The Killer Hemingway

“The Killers” was written by Ernest Hemingway, then published in 1927. Hemingway has a pattern of writing about social realism, which is continued further in his short story, “The Killers”. In “The Killers”, Nick Adams is a young traveler who finds himself in a diner, in a small town called Summit, Illinois, near Chicago. While there he, the counterman George, and the black cook Sam are taken hostage by two men dressed in black who are looking to kill a former Swedish boxer. Hemingway portrays George as emotionless, Max as a gangster, and Sam as a black man attempting to break the bonds of racism. He also explores the discovery of evil and the staggering crime rates of Prohibition era America. He hates the values of post-war America, and tends

“Societies have laws to ensure a safe environment for their citizens, to maintain order, and to instill a sense of justice in the populace,” (“Delany”). This quote explains that society has many untold and unwritten laws to keep the major population safe even if it means letting people get hurt sometimes. It is also there to keep order, stopping people from causing too much harm and preventing the populace from being fatally wounded. Lastly, its final job is to keep justice upheld within the community, keeping people from doing evil, and punishing those who choose to. “No, I got in the wrong…” (Hemingway). This line, spoken by Ole Andreson after Nick tried to save him from being killed, shows the level of desperation that can come of bad situations. Anderson had been given a guardian angel in the form of Nick yet he refused to be saved.. He most likely got mixed in with the mob, and had been running for so long, that finally he became weary and decided to stop running. He had accepted his fate. What Hemingway is trying to convey here is, that crime and unrelenting threats can break down the toughest and strongest of people, and it breaks down the society that has been built up around