Ernest Hemingway was a writer during the Modernist Era (which was a new idea that incorporated many new views on life, as a result of the growing world) that spent time in World War One as an ambulance driver. On his return home he began to write a series of works that may have derived from his experiences at war. Hemingway used a variety of different rhetorical schemes and ideas in his writing that he used to convey his feelings of his many stories; he uses fragmented sentence structure to convey emotion and to create on effect on the reader, and also has reoccurring themes is his different stories especially in: “A Clean, Well-Lighted Place”, “Hills Like White Elephants”, and “Cat in the Rain”. These stories reflect on the modernist idea …show more content…
In “A Clean, Well-Lighted Place” when the old man that is drinking in the café, the waiters are talking about him and Hemingway does not give us the exact passage of time and leaves it up to the reader to speculate on how much time has elapsed until the end. The reader has to follow the passage carefully and thus gets the most out of what the story has to offer. Hemingway also uses this scheme in “Hills like White Elephants” when the man and the woman are talking, they are limited to small sentences and not too much dialogue, which leaves the reader with a discussion amongst themselves. The use of shortened or fragmented sentences created the readers choice to add their own perspective to Hemingway’s …show more content…
During the modernist era writers used direct and personal words and phrases to get a simple point across to the reader and to help the reader understand with their own insight what each author’s ideas are. The reoccurring themes of selfishness, death, and the role of women in society, relate to what the world was having trouble with at the time and Hemingway allows the readers of his works to explore and understand how life may have been in the post-World War One time. The Modernist Era writers experimented with the idea of re-examining all of the facts that society has to offer. After the war many people questioned if there was a God or some kind of higher power, the Modernists used this idea of re-examining ideas to rethink the possibility and incorporated the ideas into their works. In “A Clean, Well-Lighted Place”, Hemingway uses the idea of no religion in a form of a prayer as to dismiss the idea of God in society (the “nada” prayer). This way of thinking and writing created a new mannerist idea for the world to
One observation that can be made on Hemingway’s narrative technique as shown in his short stories is his clipped, spare style, which aims to produce a sense of objectivity through highly selected details. Hemingway refuses to romanticize his characters. Being “tough” people, such as boxers, bullfighters, gangsters, and soldiers, they are depicted as leading a life more or less without thought. The world is full of s...
Growing up in a rich atmosphere of culture, religion, and the sciences, Ernest Hemingway was always surrounded by different perspectives and thoughts of the world around him. There was a restlessness in him that wanted to discover and explore new things. Beginning as early as high school, his inner-writer began to emerge and his stories were often read aloud to the class as examples of what the other students should strive for. These stories are rarely spoken of nowadays, but display his early talent. While the majority of people are mostly familiar with Hemingway’s well-known works in his later years, some of his earliest pieces that he contributed to the world are often forgotten. (Reef 53).
Ernest Hemingway is today known as one of the most influential American authors of the 20th century. This man, with immense repute in the worlds of not only literature, but also in sportsmanship, has cast a shadow of control and impact over the works and lifestyles of enumerable modern authors and journalists. To deny his clear mastery over the English language would be a malign comparable to that of discrediting Orwell or Faulkner. The influence of the enigma that is Ernest Hemingway will continue to be shown in works emulating his punctual, blunt writing style for years to come.
Throughout the 20th century there were many influential pieces of literature that would not only tell a story or teach a lesson, but also let the reader into the author’s world. Allowing the reader to view both the positives and negatives in an author. Ernest Hemingway was one of these influential authors. Suffering through most of his life due to a disturbingly scarring childhood, he expresses his intense mental and emotional insecurities through subtle metaphors that bluntly show problems with commitment to women and proving his masculinity to others.
In this mode the narrator is someone outside the story being omniscient (Abrams, p.301). Nevertheless, the author as the narrator in this story gives the reader virtually no access to the couple’s thoughts and does not even interpret the emotional quality of their words or movements by using adverbs; he simply records. Hemingway termed his own literary writing style The Iceberg Theory, a method in which he held back key details of his stories. He carefully detected and omitted all the words that did not work, keeping only the words that were of highest importance to his story, and leaving readers to sift through the remaining dialogue and bits of narrative on their own (Yanling, p 109). There are no descriptions of the couple’s real names, their occupations or any physical attributes. He further omits dialogue tags (she/he said) and skips any internal monologues. The story has a documentary style with sparse wording which makes the language restraint, intensified and precise. The author seems to be indifferent both to the characters and to the reader; he pretends to be merely an objective observer content to report without comment the words and actions of the protagonists (Yanling, p 108). The reader is on the basis of her or his own interpretations forced to piece together the facts of the difficulties in the couples disjointed conversation (Yanling, p
Hemingway, considered to be a modernist writer, makes his readers work by implementing the well-known theory of omission, which “Hills Like White Elephants” is a perfect example of. As he stated in Death in the Afternoon : ‘If a writer of prose knows enough of what he is writing about he may omit things that he knows and the reader, […].’ (259). It seems that Hemingway assumed the reader would know what is being omitted, nevertheless many features of “Hills Like White Elephants” have already been covered by various critics. At the end of the story the reader is forced to unravel the most...
When a writer picks up their pen and paper, begins one of the most personal and cathartic experiences in their lives, and forms this creation, this seemingly incoherent sets of words and phrases that, read without any critical thinking, any form of analysis or reflexion, can be easily misconstrued as worthless or empty. When one reads an author’s work, in any shape or form, what floats off of the ink of the paper and implants itself in our minds is the author’s personality, their style. Reading any of the greats, many would be able to spot the minute details that separates each author from another; whether it be their use of dialogue, their complex descriptions, their syntax, or their tone. When reading an excerpt of Hemingway’s A Moveable Feast one could easily dissect the work, pick apart each significant moment from Hemingway’s life and analyze it in order to form their own idea of the author’s voice, of his identity. Ernest Hemingway’s writing immediately comes across as rather familiar in one sense. His vocabulary is not all that complicated, his layout is rather straightforward, and it is presented in a simplistic form. While he may meander into seemingly unnecessary detail, his work can be easily read. It is when one looks deeper into the work, examines the techniques Hemingway uses to create this comfortable aura surrounding his body of work, that one begins to lift much more complex thoughts and ideas. Hemingway’s tone is stark, unsympathetic, his details are precise and explored in depth, and he organizes his thoughts with clarity and focus. All of this is presented in A Moveable Feast with expertise every writer dreams to achieve. While Hemingway’s style may seem simplistic on the surface, what lies below is a layered...
Hemingway's Personal Life and its Influence on his Short Story "Hills Like White Elephants" "Hills like White Elephants" is not the normal story where you have a beginning, middle and end. Hemingway gave just enough information so that readers could draw their own conclusions. The entire story encompasses a conversation between two lovers and leaves the reader with more questions than answers. Ernest Hemingway was a brilliant writer. People that study Hemingway's works try to gain insight and draw natural conclusions about Hemingway and his life.
Every work in literature is open to interpretation, and every person is entitled to their opinion. In a story shorter than 1,500 words, less than that of this paper, Ernest Hemingway’s A Clean, Well-Lighted Place has garnered serious debate and criticism. Written and published in 1933, Hemingway’s story containing a theme about nothing in several contexts has definitely given many critics something to talk about, but not about the usual theme, irony, or symbolism. For the past 55 years, the critics continue to debate the conflicting dialogue between the two main characters, and whether the inconsistency was intended by Hemingway or a mistake by the original typesetter.
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.
Hemingway was very good at stating impressive amount of things in a one short sentence. “Hemingway’s mature style of writing short, declarative sentences developed at the Star”(Oliver 3). He acquired this skill from working at a Newspaper company. He uses minimal amount of words to make a powerful point. “Mr. and Mrs. Elliot tried very hard to have a baby” (1). This short sentence itself raises many questions and it states many things; the inability of the Mr. Elliot to satisfy his wife sexually or questioning Mr. Elliot sexual preference and as well as of Mrs. Elliot. “The liquor had all died out of him and left him alone” (171). This short line describes how lonely the character of Nick Adam feels and how sad he feels for the loss of her girl friend Marjorie. “‘Well, Doc,’ he said, ‘that’s a nice lot of timber you’ve stolen’” (7). This particular sentence has so much weight that it shakes th...
Hemingway has a very simple and straightforward writing style however his story lacks emotion. He makes the reader figure out the characters’ feelings by using dialogue. “...
The art, literature, and poetry of the early 20th century called for a disruption of social values. Modernism became the vague term to describe the shift. The characteristics of the term Modernism, all seek to free the restricted human spirit. It had no trust in the moral conventions and codes of the past. One of the examples of modernism, that breaks the conventions and traditions of literature prior to Modernism, is Ernest Hemingway’s short story “Hills Like White Elephants”. The short story uses plot, symbolism, setting, dialogue, and a new style of writing to allow human spirit to experiment with meaning and interpretation.
During his life, Ernest Hemingway has used his talent as a writer in many novels, nonfiction, and short stories, and today he is recognized to be maybe "the best-known American writer of the twentieth century" (Stories for Students 243). In his short stories Hemingway reveals "his deepest and most enduring themes-death, writing, machismo, bravery, and the alienation of men in the modern world" (Stories for Students 244).
The modernist period was a time of change. After World War II many people found themselves unhappy, lonely, and depressed. With the groundbreaking influences of Karl Marx, Freud, and Nietzsche, many people began to question their own reality. What did it mean to exist? What was life, and what was death? The modernist author reflected this change, and confronted these questions with enthusiasm. Together modernist artists became the representative voice of the people. This voice transcended all forms of art, but was most successful in the written word. Through the experimentation of language and form, the modernist author managed to convey the meaninglessness felt by many, and created a light in the darkness of an uncertain world. Ernest Hemingway's short stories titled "A clean well-lighted Place", and F. Scott Fitzgerald's "Babylon Revisited" are two notable examples of literary art during the modernist period.