty conversation here about hills and drinks and an unspecified operation is in actuality an unarticulated but decisive struggle over whether they continue to live the sterile, self-indulgent life preferred by the man or elect to have the child which Jig is carrying and settle down to a conventional but, in Jig’s view, rewarding, fruitful, and peaceful life. (Magill 1019)Hemingway’s works have many similarities. Many of his stories are based on his life and his experiences. Other similarities include his style. “The more obvious features of Hemingway’s narrative technique-the crisp reporting of action observed in sharp focus, dialogue that is colloquial in register and laconic in tone-have been imitated by writers throughout the world.” (Sanderson 1) He is also known for using various Spanish words and sentences in his stories. Symbolism occurs frequently as a part of the structuring of his writings. Hemingway is probably most famous for writing stories that must be read several times to understand completely for he has buried the themes and plots of his stories beneath several sub-levels and plots.
The Essay on Hills Like White Elephants By Hemingway, A&P By Updike And Hell-Heaven By Lahiri
Ernest Hemingway, John Updike and Jhumpa Lahiri are very talented and respected authors. They each had a unique, but at the same time similar way of writing and expressing literature. Hills like White Elephants by Hemingway, A&P by Updike and Hell-Heaven by Lahiri were no exception. In this essay I will begin by showing the similarities and differences between Hills like White Elephants and ...
His work is best summed up in the following statement: “As with much of Hemingway’s fiction, it is not so much what does happen or is said as what does not happen or is left unsaid that is important.” (Magill 1018) Works CitedFlora, Joseph M. “‘A Clean Well-Lighted Place:’ Overview.” Online. Literature Resource Center. 18 May 1999.Howe, Irving. Ernest Hemingway: The Critical Heritage. Ed. Jeffrey Meyers. London: Routledge, 1997. 430-433.Magill, Frank N., ed. Short Story Writers.Vol. 2. Pasadena: Salem Press, Inc.: 1997. 393-403.Magill, Frank N., ed. Masterplots II. Vol. 3. Pasadena: Salem Press, Inc.: 1997. 1018-1021.Nagel, James. “‘Hills Like White Elephants’ Overview.” Online. Literature Resource Center. 18 May 1999.O’Faolain, Sean. “A Clean Well-Lighted Place.” Short Stories: A Study in Pleasure. Ed. Sean O’Faolain. Boston: Little, Brown, and Company, 1961. 112-113.Olmos, Marga Mansilla. “Hills Like White Elephants.” Online. University of Florida Department of English. 24 May 1999.Sanderson, Stewart F. “Ernest Hemingway: Overview.” Online. Literature Resource Center. 18 May 1999.Warren, Robert Penn. “Ernest Hemingway.” Ernest Hemingway: Five Decades of Criticism. Ed. Linda Welshimer Wagner. Michigan State University Press, 1974. 75-102.Wilson, Edmund. Short Story Criticism, Volume 1. Ed. Sheila Fitzgerald. Detroit: Gale Research, Inc., 1989. 214-218.
The Essay on Ernest Hemingway Web American Literature
Ernest Miller Hemingway was born in 1899 in Oak Park, Ill. As a boy he was taught by his father to fish and hunt along the shores and in the forests surrounding Lake Michigan. He graduated from high school in 1917 and became a reporter for the Kansas City Star, (web) but soon left to become an ambulance driver in WWI. He then served for many different newspapers in many cities as a reporter. Even ...
