Hemingway Style Analysis

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Earnest Hemingway is one of Americas foremost authors. His many works, their style, themes and parallels to his actual life have been the focus of millions of people as his writing style set him apart from all other authors. Many conclusions and parallels can be derived from Earnest Hemingway's works. In the three stories I review, ?Hills Like White Elephants?, ?Indian Camp? and ?A Clean, Well-lighted Place? we will be covering how Hemingway uses foreigners, the service industry and females as the backbones of these stories. These techniques play such a critical role in the following stories that Hemingway would be unable to move the plot or character development forward without them.

In ?Hills Like White Elephants? Hemingway utilizes the waitress as a method to help develop the character of the lead male. His interaction at the beginning of the story with the waitress in her native language show his intellectual superiority which is also emphasized in the following line, ?The girl looked at the bead curtain. 'They've painted something on it,' she said. 'What does it say?'? (Hemingway). This setup is a crucial transition from the blank slate we start at with both characters. The story of course unfolds following what the interaction with the waitress and bar setting created for us. One in which the lead male character is dominant, controlling and a person who provides information and answers not available to the female character. Additionally the male characters treatment of the female waitress creates the building blocks for our understanding of how he interacts with females. He never mentions please or thank you
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when ordering or receiving their first drinks and by the second round acts in the follow way, ?The man called 'Listen' through the curtain.? when addressing the waitress (Hemingway). It is only a few lines later he begins semi-jokingly and in condescending manner scolding his female partner. The condescending remarks start with, ?'Just because you say I wouldn't have doesn't prove anything.'? the man replies to her assertion that he hasn't seen white elephants (Hashmi). Besides being hot in this story, the males only burden is that he is trying to persuade his female partner to his views as he tries to coach her through the remaining portion of the dialog manipulative lines such as, ?'Well,' the man said, 'if you don't want to you don't ha...

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...hite Elephants? The Norton Anthology of Short Fiction.

Ed. R. V. Cassill. New York: W. W. Norton, 1990.

- - -. ?Indian Camp? The Short Stories of Ernest Hemingway.

Ed. Martin Kohn. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1966.

Secondary Sources

Nagel, James. ?Earnest Hemingway : A Centennial Assesment?. Online

http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/books/1999/hemingway/stories/nagel/

Hashmi, Nilofer. "Hills Like White Elephants": The Jilting of Jig." Hemingway Review

Vol. 23 Issue 1; fall (2003): 72.

Fantina, Richard. ?Hemingway's Maschoism, Sodomy, and the Dominant Woman? The

Hemingway Review. Online.

http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/hemingway_review/v023/23.1fantina.html

Strychacz Thomas. ?Hemingway's Theaters of Masculinity? Louisiana State University

Press. Online.

http://www.lsu.edu/lsupress/catalog/Fall2003/books/Strychacz_Hemingway.html