Hemmingway Short Stories Essay, Research Paper

ERNEST HEMINGWAY (1899-1961) "You really ought to read more books – you

know, those things that look like blocks but come apart on one side." F.

Scott Fitzgerald, 1927 This is a paper about Ernest Hemingway’s short stories

The Snows of Kilimanjaro (1938?), Hills like White Elephants (1927), Cat in the

Rain (1923?), The Killers (1927) and A Clean Well-Lighted Place (1933). However,

to understand Hemingway and his short stories I find it necessary to take a

brief look at his life and background first. It is not easy to sum up Ernest

Hemingway’s adventurous life in a few paragraphs, but I’ve tried to focus on the

most important things before I started on the analysis of the five short

stories. Ernest Miller Hemingway was born in oak Park, Illinois, July 21st 1899,

and committed suicide July 2nd, 1961. In his lifetime Hemingway managed to write

some of the best known novels of our century, including books such as The Sun

Also Rises, (1926) A Farewell to Arms (1929), Death in the Afternoon (1932) and

For Whom the Bells Toll (1940). Hemingway’s first published work was Three

Stories and Ten Poems (1923) and then In Our Time (1924), before his fame grew

with the publication of The Sun Also Rises in 1926. By that time Hemingway was

married and had a child, and he was working as a news correspondent in Paris. At

the age of 18 Ernest Hemingway signed up for the army to fight in World War I,

but because of his poor vision he was not accepted in the fighting forces. After

a short span as a reporter in Kansas City, he joined the Red Cross as an

ambulance driver. Three weeks after his arrival at the front, Hemingway was

wounded and spent nearly six months in convalescing before he returned home to

USA and a hero’s welcome. Hemingway’s experiences in Italy, his wounding and

recovery, later inspired his great novel A Farewell To Arms, and also explains

some of the dark, pessimistic spirit one can trace trough much of his later

work. After the return from Europe, Hemingway worked as a reporter for the

Toronto Star Daily and in 1921 he moved to Paris as the paper’s European

correspondent. Hemingway’s background as a reporter is clearly shown in most of

his work, and the rules inflicted in the newspaper, advocating short sentences,

short paragraphs, active verb, authenticity, compression, clarity and immediacy

follows him throughout his career. He later said: "Those were the best

rules I ever learned for the business of writing. I’ve never forgotten

them." (Wilson) He lived, worked and wrote in Paris for the next six years,

until he moved back to the US in 1928. Hemingway was an eager hunter and fisher.

He went on many hunting safaris to Africa and was a passionate deep sea fisher.

Hemingway’s love of nature and hunting is shown in many of his novels and short

stories, most clearly in the book The Old Man and The Sea from 1952. The

struggle between the man and the marlin is a brilliant description of courage

and stamina, and the old man seems to be the prime example of the Hemingway

hero, a culmination of a lifetime of writing that comes together in the

character of Santiago. Hemingway settled in the US in 1928 and wrote much of his

best work in the next ten-fifteen years. He worked as a correspondent in the

Spanish Civil War in 1937, and covered the Normandy invasion and the liberation

of Paris among others in the final face of World War II. Hemingway received the

Nobel Prize in Literature in 1954. The stories I have chosen for this essay, The

Snows of Kilimanjaro (1938?), Hills like White Elephants (1927), Cat in the Rain

(1923?), The Killers (1927) and A Clean Well-Lighted Place (1933), have many

things in common, but are also distinct in their own ways. All five are centered

within a small geographic area, and the time span of the stories are relatively

short in all five. I will give a brief recap of each story before I start

analyzing them thoroughly. The Snows of Kilimanjaro describes a couple on a

hunting safari who has had an accident. The husband, Harry, has injured his

foot, and it became infected. Because of bad/wrong treatment of the wound, he is

slowly dying. The wife takes care of him and tries to provide for him the best

she can, but in the end she can’t prevent him from dying. On his deathbed Harry

contemplates his life and the things he never did. Hills Like White Elephants is

a story about a man and his girlfriend. On the surface it seams like they are

sitting on a train station waiting for a train to Madrid. Upon closer

examination of the conversation there are signs that there is more to it than

meets the eye. In fact, she is pregnant and they are on their way to get an

abortion. This is what they actually discuss. Cat in the Rain is also a story

about a couple. The couple, elderly and probably wealthy, is on holiday in

Italy. The woman sees a cat caught out in the rain and wants to go downstairs

and "save" it. When she gets down to the cat, the animal is gone.

However, the hotel-keeper comes to her rescue and later gets the cat in and

brought up to their room. The Killers is a story about two men entering a diner

and discussing with the manager. They hold the manager, the cock and the only

guest by gunpoint and force them into the kitchen. Then they reveal that they

are there to kill a man, Ole Andreson, but the man never show up. The three

"hostages" are released unharmed when Andreson doesn’t appear. As the

guest (Nick Adams, a character in several Hemingway stories) goes to warn

Andreson, he finds the man unaffected and little interested in trying to escape.

In A Clean Well-Lighted Place Hemingway takes the reader to a small cafй

where two waiters are having a discussion about an old man who is the last

remaining guest. Apparently the man has tried to take his life earlier, and he

is a regular guest at the establishment. The youngest waiter wants to kick him

out so he can go home, while the older waiter sympathizes with the man and wants

to let him stay a bit longer. In the end the younger waiter kicks the old man

out. "Maybe you could never write them, and that was why you put them off

and delayed the starting." The Snows of Kilimanjaro Hemingway’s The Snows

of Kilimanjaro is a story about a man and his death struggle, his relationship

to his wife, and his recollections of a troubling existence. It is also, more

importantly, a story about writing. Through the story of Harry, a deceptive,

dying, decaying writer, Hemingway expresses his own feelings about writing, as

an art, as a mean of financial support, and as an inescapable urge. When

analyzing the story, much focus can be put on the failures of Harry. His

failures to write, his failures as a man, a husband and a hunter. Harry and his

wife ended up in the unfortunate position after Harry had an accident on their

hunting trip, and wounded his leg. The leg has been infected and Harry is slowly

dying. As he is dying Harry contemplates his life and all the things he didn’t

do, write or say in his lifetime. At his deathbed Harry find himself at the base

of the mighty Kilimanjaro mountain, the highest point in Africa. He is looking

up at the snow-covered top of the mountain, and at the end, as he passed away,

he dreams that he reaches the top. Obviously the mountain plays a significant

role in the story, and this is also shown in the title. In his death dream,

Harry dreams that this is where he is headed, but the reader leaves Harry in an

indeterminate state and returns to the world of the living, were in fact Harry

has died in his bed. Harry, as a writer, never writes about the things which he

most wants, and is therefore a failure. Harry is the author who cannot bring

himself to write about his past experiences. The italicized portions of the

story are the ones about which Harry has always desired, but never been able, to

write. In fact, the italicized text is comprised of the experiences which would

have made good fiction, had they only been written. Sadly, Harry is never given

the opportunity to write these stories because he has grown soft, he has lost

the ability to create, he has failed as a writer. Hemingway portrays Harry as a

man who is a "failed artist", as an artist who is struggling with his

art, an art that Hemingway knows intimately. In several of his short stories,

Ernest Hemingway uses one or more animals as symbols around which the stories

revolve. In The Snows Of Kilimanjaro, the animal symbols can easily be observed.

Hemingway uses two different animals to symbolize the person Harry wishes is and

the man he has actually become. The leopard, even if it is only seen in the

opening paragraph of the story, is a symbol of what Harry wishes he was. It’s

presence is important throughout the story. In the opening paragraph, the reader

is told the legend of the leopard carcass found at the top of Kilimanjaro. This

leopard, it seems, was seeking the summit for some unknown reason. The leopard

gives the reader associations of grace, speed, strength, courage, and dignity.

It is an animal that acts with purpose, with lightning speed, and with accuracy.

In this story, the leopard symbolizes all of these qualities, lacking in Harry

The hyena is a symbol of qualities that are present in Harry. This vicious

scavenger, who all through the story circles the camp, waiting for Harry to die,

represents the scavenger-like qualities of Harry’s personality and his spiritual

death, which has occurred long before his physical one. Because he was too

afraid to try, Harry never was able to live out his talent decisively, and he

realizes that if he dies, he "would not have to fail at writing [his

thoughts] down", and therefore does not fight against death. He merely

awaits death, expecting to gain from it the spiritual enlightenment that others

must work hard for. The hyena is much closer related to Harry’s personality than

the leopard. He has lived off the riches of his wife, calling his love for her

"the lie he made his bread and butter by". Harry lies crippled on a

cot while his wife goes "to kill a piece of meat", the camp is an

extension of the real world in which Harry picks up the leftovers of others,

just as the hyenas live off the leftovers of the better hunters. Every time the

hyena appears in the story, it is somehow associated with Harry’s death. When

Harry faces the realization of his death, it comes "with a rush. . . of a

sudden evil-smelling emptiness. . . that the hyena slipped lightly on the edge

of" and when death finally sets in, it is announced by the hyena, with

"a strange, human, almost crying sound" Since it is with Harry’s

psychological state that the hyena is associated, it is not necessarily of

Harry’s physical death that the hyena is symbolic. It is just as well a symbol

of the psychological death that has already occurred because of his inability to

act decisively and write down his inner thoughts. The physical death is simply

the last step in this process. Also the hyena symbolizes death itself. It is an

animal that lives of death and dead animals, unable to hunt for itself. Towards

the end the hyena is replaced by Death, but in the final paragraph it is back as

the symbol of Harry, both his life and his death. The two animals in the story

represent conflicting personality traits. Harry, in the end, dies as he lives,

as a hyena scavenging the leopard’s leftovers on the plains below the

Kilimanjaro. Hemingway is known as a master of the innuendo, the double meaning.

Also in several other stories he uses the animal symbol as a description of the

protagonist or main character. In Cat in the Rain, the animal symbol is so

essential to the story that it is described already in the title. This "cat

in the rain" is symbolic of the emotional state of mind of the American

wife. She is in a near drowned emotional state, caused by her husbands apathy

and lack of affection. Hemingway also establishes a bond between the woman and

the cat right from the start. She empathizes with the animal and when it’s first

observed seeking cover under the table, it is described as "she", even

though the gender is clearly impossible to establish from three floors up.

However this creates a bond in the readers mind between the cat and the American

woman. The American woman’s empathy for the cat is shown through her persistence

to rescue it from the rain, despite the fact that she has to go out and get wet

herself. She knows "it isn’t any fun to be a poor kitty out in the

rain". It is soon clear to the observant reader why the woman emphasizes

with the cat. (Besides the fact that she likes cats.) She herself feels like a

cat drowning in the rain. Her husband is the source of her emotional despair,

and he doesn’t really give her the attention she deserves. When she tells him

her desires, he is indifferent to her needs. The woman wants the cat so she can

hold it on "her lap and pet it as it purrs." Obviously she is

expressing the desire to be loved and held. Maybe even the need for someone to

stroke her, physically as well as emotionally. There are clearly strong sexual

undertone in this story, as is the case in several of Hemingway’s stories. The

woman feels unwomanly, like a boy with her short hair. When the cat finally is

brought in from the rain, it is the hotel-keeper that has responded to the

woman’s needs and came to her (or the cat’s) rescue, not her husband. That is

the same man that had caused in her "a momentary feeling of supreme

importance", and in whom she admired ‘the way he wanted to serve her".

He has provided the woman with the attention that she’s not receiving from her

husband, at least not emotionally. The sexual undertone suggests that the wife

might be satisfied by the hotel-keeper, emotionally as well as sexually. The

sexual undertone, which is a trademark in many of Hemingway’s novels and short

stories, is also present in the story Hills Like White Elephants. In this story

Hemingway portrays a couple that on the surface is only taking a trip, waiting

for their train to arrive. At a first glance one is almost led to believe that

this is it, that these two people just sit in the bar and talk about drinking

and nothing of importance. However, looking deeper into the conversation one can

detect much more. They are obviously on their way to some (illegal) clinic where

she can have an abortion. This is never stated directly, but the conversation is

clearly circling the subject. The characters in the story are also described

differently. They are introduced as the American and the girl, showing that

there is a age difference between them. The man is never named, and not given

much of a personality. The girl, later named Jig, has more of a personality. She

has a difficult time making up her mind whether or not to keep the baby and has

a problem clearly stating what she thinks to the American. She thinks the

abortion can save their relationship, while the man already has distanced

himself from her and realized that they can’t go back to where they were before.

The characters are really mysterious, we know nothing about their lives but they

seem to have nothing to do in life apart from sex and drinking. They spend the

time drinking, alcohol is considered as aphrodisiac. They order "anнs"

because she wants to try new things, maybe she is considering the possibility of

having a new relationship or a new experience in life, but when she tastes it

she says "it tastes like licorice" which is a very common and not

exotic taste, and she adds that "Everything tastes of licorice. Especially

all the things you’ve waited so long for… " implying that when you wait

for something for a long time, for instance a relationship, once you get it, it

loses the mystery and appeal. Later on there is a reference to the routine they

seem to be in when she says that all they do is looking at things and trying new

drinks. The two briefly discuss their future, and by that time the attitude of

the American regarding the unborn child is annoying Jig. This is shown in her

remark "And you think then we’ll be all right and be happy?" The

sarcasm in Jig’s question is evident, but the American is oblivious to the

meaning and tosses the subject aside and continues to discuss the "simple

operation." He is clearly afraid that she will change her mind about the

operation, and he is all the time trying to reassure her in the decision. He

openly refers to the operation as nothing of importance, and very easy;

"It’s just to let the air in". The American feels that the pregnancy

is a nuisance in their lives. The baby would mean the necessity to settle down

and start a family, and this would change their life. They live a nomadic life,

moving around a lot, and their suitcases are full of "labels from all the

hotels they had spent nights." At the end of the story the American says

"we can have the world" and Jig replies "No, we can’t. It isn’t

ours anymore? And once they have taken it away, you never get it back."

Here we can detect that Jig wants the child, and knows that once she has the

operation she won’t be able to get the child back. She’s also afraid that after

the operation the relationship will change. The American is only concerned about

her having the operation. He wants to convince her it is her decision, but

leaves only one option. He says "if you don’t want to you don’t have

to?But I know it’s perfectly simple." He is the only one who have no

doubts about it. The symbolism in the story is not as obvious as in "Cat in

the Rain", but also in this story Hemingway utilizes symbols to illustrate.

The story takes place in a train station in the valley of the Ebro, Spain. The

train in the story could symbolize change, and the fact that it only stops for

two minutes illustrates the short time in which Jig has to make a decision. At

this point in time abortion was certainly not legal in catholic Spain, and the

decision had to be taken quickly. In a way the train symbolizes the journey of

life. Many things in the story is related to fertility and aridness. The topic

of pregnancy and abortion is illustrated through the title of the story where

"Hills Like White Elephants" refer to the shape of the belly of a

pregnant woman. The first impression you get when you start reading the text is

that it is situated in the middle of a dry, infertile place under the sun, with

no shade or trees. It reinforces the idea of lack of life but in contrast, the

people are in the warm shadow of the building where life is. This emphasizes the

contrast between the pregnancy of the woman, as being fertile, and everything

around them, including him. They are also separated from the rest of the people

that are inside the bar from a bamboo bead curtain, it gives the idea of privacy

reinforced by the idea of the warm shadow of the building that protects them

from the world that exists inside the bar, they are outside, with nature. The

unusual name of the girl, Jig, is also somewhat symbolic. It is the name of a

lively dance and it can also refer to "a particular sort of behavior or

activity which varies according to the situation that someone is in"

(Collins Cobuild Dictionary). I discovered this by chance looking up the dance,

but that meaning of the name clearly shows that Hemingway didn’t pick the name

out of the air. The name implies that she can change her mind about the

abortion, and the American is afraid that this might happen. He is all the time

trying to reassure her in the decision. After the first introductory paragraph,

the dialogue between the two people start. The dialogue seems casual, but

through it we can deduce the kind of relationship they have. The language is

simple, but it’s still expressing feelings. The real theme of the conversation

is not clearly stated but it is underlying, they are talking about love,

feelings and her pregnancy. The tension is in the air, but is not expressed

openly, maybe because of a fear of being overheard (since they are talking about

an illegal act), or maybe it’s just a problem of communication and of sharing

feelings. There are some references to sexuality in the form of phallic symbols,

such as "Anнs del Toro", the bull being a symbol of virility and

strength. It’s the girl, Jig, who starts the dialogue and she is the one taking

the decisions, implying that the decision for the abortion in the end will be

hers. The American avoids the topic at first, changing the subject and talk

about simple things such as the weather. Like most men, he has a problem showing

his feelings. The story also shows another trait of Hemingway’s stories; the use

of Spanish (foreign) words and sentences. The man orders "dos cervezas"

from the bar lady. One can assume that she doesn’t speak English, but later on

he orders and she answers in English. However, from the context of the story it

is clear that this conversation also takes place in Spanish, but that in order

not to translate the whole conversation only the first word exchange was kept in

Spanish to set the stage. The use of Spanish word and sentences is also shown in

the story A Clean Well-Lighted Place. This story is, like "Hills Like White

Elephants", set in a small Spanish town and almost the entire story takes

place inside a small "cafй." The main part of the story is the

conversation between the two waiters. The younger waiter is impatient to get

home to his wife, and angry at the old man who’s keeping them there so late. The

other waiter is older, unmarried and in no hurry to get home. He empathizes with

the old man, and understand his need to stay there. In fact he states that

"I am of those who like to stay late at the cafй." The older

waiter shows concern for the old man, and he is the one who knows about the

niece and the suicide attempt. As the story progresses, the character of the two

waiters emerges through their dialogue and thoughts, as does many of Hemingway’s

characters. The use of Spanish words in this story, suggesting it takes place in

Spain, emerges at the end of the story, as the older waiter walks of alone and

visits some bar. When the bartender asks what he wants, the man answers in

Spanish: "Nada". The bartender answers in Spanish "Otro loco mas"

suggesting that, as is the case with the conversation between the man and the

waiter in Hills Like White Elephants, the whole conversation actually takes

place in Spanish. The setting of the story in Spain could also be supported by

the surroundings of the cafй. The soldier passing by with his sweetheart,

and the two men’s comments at the time suggests that it is in the period of the

dictatorship before the civil war, or during the war. Their comments that the

guards will get him could point to a time of conflict. (Like the civil war.) In

the story the older waiter possesses many of the typical character traits of the

Hemingway hero. He is reserved, judgmental and thoughtful, much like Harry in

"The Snows of Kilimanjaro". He takes the old man in his defense, and

shows concern for him. He says he knows how nice it is to be in a clean,

well-lighted place instead of in some noisy, dirty bar. He doesn’t mind staying

in the bar a little longer so the man can finish up in his own pace. At the end

he has a "discussion" with himself, contemplating his life and

religion and the emptiness of his existence. This is another parallel to the

character of Harry. As A Clean Well-Lighted Place and Hills like White

Elephants, the story The Killers is placed in a little place. This story is

situated inside a small diner in a small town called Summit. The story begins as

two men, immediately striking the reader as rude and unpleasant men, enters and

starts to hassle the manager, George. There is only one customer in the diner

except the two gangsters, and he is quickly intimidated by the men. The

customer, Nick Adams, is a character Hemingway writes about in several stories.

Like the two other stories mentioned earlier, this story is merely told as if

someone is outside registering what happens. Hemingway often writes his stories

like that, as if observed by a camera. Also the dialogue in the story is typical

of Hemingway. It is the dialogue that carries the action of the story and there

is no need for much explanation except to describe certain actions. The style of

much dialogue and a writing the way people speak is something Hemingway masters

perfectly. The emotion behind the dialogue is also easy to spot in most

Hemingway stories. In this story it seems as if Andreson doesn’t care about his

life anymore. Like Harry in The Snows of Kilimanjaro, he merely accepts the fact

that he’s dying. Neither Andreson or Harry is doing anything to avoid their

destiny, even though in both cases they could probably at least postpone death.

Andreson merely says "there’s nothing I can do about it" and he just

stays apathetic in his room. The fact that he haven’t been out all day points to

him already knowing about the gangsters from Chicago, and as George suggests, he

probably got in to some kind of trouble in Chicago. Conclusion: Hemingway

generally use much dialogue and writes in a conversational style. All five of

the stories I have chosen contain a lot of dialogue and the characters carry the

action of the story through their conversation. Hemingway, like William

Faulkner, was an expert in writing human dialogue. The symbolism in Hemingway’s

stories are often taking form of animals, but also other symbols are commonly

used. In several of his short stories, Ernest Hemingway uses one or several

animals as symbols around which the stories revolve. As central symbols,

Hemingway’s animals are the manifestations of the psychological states and

emotional desires of the main characters in the stories and are used to enable

the reader’s apprehension of the often unstated psychological forces that

motivate them. The sexual undertone is also often a strong presence in

Hemingway’s stories. As the conversation goes on the feeling that there is more

to what the character say emerges, and one can understand the underlying, double

meaning of the story. This is something notably of Hemingway. Often he is

characterized as the "master of innuendo and double meaning." The

geographical placement of Hemingway’s stories are usually limited to minimal

physical settings, and the time span is short. All five stories discussed here

are limited to a little place, whether that is a bar, train station, cafй,

diner or the small hunting camp on the great plains of Africa. This is a usual

trait in many short stories, and this is a trait Hemingway often uses. The

women, or the supporting characters, in Hemingway’s stories are often weak and

indecisive. The wife in The Snows of Kilimanjaro, the woman in Cat in the Rain

and the girl in Hills Like White Elephants are all either weak or treated badly

without them doing anything about it. Harry’s wife in The Snows of Kilimanjaro

is not even named, even though we get to know Harry well through the story. Jig

in Hills Like White Elephants seems to be a strong woman. However, the way she

is treated and the fact that she most likely will give in to the mans whishes

and have the abortion, tells us that she isn’t strong enough to stand up for

herself after all. Hemingway has a tendency to treat the women in his stories

badly, and the male characters of his stories is often emotionally cold and

doesn’t show much feelings. This could be a reflection of his own life,

Hemingway was married several times and never seemed emotionally stabile. He

eventually even took his life. Hemingway’s characters are usually mobile and

unattached. Often they are people who are travelling in strange and unfamiliar

environments, in train stations, on safari, at diners or bars, at the races or

in the bull fighting arena. He writes about lovers, often tearing each other

apart. He writes about the old writer on his deathbed, glancing up at the snow

covered top of Kilimanjaro and thinking about everything his life should have

been. He writes about the lonely old man, patiently sitting in the clean

well-lighted place as long as he can, just to forget about whatever it is

waiting for him out in the night. He writes about the old man fighting the

marlin in his little boat, just to prove to himself that he can beat the sea one

more time. Hemingway is one of the greatest writers of our century, and his

stories will live on to amuse many generations to come.

Wilson, M., "No Man Alone – A biography of Ernest Hemingway",

http://members.aol.com/Mwilson311/Hemingway/biography.htm, visited November 13,

1998 Pickering, James H., "Fiction 100 -An Anthology of Short Stories"

8th ed., Prentice-Hall inc. New Jersey, 1998 Hemingway, Ernest "Short

Stories" Charles Scribner’ Sons New York, 1953