Short Stories of Ernest Hemingway Summary

“The Snows of Kilimanjaro” traces the final hours of Harry, a writer dying of gangrene on safari
in Africa. Most of the story consists of Harry’s self-critical ruminations on how he has not
fulfilled his potential as a writer, instead choosing to make his living by marrying rich women like
his current wife Helen. Harry has a series of delirious memory-dreams in which he recalls the
adventures of his youth, from skiing in the mountains to patronizing prostitutes in Constantinople,
from living in Paris to giving all his morphine tablets to a fellow soldier during World War I.
Harry’s final dream is that he is flying to the top of Mt. Kilimanjaro; this desirable series of events
evaporates as shortly afterwards he is found dead on the cot where he has been lying all day.
“The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber” is a tale about a weak husband, Macomber, and his
domineering wife Margot on safari in Africa with their guide Robert Wilson. Macomber runs
away from a wounded lion and incurs the wrath and scorn of Margot, who promptly and openly
has an affair with Wilson. Macomber finds redemption during a buffalo shoot and begins to gain
confidence, only to be shot down by his wife in an allegedly accidental attempt to finish off a
wounded buffalo.
“A Clean, Well-Lighted Place” describes the conversation of two Spanish waiters, one young and
one middle-aged, as they wait for the departure of their last customer of the evening, an old man
who has recently attempted suicide. The young waiter is a confident man, impatient to get home to
his wife, and the middle-aged waiter is a disillusioned, lonely man, who believes that life is
meaningless, and who dreads leaving the café.

“The Capital of the World” is about a small residential hotel in Madrid inhabited by second-rate
bullfighters. Paco, the protagonist, is a young waiter who aspires to a career in the ring. During an
ill-advised game he plays with another employee of the hotel, Paco is fatally wounded and dies,
still believing himself to have the potential to be a great bullfighter.
“Hills Like White Elephants” is the story of an afternoon’s conversation between a man and a
woman waiting at a train station in Spain for the express train to Madrid. The man is pestering the
woman, Jig, to get an abortion so they can continue to enjoy a carefree life of travel. Jig is
reluctant to do so, and seems to consider the issue of her pregnancy from many different
viewpoints, unlike her partner.
Hemingway’s Nick Adams stories, “The Killers,” “In Another Country,” “A Day’s Wait” and
“Fathers and Sons” trace Nick’s life from adolescence through to age 38. In “The Killers,” a
teenage Nick is held hostage by two hit men in a diner outside Chicago. The men are planning to
kill Ole Andreson, a former prizefighter with a murky past, and when the men leave without
having found Ole, Nick risks his own life by warning Ole at his boarding house. Ole refuses to do
anything to save himself, though Nick resolves to skip town. “In Another Country” describes a
young Nick’s experiences recovering from a leg wound in a hospital in Milan following fighting
on the Italian front during World War I. He feels inferior to three young Italian soldiers he meets
there as they got their medals for bravery while he got his for being an American. He also meets
an older Italian major whose wife has recently died and who does not believe the hospital’s
treatment is effective for any of its patients. “A Day’s Wait” fast-forwards several years to a
middle-aged Nick who has a 9-year-old son Schatz. Schatz has the flu and a fever of 102; Nick
gives him some medication and goes out to shoot quail, returning to find Schatz staring oddly at
the foot of his bed. He discovers that Schatz has mistakenly believed he was going to die that day
because he confused Fahrenheit for Celsius measurements on the thermometers. “Fathers and
Sons” tells Nick’s final story as he takes his young son on a road trip and explores his deeply
ambivalent feelings toward his often cruel, sometimes ignorant, and sometimes admirable father
whose most notable positive contribution to his son’s life was the knowledge of how to shoot and
fish. It is implied that Nick’s father died of a gunshot wound to the head. Nick also remembers his
childhood summers in northern Michigan and how he had his first sexual experience with Trudy
Gilby, a member of the Ojibway Native American tribe. In the present, Nick answers his son’s
questions about his grandfather, promising to visit his grave in the future.
“Old Man at the Bridge” is the nonfiction account of Hemingway’s encounter with an old man
sitting by the Amposta Bridge over the Ebro River on Easter Sunday in 1938. As he encourages
the man to get up and flee the advancing Fascist army, the old man explains that he has spent his
life caring for a menagerie of defenseless animals, and that he is too old and tired to get up and
save his life.

“A Simple Enquiry” tells the story of three Italian officers stationed together in a small
snowbound cabin during a war. A major is in charge of the outfit; he orders Tonani his adjutant to
do paperwork while he takes a nap. Presently, he sends for Pinin, his orderly, and asks him if he is
in love with a girl before sexually propositioning him. When Pinin fails to respond, the major
dismisses him but wonders if he was lying.
“Up in Michigan” deals with the infatuation of a naïve young woman who works in a boarding
house in a small Michigan town with the town blacksmith Jim Gilmore. After an evening of
drinking, Jim brings Liz down to a warehouse on the dock and, in spite of Liz’s protests, arguably
rapes her. Romantic disillusionment follows Liz’s first experience.
Short Stories of Ernest Hemingway Character List
Harry
The protagonist of "The Snows of Kilimanjaro," a writer who has accomplished comparatively
little in writing, instead choosing to live off a series of rich wives. He is dying of a septic leg on
safari in Africa and ruminates on both his experiences and his failure to write about them.
Helen
The wife of Harry, the protagonist of "The Snows of Kilimanjaro." She is a rich woman who
married Harry for his writing talent. She respects her husband, does her best to take care of him,
and wants him to recover.
Compton
One of Harry's friends in "The Snows of Kilimanjaro." He appears in Harry's final dream to fly the
plane that takes him to the top of Mt. Kilimanjaro.
Molo
One of Harry and Helen's servants in "The Snows of Kilimanjaro."
Francis Macomber
The rich protagonist of "The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber," who hires Robert Wilson to
take him and his wife on safari and then proceeds to humiliate himself by running away from a
wounded lion in the brush. He is dominated by his wife Margot for most of the story and is
incensed but powerless when he discovers she has slept with Wilson in retaliation for his own
display of cowardice. Following a successful buffalo hunt, Macomber becomes a "fire eater," only
to be gunned down by his wife.
Margot Macomber
Francis's wife from "The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber." She is cast as the principal
antagonist of the story; she controls Macomber before he disgraces himself with the lion,
humiliates him by sleeping with Wilson, and shoots him just as he displays signs of asserting
himself in the relationship. It is unclear, however, whether she intended to kill him at the end.
Robert Wilson
An experienced British "white hunter" who "kills anything." He is hired by Francis Macomber to
take him and Margot on safari in "The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber." He is initially
contemptuous of Macomber and attracted to his wife, but he watches Macomber's "coming of age"
during the buffalo hunt and is all for it. He accuses Margot of deliberately shooting to kill her
husband, but it is unclear if he is truly convinced she is a murderess or if he is just trying to goad
her.
The Middle-Aged Waiter
The protagonist of "A Clean, Well-Lighted Place"; Hemingway uses him to express most of the
story's philosophical structure. The waiter is depressed by a feeling of existential angst and
ultimately nihilism; he has lost faith in the things that give his younger colleague’s life meaning
and he has only the advancing age and impending death of his café’s most loyal patron, the old
man, to look forward to.
The Young Waiter
One of the middle-aged waiter's foils in "A Clean, Well-Lighted Place," likely intended as an
allegorical representation of Youth, or the Young Man. The young waiter believes unthinkingly in
the material world: money, his fellow human beings, and himself. He has not succumbed to the
type of nihilistic despair that has overtaken his colleague.
The Old Man
The middle-aged waiter's other foil in "A Clean, Well-Lighted Place," likely intended as an
allegorical representation of Old Age, or the Elderly Man. The old man has apparently lost faith in
life itself and has attempted suicide at least once. Whether this despair is due to existential
concerns or mere loneliness is up to the reader's interpretation.
Paco
The protagonist of "The Capital of the World," a young country boy who is working as a waiter at
the Pension Luarca and who has dreams of becoming a torero. He dies young but clinging to his
illusions.
Enrique
The boy who washes the dishes at the Luarca and is three years older than Paco, the protagonist of
"The Capital of the World." He has already proven himself unfit to be a bullfighter and constructs
the dangerous fake bull that kills Paco during their bullfighting simulation.
The Cowardly Matador
A resident of the Luarca in "The Capital of the World" who was badly gored and who is
consequently hesitant in the ring. He puts on a show of being hearty and carefree to mask his
insecurities.
The Gray-Haired Picador
A hawk-faced resident of the Luarca in "The Capital of the World" who is confident in himself
and his professional abilities and who stares insolently at all and sundry. He has little respect for
others.
Ignacio
A waiter at the Luarca and a devotee of the Anarcho-Syndicalist cause in "The Capital of the
World." He believes in solidarity of the workers and in reforming Spain to exclude priests and
bulls.
The Second Waiter
An employee of the Luarca who acts as a sounding board for Ignacio in "The Capital of the
World," countering his colleague's revolutionary language by stating he is content with his job and
his country.
Jig
The protagonist of "Hills Like White Elephants," the girl who is waiting with the American for the
train to Madrid. She fears her pregnancy has irrevocably changed her relationship with the
American and is wary about having the abortion, and she fences verbally with him about it,
signaling a tug-of-war between the two in which she holds some of the cards but is well aware that
her adversary holds the rest.
The American
The implied father of Jig’s child in "Hills Like White Elephants" who is waiting with her for the
train to Madrid. He is pestering her to have the abortion and betrays his anxiety in myriad ways
but gives lip service to the fact he still loves her and will love her even if she does not have it. He
is aware that he holds over her the ability to end their relationship or to make it emotionally hostile
for her, but he is also aware that he is very much on the hook if she decides to forgo the abortion.
Nick Adams
Hemingway's semi-autobiographical protagonist, who appears in a number of short stories.

In "The Killers," Nick is present at the diner when two hit men come for Ole Andreson and is the
one who chooses to put himself at risk by going to Hirsch’s boarding house to warn Andreson. He
becomes so depressed by Andreson’s plight and willingness to accept his fate that he resolves to
leave town at the end of the story.

In "In Another Country," Nick (though unnamed as the narrator, Nick is generally accepted as
such) has been decorated by the Italian government for being wounded on the Italian front during
World War I, and is recuperating at a hospital in Milan along with a number of wounded Italian
officers.

In "A Day's Wait," Nick (though again unnamed as the narrator, Nick is generally accepted as
such) is a father who first tends to his sick 9-year-old son Schatz but then leaves the house for a
hunting trip. He returns to find that Schatz is unaware of the difference between Fahrenheit and
Celsius thermometers and thus has been waiting to die all day.

In "Fathers and Sons," Nick is a 38-year-old writer who, in the midst of a road trip with his son,
remembers his childhood and adolescent interactions with his father and with a pair of Native
Americans who lived close to his family's cottage in Michigan.
George
The proprietor or manager of Henry’s lunch-room in "The Killers" who handles the killers and the
hostage situation they create in the diner as best he can. He urges Nick to warn Andreson after the
killers have left, and tells Nick not to think about Andreson’s probable fate at the end of the story.
Al
One of "The Killers"; as he and Max wait for Andreson, he takes Nick and Sam into the kitchen,
ties them up and waits by the wicket with a sawed-off shotgun. He seems to take orders from Max,
though he expresses irritation with the fact that Max tells George, Nick, and Sam so much about
their mission in Summit.
Max
One of "The Killers." As he and Al wait for Andreson, he remains seated at the counter watching
George. He seems to be in charge of Al, though he takes Al’s rebukes about his loose tongue with
a decent grace.
Ole Andreson
A former heavyweight boxer from Chicago with a murky past who appears in "The Killers." He
puts up at Hirsch’s rooming-house and is not surprised when Nick warns him that two strangers
have come to town looking to kill him. In fact, he seems quite depressed and resigned to his fate.
Nick and George figure he double-crossed someone in Chicago and that’s why he has a price on
his head.
Sam
The cook at Henry's lunch-room who warns Nick not to warn Andreson, to just stay out of the
whole affair.
Mrs. Bell
The caretaker of Hirsch’s rooming-house in "The Killers" who looks after the place for Mrs.
Hirsch. She thinks Andreson a nice man and, oblivious to the danger to his life, she encourages
him to get out and about in the fresh air, to no avail.
Major Maggione
One of Nick’s friends "In Another Country" who was a great fencer before the war but now has a
withered hand. He uses the physical therapy machines next to Nick though he lacks confidence in
them, and is having difficulty coping with the death of his wife.
The Would-Be Lawyer
One of Nick’s cadre of Italian friends "In Another Country" at the hospital who received three
medals for bravery and is admired accordingly.
The Would-Be Painter
Another of Nick’s cadre of friends "In Another Country" who received one medal for bravery and
wished to be a painter before the war.
The Soldier
Another of Nick's friends "In Another Country" who received one medal for bravery and had
always planned to be a soldier.
The Boy with the Black Silk Bandage
Another of Nick's friends "In Another Country" whose face has to be rebuilt following an injury
sustained during the war. Nick feels closest to him because he didn't get a chance to prove his
bravery either before he was invalided out of the war.
Schatz
The 9-year-old protagonist of "A Day's Wait," Nick Adams's son. He is diagnosed with influenza
and told he has a fever of 102. He erroneously believes he is doomed to die and controls his
emotions during his solitary day’s wait, attempting to make his impending death easier on his
father and the other members of the household.

Schatz (though he is not named as such) also appears as Nick's not-yet-12-year-old son in "Fathers
and Sons." In this story, he is curious about his grandfather, about hunting, and about Native
Americans, all things that Nick is deep in the midst of remembering as Schatz asks his father
about them.
Dr. Adams
Nick's father in "Fathers and Sons" who, it is revealed during the story, was a cruel, abused,
betrayed, sentimental and hard man who has recently committed suicide via a gunshot to the head.
Dr. Adams had a largely abusive relationship with his son, who fantasized about killing his father
at times during his childhood and escaped his father’s eagle eyes in the hemlock woods near the
Indian camp. Adams’s only positive contribution to his son’s development is the knowledge of
shooting and fishing, which become Nick’s lifelong passions.
The Old Man at the Bridge
The protagonist of "Old Man at the Bridge." A 76-year-old refugee from San Carlos who left
behind a menagerie because there was too much artillery fire. He is sitting by the side of a
pontoon bridge over the Ebro River and is too tired to get up even though enemy troops are
approaching and will surely kill him. He is resigned to his fate, and his plight moves the narrator
of the story.
The Narrator of "Old Man at the Bridge"
Hemingway, in this case, as the story is actually a dispatch from the front during the Spanish Civil
War. In the story, the narrator is preoccupied with the advancing enemy troops and though he
suggests to the old man that he get up and make for a group of trucks bound for Barcelona, he
takes no action to help the old man, instead concluding that he is just unlucky and will probably be
killed shortly.
The Major
The commanding officer of a snowbound outpost of the Italian army in "A Simple Enquiry." He
commands an adjutant, Tonani, who does his paperwork for him, and is also in charge of an
orderly, Pinin, whom he seems to sexually proposition.
Tonani
The major’s adjutant in "A Simple Enquiry" who is left doing paperwork when the major takes his
nap. He is aware of what passes between the major and Pinin.
Pinin
The major’s orderly in "A Simple Enquiry," a young soldier of 19 who seems to be propositioned
by the major and returns a negative response. He could be lying, however, as the major realizes as
he contemplates how his “simple enquiry” was received.
Liz Coates
The protagonist of "Up in Michigan," a girl who works in the kitchen at D.J. Smith’s. She is
obsessed with Jim Gilmore, the town blacksmith, and loses her virginity to him on the dock one
chilly fall evening in a fashion that disillusions her about love.
Jim Gilmore
The blacksmith of Horton's Bay in "Up in Michigan" who takes his meals at D.J. Smith’s. After
returning from a deer hunting trip and getting drunk, he has sex with and arguably rapes Liz
Coates, a girl who works at Smith’s and who he doesn’t think about except to admire how neat her
hair is.
D.J. Smith
The proprietor of D.J. Smith’s boarding-house in "Up in Michigan" where Jim takes his meals and
Liz works in the kitchen. He accompanies Jim and Charley Wyman on their deer-hunting trip.
Mrs. Smith
The wife of the proprietor of D.J. Smith's boarding-house in "Up in Michigan." She supervises
Liz's work in the kitchen.
Charley Wyman
A man from Charlevoix in "Up in Michigan" who goes hunting with D.J. Smith and Jim and stays
to dinner at the Smith's when the men return from their hunting trip.
Short Stories of Ernest Hemingway Glossary
Abnegazione
Italian word for self-denial or sacrifice.
Adjutant
A non-commissioned officer, roughly equivalent to a staff sergeant or warrant officer in English-
speaking armies.
Anis del Toro
More commonly called “anisette:” a liqueur made by distilling the seed of the anis plant; it tastes
like licorice.
Arc-light
A lamp in which the light source is an electric arc either between carbon rods or between
electrodes in a xenon gas container.
Banderillero
A flagman who is responsible for placing pointed sticks with flags on the ends in the bull’s
shoulders.
Bevo
Non-alcoholic malt beverage produced by Anheuser-Busch from 1916 to 1929.
Bwana
Word of Swahili origin meaning “big boss.”
Copita
A glass of wine.
Eland
Species of antelope native to eastern and southern Africa often hunted for its meat.
Fratellanza
Italian word for brotherhood.
Gimlet
Cocktail made of gin or vodka and lime juice.
Ivresse
French word for drunkenness.
Jodhpurs
Riding pants flared at the thigh and fitted tightly from knee to ankle.
Klim
Brand of powdered milk developed before World War II by Borden.
Lombardy Poplar
Species of poplar also known as “Black poplar,” native to Europe, southwest and central Asia, and
northwest Africa.
Marc
French word for brandy.
Matador
The main performer in a bullfight who wields a cape and sword and eventually kills the bull.
Memsahib
A combination of the English word “ma’am” and the Arabic word “sahib,” which came into
common usage under the British Raj in India to refer to female members of the establishment
class. It has definite colonialist connotations.
Orderly
A soldier assigned to a commissioned officer as a servant.
Peseta
Unit of the former currency of Spain.
Picador
A lancer on horseback who tests the bull’s strength using a spear in order to reveal the animal’s
particular strong and weak points to the matador.
Rebolera
A technique used by the matador in which the cape is swirled around his waist like a skirt.
Schatz
A German term of endearment meaning “my treasure.”
Spoor
Any physical sign of a creature in the wild such as tracks, droppings, or other bodily fluids.
Veronica
A technique used by the matador in making a pass at the bull.
Water-buck
Species of African antelope.
Wicket
A window or hatchway closed by a grating or small door, in this case, connecting the kitchen with
the lunch-counter area.
Windy
Nervous, from the British term "to get the wind up."
Short Stories of Ernest Hemingway Themes
Nature
Nature, in the form of beautiful landscapes and wholesome surroundings, is a constant presence in
Hemingway’s short fiction. It is often the only thing in the text, animate or inanimate, that is
described in a positive or laudatory fashion. Hemingway was a great believer in the power of
nature, both in terms of its beauty and its challenges, to improve one’s quality of life. He was a
lifelong outdoorsman, an avid hunter, fisherman, camper and boater, and he believed that
overcoming natural obstacles using only one’s intelligence and skills made one a better person. In
addition, Hemingway’s characters look to majestic landscapes and other manifestations of natural
beauty for hope, inspiration, and even guidance during difficult or challenging times.

In many Hemingway stories, the ability to conquer nature by hunting and killing animals is the
test of masculinity. For example, in “The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber,” the title
character comes into his own by shooting buffalo. In “Up in Michigan,” Jim Gilmore is marked as
masculine and therefore desirable to Liz Coates because he goes on a deer hunt. In “A Day’s
Wait,” Nick Adams goes hunting in order to teach his sick son self-reliance. Lastly, in “Fathers
and Sons,” Nick describes with admiration his father’s ability to see and shoot game and describes
with gratitude his father’s transfer of hunting and fishing knowledge to him.
In other Hemingway stories, nature is simply a benevolent influence on the characters. In “The
Snows of Kilimanjaro,” the protagonist Harry looks to a frozen leopard on the summit of the
mountain as an example of how to attain immortality. In “A Clean, Well-Lighted Place,” the
middle-aged waiter points out that one of his café’s most desirable features is the shadows of
leaves on the tables. In “Hills Like White Elephants,” Jig looks to the beauty of the Ebro River
valley for guidance as to whether or not she should get an abortion, and in “Old Man at the
Bridge,” the old man’s gaggle of doves is the only symbol of hope in an otherwise depressing
situation.
Death
Also a near-constant presence in Hemingway’s stories is the theme of death, either in the form of
death itself, the knowledge of the inevitability of death, or the futility of fleeing death. Clearly
evocative of death are the stories in which Hemingway describes actual deaths: the war
experiences of “The Snows of Kilimanjaro” and “In Another Country;” the suicides of “A Clean,
Well-Lighted Place” and “Fathers and Sons;” and the accidents of “The Capital of the World” and
“The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber.”
Hand-in-glove with the theme of death is another Hemingway favorite: fatalistic heroism or heroic
fatalism. This attitude entails facing one’s certain death with dignity. In addition, Hemingway can
be seen to embrace nihilism, the belief that life is meaningless and that resistance to death is futile,
in some of his stories. In short, Hemingway, critics have speculated, feared death but was
fascinated by it; it crops up in one form or another in nearly every one of his stories.
Fatalistic Heroism
Also known as heroic fatalism, this attitude was a Hemingway favorite. Fatalistic heroism derives
from the belief that death is certain to come and that resisting it is futile; one may as well face
death with stoicism and resignation. This belief and its accompanying stoic behavior patterns
appear in several short stories.

In “A Day’s Wait,” a 9-year-old boy believes he is dying based on a mix-up between the
Fahrenheit and Celsius thermometers; he holds his feelings in all day until his father disabuses
him of the notion that his death is imminent. The next day, Schatz cries easily at things that do not
merit such a display of emotion as a backlash against his earlier iron self-control. In “The
Killers,” Ole Andreson awaits his death by hired hit man with resignation, stating that he is
through with running from his past mistakes and is ready to face his fate. In “Old Man at the
Bridge,” an old man is seated in a position that will shortly be overrun by Fascist troops during the
Spanish Civil War; he is too old and tired to go on, and instead of panicking, he simply stares
ahead and talks quietly to himself, resolved that he will die.
The presence of fatalistic heroism in “The Snows of Kilimanjaro” is debatable because there is
disagreement over whether Harry the dying protagonist meets his death willingly or unwillingly.
At his last moment of consciousness, Harry seems peaceful, but he subsequently has a dream that
he is rescued and flies to the top of Mt. Kilimanjaro. What he is actually doing is drawing his last
breaths on his cot. Throughout the day that the story covers, Harry has been upbraiding himself for
not reaching his potential as a writer, and he seems fairly dissatisfied with his own behavior; it is
unclear whether he absolves himself before he dies or not, and therein lies the crux of the fatalistic
heroism debate.
Disillusionment
Disillusionment and the depression that results from it are recurrent themes in Hemingway’s short
stories. Hemingway himself suffered from feelings of disillusionment and dislocation following
his harrowing experiences during World War I. In this respect, he was a representative of “The
Lost Generation,” the generation that came of age during the Great War and arguably lost faith in
many of the values, ideas, and beliefs that gave life meaning before the war. Awash in this
abandonment of tradition, Hemingway and others drifted into existentialism, a philosophy that
posits life is meaningless until an individual gives his or her own life meaning, and nihilism, a
philosophy that posits life is meaningless and without objective value.

Hemingway’s clearest expressions of this bleak and depressing disillusionment are “A Clean,
Well-Lighted Place” and “The Capital of the World.” In the former story, a middle-aged Spanish
waiter expresses the belief that everything is “nada,” nothingness; death comes to everyone and
resisting it is futile. In the latter story, Hemingway paints a vivid portrait of a small residential
hotel in Spain where everyone is an aging, disillusioned has-been except for Paco, a young waiter
who dreams of becoming a bullfighter because he believes in the “romance” of such a calling.
When Paco dies accidentally, Hemingway clearly implies that he was better off than all the other
inhabitants of the hotel who lived the dream that Paco had, fell short of the ideal in one way or
another, and must live out the rest of their lives in bitter disappointment. Paco retained his ideals
and his life and death meant something to him.
“Up in Michigan” describes a different kind of disillusionment: romantic disillusionment. Liz
Coates, long obsessed with Jim Gilmore, quickly loses her regard for him when he drunkenly
rapes her one evening on a misty boardwalk.

“The Killers” describes a subtler form of disillusionment. Nick Adams, a teenager, risks his life to
warn Ole Andreson, the target of two Chicago hit men, that his life is in danger. Instead of doing
something to save himself, Andreson turns his face to the wall and says he is done running from
his past. His death is inevitable. Nick is profoundly disappointed and even sickened at the thought
of Andreson waiting for his fate to overtake him; the ways of the world are such that even great
physical courage and sacrifice go unrewarded.
Masculinity
Hemingway, it is often noted, was enamored of a particular notion of masculinity. Hemingway’s
heroes are often outdoorsmen or hunters who are stoic, taciturn, and averse to showing emotion.
Real men, according to Hemingway, are physically courageous and confident, and keep doubts
and insecurities to themselves. In addition, there is always an emphasis on the necessity of proving
one’s manhood rather than taking it for granted. According to the author’s biographers and critics,
Hemingway was brought up with this notion of masculinity; it certainly pervades all of his works
of short fiction.

In “The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber,” the title character goes from emasculation to full
manhood just by shooting buffalo. In “A Day’s Wait,” Schatz proves his masculinity by stoically
holding his emotions in check even as he believes he is dying while his father proves his by going
shooting in spite of having a sick son at home. In “Up in Michigan” Jim Gilmore displays his
masculinity by going on an extended deer hunt with his buddies and in “The Capital of the
World,” Paco and Enrique play out a make-believe bullfight in order to prove they are manly
enough for the real thing. “In Another Country” describes Nick Adams’s inferiority complex with
respect to three Italian soldiers who received medals for bravery; he explains that received his
simply for being an American. “The Killers” describes Nick’s heroic physical courage in defying
hit men to warn their target, and “Fathers and Sons” describes Nick’s coming of age in terms of
hunting and killing black squirrels.
Ambivalence
Many of Hemingway’s characters have ambivalent feelings toward each other; in Hemingway’s
universe, people are not wholly good or bad. In “Fathers and Sons,” for example, Nick Adams
recalls his father’s admirable qualities, namely the ability to see like an eagle and an outstanding
knowledge of hunting and fishing, and his undesirable qualities, principally cruelty and ignorance.
The story is devoted mainly to Nick’s memories of his father, which are mostly painful, but Nick
insists that he loved his father for a long time. In “Hills Like White Elephants,” Jig feels resentful
toward her partner, who is insisting that she get an abortion, but at the same time she wants to
repair her relationship with him, which has suffered because of the pregnancy. She weighs his
promise that their relationship will go back to the way it was before if she gets the abortion with
her own reluctance to get the procedure and certainty that their relationship has been irrevocably
altered just by the pregnancy. In “Up in Michigan,” though Jim Gilmore’s rape of Liz Coates
irrevocably disillusions Liz about him, she still kisses his cheek and puts her coat on him as he
sleeps in a drunken stupor before walking back to the house and going to bed.
Animals as Symbols
Animals in the Hemingway canon, whether they are game, pets, or wild, sometimes serve as
symbols for their human hunters, caretakers or observers. In “The Snows of Kilimanjaro,” the
frozen leopard on the top of the mountain represents immortality, which is the quality Harry
strives for even as he is dying. The hyena in that story, conversely, represents Harry’s impending
death. In “Old Man at the Bridge,” Hemingway switches the word “pigeons,” a reference to the
old man’s eight pet birds, for the word “doves,” a symbol of peace in the midst of the Spanish
Civil War. In “Hills Like White Elephants,” the “white elephant” of the title is Jig’s unborn baby,
a cumbersome, largely useless thing that is on the brink of driving the relationship apart. In “The
Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber,” the wounded lion that Francis shoots and then runs away
from represents the obstacle to his proving his masculinity; though not cowardly itself, it
represents Macomber’s cowardice.
Short Stories of Ernest Hemingway Quotes and Analysis
“He had seen the world change; not just the events; although he had seen many of them and had
watched the people, but he had seen the subtler change and he could remember how the people
were at different times. He had been in it and he had watched it and it was his duty to write of it;
but now he never would.”

Harry (thoughts), "The Snows of Kilimanjaro," p. 69.

Note: All page numbers are from The Short Stories of Ernest Hemingway, New York: Scribner
(Simon & Schuster), 1997.
This quotation encapsulates the self-critical despair that characterizes Harry’s deathbed
ruminations. He is frustrated with himself for being present in so many different places with so
many different people at so many important times and failing to memorialize any of his
experiences in writing. These experiences appear to include battles, political upheavals, love
affairs, running a ranch, skiing, gambling, talking Dada with intellectuals, fishing, and drinking.
According to Harry’s stream-of-consciousness descriptions, these events certainly appear diverse
and interesting, at least to the average reader, and include the whole gamut of human emotions,
from love to hatred to jealousy. It is this fact that Harry highlights in this quotation; he wants to
write about “not just the events,” but about “how the people were at different times.” He observed
and understood the people, their emotions and their motivations, and he wants to paint the
portraits of these people in his writing.

It is notable that the element that makes this self-criticism so bitter is Harry’s absolute certainty of
the greatness of his writing talent. If his talent were not so extraordinary, it would hardly matter
the he had not written about his life, but because it is, “it was his duty” to use it, and the fact that
he had not sharpened his regrets.
“Doesn’t do to talk too much about all this. Talk the whole thing away. No pleasure in anything if
you mouth it up too much.”

Robert Wilson, "The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber," p. 38

This quotation is by Robert Wilson as he sits in the safari car with Francis Macomber and Margot
immediately following Francis’s successful shooting of three buffalo. Macomber is elated and
emboldened, and Wilson believes he has finally “come of age,” a process he has apparently
observed many times in conjunction with the men he has taken on safari. As he discusses the
pleasure and excitement of hunting and killing game with Macomber, he begins to feel
uncomfortable about Macomber’s putting these emotions into words; they are a sort of sacred
creed he lives with and for but never voices, and that very secrecy gives them their meaning. Here,
he tries to silence Macomber on the subject of the hunter’s raison d’etre, especially as it is obvious
Margot is threatened by her husband’s newfound passion.

The greater significance of this quotation is that it sums up, in three sentences, one of the most
notable characteristics of Hemingway’s writing, namely, its economy with words. Hemingway
believed, in accordance with his journalistic roots, that communicating one’s meaning through
spare, stark prose that requires the reader to fill in things the author leaves unwritten is the height
of literary skill, and this quotation by one of his characters could have come out of his own mouth
and referred to his entire philosophy of writing.
“What did he fear? It was not fear or dread. It was a nothing that he knew too well. It was all a
nothing and a man was nothing too. It was only that and light was all it needed and a certain
cleanness and order. Some lived in it and never felt it but he knew it was all nada y pues nada y
nada y pues nada.”

The Middle-Aged Waiter (thoughts), "A Clean, Well-Lighted Place," p. 349

This quotation expresses the central philosophical idea of the story, the idea that life is
meaningless whether people realize it or not. Hemingway adopts this idea from the philosophy of
existential nihilism, which proposes that in a meaningless world, people must establish individual
systems of beliefs and values and live by them in order to have an authentic existence.
Hemingway’s middle-aged waiter, as this quotation shows, has realized the meaninglessness of his
life and has established a place for himself with “light…and a certain cleanness and order.” In this
refuge, he can face the rest of his life, if not confidently, then at least comfortably.
“The boy Paco had never known about any of this nor about what all these people would be doing
on the next day and on other days to come. He had no idea how they really lived nor how they
ended. He did not even realize they ended. He died, as the Spanish phrase has it, full of illusions.
He had not had time in his life to lose any of them, nor even, at the end, to complete an act of
contrition.”

Narrator's description of Paco, "The Capital of the World," p. 54

On the surface, this paragraph reads like a summary of Paco’s tragedy. He was a young man full
of dreams and hopes that were so all consuming that they blinded him to how the people around
him lived, and he died before he could realize any of these dreams. He had barely experienced life
before he died and all his potential went to waste.

Underneath this reading, however, is a strong implication that Paco’s early death was a blessing in
disguise. He was able to live and die with his illusions and beliefs in his mind and a prayer on his
lips rather than living out his life possibly as a bullfighter, as he hoped, and watching his illusions
and beliefs be crushed by reality just as the inhabitants of the Pension Luarca had. These “second
rate” members of the bullfighting profession included among their ranks a coward, an invalid, a
has-been, a narcissist, and a pugilist.

If Paco had lived longer, had realized these people he lived amongst “ended,” and that their lives
were far from the “romantic” visions he conjured for himself, his illusions would have gone the
way of the cowardly bullfighter’s courage and it is debatable, Hemingway implies, that his life
would have been worth living.
“I feel fine…There’s nothing wrong with me. I feel fine.”

Jig, "Hills Like White Elephants," p. 255

These words are the last of the story and are spoken by Jig in answer to the American’s inquiry
“Do you feel better?” She says them smiling, Hemingway makes clear, and it seems that she has
become self-assured and has reached a decision about whether or not to have the abortion the man
has been pressing on her. The question is, has she decided to have it or not?

This quotation implies she has decided against the abortion. At face value, indeed, it is difficult to
come to any other conclusion. She feels fine as she is and does not see anything wrong with
herself or anything that needs changing. She is pregnant and feels fine about having her baby.

The other conclusion it is possible to reach is that she feels fine because she has decided to have
the abortion and thinks that everything will then be as it was between her and her partner. This
conclusion is a bit of a stretch, especially because at the end of the story, it is the man who is
carrying the couple’s bags all over the station and feels the need to drink another liqueur in the
bar, away from verbal antagonists. Jig, on the other hand, is described as smiling. She has decided
against him, and he knows it; he capitulates and takes some time away from her to compose
himself before facing her and her newfound confidence.
“Little boys always know what they want to do.”

Sam, "The Killers," p. 263

This quotation is by Sam, the cook at Henry’s lunchroom, about Nick Adams when Nick decides
to go warn Ole Andreson that the killers are in town looking to murder him. The quotation carries
heavy irony with it because it is this decision to warn Andreson that marks Nick as a man, not a
boy, and shows that he is more courageous than both Sam and George, the diner’s manager,
because he is the only one who will risk his life to save Andreson’s.
The probable explanation of Sam’s reference to Nick as a “little boy” is that Sam believes Nick’s
decision is foolish; he had warned Nick to stay out of it. Acts of courage can often be viewed as
acts of foolishness, and what Sam views as foolhardy Hemingway seems to view as admirable.
“But this was a long time ago, and then we did not any of us know how it was going to be
afterward. We only knew then that there was always the war, but that we were not going to it
anymore.”

Nick Adams (thoughts), "In Another Country," p. 247

This quotation, expressed by Nick, indicates the veterans’ ignorance of how their war experiences
will affect them in the long term. All they are aware of, at the time of the story, is that they are out
of the fighting by virtue of being wounded, and that they are receiving treatment, which they are
told will help them physically recover. Their feelings of depression, isolation, dislocation, and
even despair are left untreated and will affect them for years to come.

In addition, this quotation has a slight note of regret that can be understood specifically in relation
to Nick. He feels inferior to his fellow medal recipients because they did something to earn their
medals and he did not; he never got the chance to prove his courage in battle, and the fact that he
is “not going to [the war] anymore” means that he may never get this chance.
“He was evidently holding tight onto himself about something.”

Nick Adams' descripton of Schatz, "A Day's Wait," p. 402

This quotation records the narrator’s impression of Schatz’s demeanor when he returns from his
hunting trip. It is a very literal take on the idea of self-control; Schatz is holding onto himself in
order control his emotions and to keep them from spilling out. He is holding onto himself because
he cannot or will not let himself hold onto his father, who he believes has callously abandoned
him for the greater part of the day for a hunting trip. His father, it seems to Schatz, has abandoned
him and does not care about Schatz’s impending death; the father expects Schatz to conduct
himself with the stoicism and self-sufficiency befitting the situation, and that is what Schatz is
trying to do.

When Schatz’s fears are relieved, however, Hemingway is careful to tell us that Schatz’s hold on
himself relaxes so much that he allows himself to cry over little things that he normally would not
cry over.
“On the other hand his father had the finest pair of eyes he had ever seen and Nick had loved him
very much and for a long time. Now, knowing how it had all been, even remembering the earliest
times before things had gone badly was not good remembering. If he wrote it he could get rid of
it."

Nick Adams (thoughts), "Fathers and Sons," p. 450

This quotation shows Nick’s deep ambivalence towards his father’s memory. Though he protests
he loved his father, his subsequent words belie that filial feeling. He wants to get rid of all
memories of his father because they are not good. They are clearly painful and unpleasant to him
even at 38 years old. There is a façade of love and admiration for his father that Nick keeps up
sometimes for himself and certainly for his son, but deep underneath that façade of happy families
Nick feels a current of resentment that approaches hatred. This current is discernible throughout
“Fathers and Sons,” and though, as in this quotation, Nick starts out pretending that his
relationship with his father was a normal, productive one and stoically crushing his traumatic
childhood experiences under a protestation of love, he concludes by admitting he would rather not
think about his father because his memories are just too unpleasant.
“‘Did you leave the dove cage unlocked?’" I asked.

‘Yes.’

‘Then they’ll fly.’

 ‘Yes, certainly, they’ll fly.’”

Exchange between the Narrator and the Old Man, "Old Man at the Bridge," p. 82
This exchange begins with the narrator. It marks the point at which the old man’s birds are
referred to as doves instead of pigeons. Hemingway’s substitution of “doves,” symbols of peace,
for the more commonplace “pigeons” evokes a positive feeling, and is the high point of an
otherwise depressing and fatalistic story. The fact that the birds not only will probably survive, but
that they will survive as doves in the middle of wartime, gives the story its only highlight. It is yet
another bit of luck for the old man, in spite of the narrator’s assertion that his only lucky breaks
are that the enemy planes are not flying and that cats are self-sufficient.
“The little devil, he thought, I wonder if he lied to me.”

The Major (thoughts), "A Simple Enquiry," p. 303

The major is the one whose thoughts are recorded in this sentence. It is after he has presented
Pinin with his “simple enquiry” and received a negative response. He dismisses the boy with a
recommendation that he stay on as the major’s servant and then begins to wonder whether Pinin
was not as straightforward as he thought.

Evidence for Pinin as a liar includes the fact that he never writes to a girl he says he is in love with
even when there is a war on. In addition, Pinin is flushed and awkward both when he is in the
major’s room and as he leaves it; this could be a sign that he is lying to his commanding officer.

Evidence for Pinin as truthful includes the fact that the major’s first impression of Pinin’s negative
response to the simple enquiry is that Pinin is “a good boy” and therefore truthful.
“She was cold and miserable and everything felt gone.”

Narrator's description of Liz Coates, "Up in Michigan," p. 87

This quotation describes Liz’s feelings after she discovers Jim is not going to wake up after having
sex with her. Aside from the fact that it is a damp, cold fall evening, this sentence conveys Liz’s
disillusionment with love and sex. Her virginity has been taken and the man who has taken it, so
long the object of her complete and utter obsession, refuses to wake up.

She is disillusioned, not only with love and sex, but with Jim. Her only thoughts up until this point
in the story have been about Jim. The phrase “everything felt gone” shows that the one thing that
has occupied her mind for months, perhaps years, has been destroyed. Jim no longer holds the
place in her mind and heart that he used to.
Short Stories of Ernest Hemingway Hemingway as Existentialist
“What did he fear? It was not fear or dread. It was a nothing that he knew too well. It was all a
nothing and a man was nothing too. It was only that and light was all it needed and a certain
cleanness and order. Some lived in it and never felt it but he knew it all was nada y pues nada y
nada y pues nada.” – The middle-aged waiter, “A Clean, Well-Lighted Place.”
Despite the bravado of his characters, the stirring exoticism of his settings, and his much-admired
spare, bold writing style, Ernest Hemingway was a writer whose canon is filled with themes of
disillusionment, futility, despair and the inevitability of death. His heroes are usually tragic ones;
his exotic settings often host scenes of violence and brutality, and his spare writing style is often
notable for the anguish it leaves unexpressed. Hemingway, though an adventurer, risk-taker, and
world traveler, was also a philosopher deeply influenced by currents of existential and nihilistic
post-World War I thinking. As such, he was an unofficial spokesperson for his “Lost Generation,”
a group of American expatriates who came of age during the Great War and subsequently suffered
profound intellectual disillusionment and dislocation because of war traumas. Though
Hemingway, with characteristic bravado, dismissed the term “lost generation” as an
overstatement, many of his fictional characters are forced to search for meaning, purpose, and
happiness in the midst of depression and futility, the classic existential quest of the lost,
directionless individual.
Existentialism and nihilism, the twin philosophical systems that influenced Hemingway’s writing
and that of many of his expatriate colleagues, came into vogue following World War I.
Existentialism, a philosophy with roots in the 19th century writings of Soren Kierkegaard and
Friedrich Nietzsche, was championed in the postwar period by Jean-Paul Sartre, Albert Camus
and Fyodor Dostoyevsky. Existentialism posits that existence is inherently meaningless;
individuals are responsible for giving meaning to their own lives by overcoming feelings of angst
and despair and imposing individual value systems on themselves and their actions. Individuals
who manage to live by the belief systems they espouse are termed “authentic”; they are existential
successes. Those who do not are existential failures, and can easily drift into nihilism, a belief
system that posits that life is futile and that even the individual cannot impose meaning on his or
her own life but must exist in a meaningless, purposeless environment until the advent of death.
Nihilism was popularized primarily by Nietzsche, who observed that traditional belief and value
systems were slowly and inevitably being destroyed in the modern world.

While the best-known example of Hemingway’s existentialist philosophy is his 1926 novel The
Sun Also Rises, his short stories explore many themes relevant to his particular brand of
existentialist nihilism. “A Clean, Well-Lighted Place,” for example, describes the depressed
thoughts of a middle-aged Spanish waiter who believes that life is meaningless, and that though
one may try to impose meaning and order on one’s own existence by inhabiting a “clean, well-
lighted place,” this endeavor is ultimately futile as death inevitably overtakes us all. In “The
Capital of the World,” Hemingway describes the tragic accidental death of a young Spanish waiter
aspiring to be a matador. His hero, Paco, “died, as the Spanish phrase has it, full of illusions. He
had not had time to lose any of them, nor even, at the end, to complete an act of contrition.” Paco,
in contrast to many of the “second-rate” bullfighters who inhabit the hotel where he works,
believes in the romance and the honor of bullfighting. It is better for Paco, Hemingway implies,
that he died trying to accomplish his dream of becoming a matador rather than eventually rotting
away as a disillusioned has-been bullfighter in a town full of disillusioned has-been bullfighters.
Hemingway’s existential themes also appear in his African stories. In “The Snows of
Kilimanjaro,” one of Hemingway’s best-known stories, dying writer Harry realizes too late that he
has failed to fulfill his potential as a writer, choosing instead to make his living by marring rich
women. He has neglected to live by his own self-imposed value system, and he suffers all the
anguish of a failed existential hero who knows death is upon him. In “The Short Happy Life
of Francis Macomber,” the title character is a cowardly, henpecked husband whose wife openly
insults him by sleeping with the couple’s guide while on safari in Africa. Macomber is sorely in
need of something to give his life purpose and to allow him to reclaim his masculinity; he finds it
in the act of hunting buffalo on the plains. Just as his confidence begins to return, Macomber is
killed, cutting short a promising, existentially authentic career.
Hemingway also explores existential and nihilistic themes through his semi-autobiographical
hero Nick Adams, who appeared in a number of Hemingway stories. In “The Killers,” Nick risks
his life to warn Ole Andreson, a former prizefighter with a shady past, that hit men are after him.
Andreson displays a remarkable lack of alarm at the news, choosing to go about his business just
as if nothing had happened, though this means he will inevitably be assassinated. This type of
fatalistic heroism or heroic fatalism was a favorite theme of Hemingway’s. It is a sort of end-stage
nihilism where the protagonist realizes the essential meaningless of life and the futility of fleeing
death; his final existential act is to face his fate with dignity. Taken in Hemingway’s terms, such
nihilism is not necessarily a defeat; on the contrary, it is a display of one’s courage in the face of a
brutal, chaotic world.
Another story in which this fatalistic heroism makes an appearance is “Old Man at the Bridge,” a
story that began as a 1937 news dispatch from the Spanish Civil War. A 76-year-old man who has
just been forced to give up his life’s work looking after a number of animals is drifting aimlessly
along with a stream of refugees. He is existentially empty and directionless, without family and
without destination. He had to leave the animals he looked after behind in his hometown because
of artillery fire, and his life is consequently without purpose. He sits by the side of the road, too
tired to walk a short distance to escape the coming onslaught of Fascist forces. His attempt to get
up and walk to safety ends in failure. Instead of panicking or begging passerby for help, he
remains stoically, fatalistically and nihilistically sitting by the bridge in an arguably heroic
acceptance of his inevitable death.

Hemingway’s battered, traumatized, injured protagonists face down wounded lions, advancing
armies, and gnawing feelings of “nada” in their search for meaning, happiness, and peace. Like
their creator, they are somewhat philosophically lost because of the traumas and tragedies they
have had to endure. Some of them find existential authenticity and most do not, but even those
who slip into nihilism are heroic in Hemingway’s literary universe.
Short Stories of Ernest Hemingway Summary and Analysis of "The Snows of Kilimanjaro"
The story opens with a paragraph about Mt. Kilimanjaro, the highest mountain in Africa, which is
also called the “House of God.” There is, we are told, the frozen carcass of a leopard near the
summit. No one knows why it is there.

Then we are introduced to Harry, a writer dying of gangrene, and his rich wife Helen, who are on
safari in Africa. Harry’s situation makes him irritable, and he speaks about his own death in a
matter-of-fact way that upsets his wife, predicting that a rescue plane will never come. He quarrels
with her over everything, from whether he should drink a whiskey-and-soda to whether she should
read to him. Helen is obviously concerned for his welfare, but self-pity and frustration make him
unpleasant to her.
He then begins to ruminate on his life experiences, which have been many and varied, and on the
fact that he feels he has never reached his potential as a writer because he has chosen to make his
living by marrying a series of wealthy women. In italicized portions of the text that are scattered
throughout the story, Hemingway narrates some of Harry’s experiences in a stream-of-
consciousness style.

Harry’s first memories are of traveling around Europe following a battle, hiding a deserter in a
cottage, hunting and skiing in the mountains, playing cards during a blizzard, and hearing about a
bombing run on a train full of Austrian officers.

Harry then falls asleep and wakes in the evening to find Helen returning from a shooting
expedition. He meditates on how she is really thoughtful and a good wife to him, but how his life
has been spent marrying a series of women who keep him as “a proud possession” and neglecting
his true talent, writing. Helen, he remembers, is a rich widow who was bored by the series of
lovers she took before she met him and who married him because she admired his writing and
they had similar interests.

Harry then recalls the process by which he developed gangrene two weeks before: he had been
trying to get a picture of some water-buck and had scratched his knee on a thorn. He had not used
iodine and it had become septic. As Helen returns to drink cocktails with Harry, they make up
their quarrel.

Harry’s second memory sequence then begins, and he recalls how he once patronized a series of
prostitutes in Constantinople while pining for a woman in New York. Specifically, he had a fight
with a British soldier over an Armenian prostitute and then left Constantinople for Anatolia, where
he ran from an army of Turkish soldiers. Later, he recalls that he returned to Paris and to his then-
wife.

Helen and Harry eat dinner, and then Harry has another memory, this time of how his
grandfather’s log house burned down. He then relates how he fished in the Black Forest and how
he lived in a poor quarter of Paris and felt a kinship with his neighbors because they were poor.
Next, he remembers a ranch and a boy he turned in to the authorities after the boy protected
Harry’s horse feed by shooting a thief. Next, he remembers an officer named Williamson who was
hit by a bomb and to whom Harry subsequently fed all his morphine tablets.

As Harry lies on his cot remembering, he feels the presence of death and associates it with a hyena
that is running around the edge of the campsite. Presently, Helen has Harry’s cot moved into the
tent for the night, and just as she does, he feels death lying on his chest and is unable to speak.

Harry dreams that it is the next morning and that a man called Compton has come with a plane to
rescue him. He is lifted onto the plane and watches the landscape go by beneath him. Suddenly, he
sees the snow-covered top of Mt. Kilimanjaro and knows that is where he is bound.
Helen wakes up in the middle of the night to a strange hyena cry and sees Harry dead on his cot.

ANALYSIS
This story focuses on the self-critical ruminations and memories of a writer dying of a preventable
case of gangrene on safari. Its main themes are death and regret, and Harry’s morbid thoughts
epitomize a classic case of taking things for granted. Harry takes his blessings, including his
caring wife, his full life, and his writing talent, for granted, and on his deathbed muses on how he
could have appreciated each more. His main regret, of course, is that he has not reached his full
potential as a writer because he has chosen to make a living by marrying wealthy women rather
than memorializing his many and varied life experiences in writing. The progression of his
gangrene symbolizes his rotting sense of self-worth.

This last regret is made so bitter to Harry because, as he admits, it is his own fault he has not
adequately exercised his great talent: “He had destroyed his talent by not using it, by betrayals of
himself and what he believed in.” In a strange parallel, it is also Harry’s fault that he developed
gangrene; by not using iodine on his scratch, he allowed it to become septic and is therefore to
blame for his impending death.

Viewed in this light, Harry’s predicament is self-inflicted, and is therefore a fitting punishment for
his repeated acts of self-betrayal over the years. The lingering question of the story is how Harry’s
situation is resolved by the dream sequence that ends the narration. Does his journey to the top of
Mt. Kilimanjaro symbolize Harry’s acceptance of his punishment and acquiescent passage into the
afterlife, or does it stand for Harry’s redemption as a character and continuing desire to rise above
his past mistakes, even at the moment of his death? What does Kilimanjaro stand for?

There is abundant symbolism in this story, as many scholars have noted. The actual significance
and meaning of these symbols has been hotly debated, but generally, the frozen leopard on the
summit of Kilimanjaro is associated with death, immortality, and possibly redemption. The hyena
and vultures are associated with illness, fear, and death, and Kilimanjaro itself, though its role has
sparked the most controversy among scholars and critics, seems associated with a sort of
redemptive heavenly afterlife. In addition, throughout the story, low-lying, hot plains areas are
associated with difficult or painful episodes in Harry’s life, including the situation in which he
begins the story, and snowy mountainous areas are associated with his happier, more uplifting
experiences, including his final imagined ascent to the top of Kilimanjaro. In addition, gangrene,
the rotting of the flesh, is symbolic of Harry’s rotting soul.

In terms of style, Hemingway narrates the sequences between Harry and Helen in a
straightforward third person format and breaks into italicized stream-of-consciousness for Harry’s
many memory sequences. These memories are often conveyed using run-on sentences and consist
of bewildering pastiches of characters, places, and events which are consistent with Harry’s
delirium. According to Hemingway scholars, these memories are mostly autobiographical. Using
Harry as a vehicle, Hemingway writes of a log house he visited as a child in Michigan, of his
experiences during World War I, of his life in Paris with his first wife and their fishing trip to the
Black Forest, of his skiing trips in Austria, and of a location near the Yellowstone River in
Wyoming.

Harry, as a character, produces similes and metaphors with regularity as he speaks to Helen
(“Love is a dunghill…And I’m the cock that gets on it to crow”; “Your damned money was my
armour”). This is also true during his memory sequences (“the snow as smooth to see as cake
frosting and as light as powder and he remembered the noiseless rush the speed made as you
dropped down like a bird”; “in some way he could work the fat off his soul the way a fighter went
into the mountains to work and train in order to burn it out of his body”).
Short Stories of Ernest Hemingway Summary and Analysis of "A Clean, Well-Lighted
Place"
Two waiters in a café in Spain keep watch on their last customer of the evening, an old and
wealthy man who is a regular at the café and drinks to excess. They discuss the fact that he tried to
commit suicide the week before, but that it could not have been over anything important because
he had plenty of money.

The old man asks for another brandy and one of the waiters brings it to him. The two waiters
discuss their customer further, saying his niece found him hanging himself and cut him down to
save his soul, and that without a wife he must be lonely.

One of the waiters is younger than his colleague is, and expresses impatience to close up the café
and get home to his wife. The other one, a middle-aged man, defends the old man, saying that he
stays so late at the café every night because he has no one to go home to.

Finally, the young waiter refuses the old man’s order for another drink, and the man pays and
leaves. The two waiters close up the café and the middle-aged one again rebukes the other, saying
he should have let the old man stay. The middle-aged waiter says he understands the old man’s
reluctance to leave, and that he is always hesitant to lock up because someone may “need” the cafe
because it is clean, well lighted, and overshadowed by the leaves of trees. The young waiter boasts
that he has everything: youth, confidence, and a job. The middle-aged waiter says he and his
colleague are indeed different, and that he himself lacks everything but work.

The two waiters part and the younger one goes home. The middle-aged waiter goes to a bar and
begins a string of introspective musings. He reveals that he is reluctant to close up the café each
night because when he is alone he feels the presence of a great void, a nothingness of which he is
afraid. Life, he muses, is a great nothing and a man is a nothing as well. God, he implies, is a
nothing, and recites the Lord’s Prayer, inserting “nada” in strategic locations. What he needs, he
says, is light, cleanness and order, an environment like the café where he works, to get him
through each day.

He wanders into a bar and orders a small cup of wine. He notes to the barman that the bar is
unpolished, and then he wanders out. He realizes again that he misses his own café, and predicts
that he will have difficulty falling asleep. He muses on the possibility that his depression is just
due to insomnia.

ANALYSIS

“A Clean, Well Lighted Place” is Hemingway’s paean to a type of existential nihilism, an

exploration of the meaning, or lack thereof, of existence. It clearly expresses the philosophy that
underlies the Hemingway canon, dwelling on themes of death, futility, meaninglessness, and
depression. Through the thoughts and words of a middle-aged Spanish waiter, Hemingway
encapsulates the main tenet of his existential philosophy. Life is inherently meaningless and leads
inevitably to death, and the older one gets, the clearer these truths become and the less able one is
to impose any kind of order on one’s existence or maintain any kind of positivity in one’s outlook.

The bases of Hemingway’s philosophy in this story are existentialism, a philosophical system
originated in the 19th century by Soren Kierkegaard and Friedrich Nietzsche and given full play in
the post WWI years by Jean-Paul Sartre, Albert Camus and Fyodor Dostoyevsky, and nihilism, a
related philosophical system popularized primarily by Nietzsche. Existentialism derives from the
belief that existence is inherently meaningless and that individuals are solely responsible for
giving meaning to their own lives. They must impose their own systems of values and beliefs on
themselves and overcome feelings of despair and angst to live by their own values. In this way,
they become “authentic” individuals by following their own principles. In existentialism, the
individual is the unit of existence and the majority of existentialists reject the existence of a higher
power, creator, or “God,” and they are scornful of organized religion. Nihilism is a related belief
system that posits, generally, that life is meaningless, futile, and without morality, and that,
contrary to existentialism, no system of meaning or morality can be imposed on it by individuals
or anyone else.

Hemingway’s particular brand of philosophy in this story, as expressed by the middle-aged waiter,
can be described as existential nihilism, a combination of these two belief systems. Life is
meaningless and futile, he argues, and though one may try to impose meaning and order on one’s
own existence, this effort eventually proves futile as death overtakes us all. Hemingway, like
many of his generation, felt a sense of disillusionment and dislocation following his traumatic
experiences during World War I, and his embrace of existential nihilism in this story can be seen
as a reaction to this feeling.

The thoughts expressed by the middle-aged waiter track exactly with the basic tenets of
existentialism and nihilism. For example, the waiter explains: “What did he fear? It was not fear or
dread. It was a nothing that he knew too well. It was all a nothing and a man was nothing too.”
This sentiment is a perfect expression of existential angst and nihilistic negation, the realization
that life is emptiness, that a man’s life means nothing and that his existence signifies nothing to
himself, nothing to others and nothing to the universe. The waiter then expresses his particular
way of dealing with this realization: “It was only that and light was all it needed and a certain
cleanness and order.” The waiter gravitates toward places that are lighted, clean, and orderly, like
the café where he works; this is his way of coping with existence, his own private set of conditions
that help him get through each day. However, the fact that the waiter must leave the café and go
home, which depresses him and makes him unable to sleep, implies that he is unable to live his
entire life adhering to this system of light, cleanness and order, and indicates the fact that his own
attempt to impose meaning and structure on his life is futile. The waiter is therefore a failed
existentialist, an existentialist who has succumbed to depression and despair and sunk into
nihilism.

In addition, the waiter expresses a sentiment common to most existentialists and nihilists: God
does not exist. “Our nada who art in nada, nada be thy name,” he says, echoing the Lord’s Prayer
but glorifying “nada.” The repetition of “nada” throughout this comparatively long paragraph
serves simultaneously to increase the intensity and urgency of the tone, and to make the entire
passage sound slightly absurd.

The words and actions of the middle-aged waiter form the basic philosophical structure of “A
Clean, Well Lighted Place,” but Hemingway sharply contrasts his beliefs with those of the other
two characters, the young waiter and the old man. Unlike the middle-aged waiter, the young
waiter is in a hurry; he has something to live for, namely, getting home to his wife. He has
“everything,” “youth, confidence, and a job.” He seems to have everything going for him and
retains his purpose in life; he does not seem to understand the depression that has overtaken his
colleague, nor why his colleague is drawn to the “clean, well lighted” café.

The old man is at a different stage of his life from both the young and middle-aged waiters. He has
already tried to take his own life once because “he was in despair” over “nothing,” and stays
drinking late at the café because he does not want to go home and because he is lonely.
Hemingway does not give the reader as much insight into the old man’s thoughts as into those of
the two waiters, so it is difficult to say whether the old man’s despair is of the existential nihilistic
variety or is due to a death in the family or any number of other depressing occurrences. On the
other hand, the “nothing” that he is in despair over echoes the “nada” of the middle-aged waiter’s
later soliloquy, and suggests that the old man has simply gotten tired of the futility of existence
and that’s why he attempted suicide.

Hemingway scholars have commented on the presence of three characters in three different stages
of life as an allegory demonstrating the progression of an individual’s outlook on life as that
individual gets older. At first, the individual lives confidently and unthinkingly, accepting the
conventions of job and family as sufficient to give meaning to his or her (in this case, his) life, but
as he gets older, he begins to question the types of meaning that have been imposed on his
existence and finds them hollow. He may attempt to impose his own set of meanings and values
on himself, but ultimately, Hemingway implies, he will fail and slip into the realization that life is
nothing and he is nothing. Once this realization is reached and he grows old, he falls into despair
at the nearness of death and the futility of his life, and may well choose to end his existence on his
own terms rather than wait for events to overtake him. Perhaps, with this choice, he is finally able
to take some control over his destiny.

Hemingway, it has often been observed, was obsessed with death, and that obsession can be seen
clearly in this story. In fact, his philosophy as expressed by this story can be understood more
clearly when considered in relation to death than in relation to life. Life is futile and meaningless
because the individual cannot prevent death from overtaking him; his nihilism results not so much
from wondering about the meaning of existence than from wondering about the inevitability,
meaning, and purpose of death.

There is a simpler explanation for the difference between the depression felt by the middle-aged
waiter and old man and the confidence felt by the young waiter: the young waiter is the only one
with a wife. It is either because he has a wife or because the fact that he has a wife means that he
is not lonely that the young waiter expresses some optimism in his outlook. He himself dismisses
his colleague’s suggestion that the old man might be less unhappy with a wife, but this suggestion
is obviously born of experience as the middle-aged waiter speaks of dreading another long,
sleepless night spent alone in his bedroom. The presence or absence of a wife, however, is likely
significant only because if one is alone with one’s thoughts, one is more likely to despair than if
one is in company.

One interesting aspect of this story is the fact that the original edition of it seemed to mix up the
lines of dialogue between the young and the middle-aged waiters in multiple places. For example,
at one point, the young waiter seemed to have the information about the old man’s suicide attempt,
and at another point, it was the middle-aged waiter. Hemingway designates the speaker in some of
these exchanges as “one waiter,” rather than “young waiter” or “older waiter.” Some critics have
dismissed this discrepancy as a typographical error or a result of Hemingway’s idiosyncratic way
of writing dialogue and subsequent editions of the story have imposed consistency on the
dialogue, but revisionist critics have urged that Hemingway’s original edition should be reinstated.
The confusion, they have argued, was deliberately created in order to imply that the speaker could
be either the young waiter or the older one; this interchangeability supports the view that the story
is an allegory exploring the progression of one’s outlook on life from youth to age.

In terms of imagery, the story uses a number of contrasts to enhance its philosophical meaning:
youth and age, darkness and light, cleanness and filthiness, noise and quiet, and nature (shadows
of leaves) and manmade objects (coffee machine).
Short Stories of Ernest Hemingway Summary and Analysis of "The Capital of the World"
The scene opens in Madrid at a small residential hotel called the Pension Luarca in the Calle San
Jeronimo. It is respectable but cheap, and is full, Hemingway tells us, of “second-rate”
bullfighters. The protagonist, a young country boy named Pacowhose sisters are also employed at
the Luarca and who sent for him from a small village, has dreams of becoming a bullfighter
himself and romanticizes the Luarca and its residents.
Hemingway presents us with character sketches of the Luarca’s bullfighting residents: three
matadors, two picadors, and one banderillero. One of the matadors has become a coward because
of being badly gored and consequently puts on a show of joviality to hide his insecurities. He
makes passes at Paco’s oldest sister and she rebuffs him, laughing at his cowardice. A second
matador is chronically ill and looks it, spending most of his time in his room though making
appearances at meals. The third matador is a man who once drew crowds because of his courage
in the ring, but whose style is now considered old fashioned and who has become, like the rest of
his fellow residents, decidedly second-rate.

The first picador is gray-haired and drinks to excess every evening, staring at any woman in the
room and treating everyone with contempt while the second is a large man who is too quarrelsome
to work long for any one matador. The banderillero is middle aged but capable.

On one particular evening, the dining room of the Luarca is occupied by the gray-haired picador,
an auctioneer, and two priests. Three waiters attend them: Ignacio, who is a tall waiter who is
impatient to get to an Anarcho-Syndicalist political meeting, a middle-aged waiter who is in no
particular hurry to do anything, and Paco. The tall waiter criticizes the drinking habits of the
guests, and calls the bulls and the priests “the two curses of Spain.” He begins advocating class
warfare while the second waiter gently suggests he “save it for the meeting” and urges him to
leave early in order to attend. Paco, who overhears the conversation, absorbs the ideals of all the
occupants of the room; he hopes to be a good Catholic, a revolutionary, a hard worker, and a
bullfighter.
Presently, the auctioneer leaves and the picador begins staring at the two priests, who are having a
conversation about how they have been waiting for two weeks to see someone named Basilio
Alvarez who is presumably a resident of the Luarca. The picador leaves for the café, and soon
afterward, the priests leave as well.

Paco and the middle-aged waiter clear the tables and repair to the kitchen, where they share a
bottle of wine with Enrique, the boy who washes the dishes. The middle-aged waiter leaves, and
Paco and Enrique begin to talk bullfighting and practice veronicas using napkins. Paco asserts that
he would never be afraid in the ring and Enrique resolves to prove him wrong.
Meanwhile, most of the second-rate residents of the Luarca are drinking and talking at the Café
Fornos while the middle-aged waiter is drinking at the Café Alvarez. Paco’s sisters are at the
pictures and the landlady of the Luarca is sleeping upstairs.

Back at the Luarca, Enrique takes a chair and ties two kitchen knives onto the legs, then runs at
Paco in a makeshift bullfight. Paco is first successful in evading the knives but then is stabbed. His
femoral artery empties as he attempts to say his act of contrition and he dies. Hemingway ends the
piece with a paragraph about how Paco died too young to have lost any of his illusions, ideals, and
dreams.

ANALYSIS

On the surface, this story is the simple, tragic chronicle of a young and idealistic boy who dies
before he is able to achieve his goals. Scholarship on this story has been limited, but most critics
simply blame Paco for his own death. In this simplistic reading of the story, Paco is overconfident
and lacks skill as a potential bullfighter; the tragedy is Paco’s but so is the blame.

However, a very different reading of the story is possible. Hemingway, as has been widely
recognized by scholars and biographers, suffered from feelings of disillusionment and emptiness
following his experiences in World War I and throughout his life. These feelings are described in
“A Clean, Well-Lighted Place” and other works. Given this tendency toward existential nihilism,
or the belief that life is meaningless and that individuals must create their own value systems and
live by them in order to make their lives authentic and worthwhile, the character of Paco and the
tragedy of his early death can be viewed as a blessing in disguise. Instead of having his ideals and
illusions crushed by reality and experience, Paco was able to die attempting to achieve his dream
of becoming a bullfighter.

Hemingway spends most of the story describing the “second rate” members of the bullfighting
profession who inhabit the Pension Luarca. These emotional and physical wrecks include among
their ranks a cowardly bullfighter, an invalid bullfighter, a bullfighter whose name can no longer
draw a crowd, an egotistical picador who has lost respect for everything but his own talent, and a
quarrelsome picador who keeps picking fights with his own employers. Hemingway even throws
in a busboy who has proven to himself, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that he lacks the courage to
face a bull. These characters nearly all lead depressing and unfulfilling lives; their heydays have
come and gone and many of them have nothing to look forward to in their future.

There is only one exception to the general gloom at the Luarca, and that is Paco. He is the only
character described as having any joy or wonder. Generally, this is referred to as a sense of the
“romantic.” Paco is the only one with beliefs, ideals, and illusions, some of which he absorbs from
those around him. As he is speaking to the two other waiters in the dining room, Paco thinks to
himself, “He himself would like to be a good catholic, a revolutionary, and have a steady job like
this, while, at the same time, being a bullfighter.” He adopts the beliefs and ideals of the Anarcho-
Syndicalist, the priests, the middle-aged waiter, and the bullfighters who surround him.

In one sense, Paco’s malleability is one of his weaknesses, as is his idealism. It can be argued that
Paco is merely a gullible, easily awed country boy who had overly-grand dreams for himself and
met his end through overconfidence. On the other hand, there is a real sense of sympathy and even
nostalgia in Hemingway’s description of Paco and his short existence. Paco’s dreams are not the
dreams of a fool, merely the dreams of a youth. In the second to last paragraph of the story,
Hemingway writes, Paco “died, as the Spanish phrase has it, full of illusions. He had not had time
in his life to lose any of them, nor even, at the end, to complete an act of contrition.” Perhaps it is
better for Paco, Hemingway implies, that he perished attempting to fulfill his dream of becoming a
bullfighter than rotting away as a second-rate coward or has-been in a place like the Luarca. Given
the reader’s knowledge of the type of deep depression and despair that overtook Hemingway at
certain points in his life, this reading of the story must receive serious consideration.
Short Stories of Ernest Hemingway Summary and Analysis of "Hills Like White Elephants"
The scene opens on a railway station in Spain where the Barcelona-to-Madrid express is expected
in 40 minutes. A man referred to as “the American” and his girl, Jig, sit at a table outside the
station’s bar drinking beer. The landscape surrounding the station is described as the valley of the
Ebro River, with long white hills on each side and brown dusty ground in between. Jig remarks
that the hills look like white elephants, and the remark is not well received by the American.
The two decide to try a new drink, the anis del toro, with water. Jig remarks that it tastes like
licorice, and the two begin bickering again. As they start on another round of beers, the man
introduces a new motif into the conversation, saying that a particular operation is very simple and
that Jig would not mind it. If she gets the operation, he says, their relationship will be fine again,
as it was before. Jig is quiet and obviously skeptical.

The American says he does not want Jig to have it if she does not want to, but he says it would be
best if she did. He maintains, however, that he loves her and that he is snippy only because he is
worried. Jig says in return that she will get the operation because she does not care about herself,
which guilt-trips her boyfriend into saying that he does not want her to get it if she feels that way.
Jig pauses to contemplate the scenery and says they could have everything. When the American
agrees, she contradicts him, saying it has all been taken away from them and that they can never
get it back. Then she asks him to stop talking.

They are silent for a while, but the American brings the operation up again, and Jig tells him in
return that they could get along if she did not have it. He counters that he does not want anyone
else in his life but her and that the operation is perfectly simple. She asks him to stop talking
again.

The barmaid brings another round of beer and the announcement that the train is due in five
minutes. The Americanbrings the bags to the other side of the tracks, drinks an Anis at the bar and
returns to the table. Jig greets him with a smile and in answer to his question says she is fine.
ANALYSIS

“Hills Like White Elephants” centers on a couple’s verbal duel over, as strongly implied by the
text and as widely believed by many scholars, whether the girl will have an abortion of her
partner’s child. Jig, clearly reluctant to have the operation, suspects her pregnancy has irrevocably
changed the relationship but still wonders whether having the abortion will make things between
the couple as they were before. The American is anxious that Jig have the abortion and gives lip
service to the fact that he still loves Jig and will love her whether she has the procedure done or
not. As the story progresses, the power shifts back and forth in the verbal tug-of-war, and at the
end, though it is a topic of fierce debate among Hemingway scholars, it seems that Jig has both
gained the upper hand and made her decision.

Hemingway’s feat in this story is to accomplish full, fleshed-out characterizations of the couple
and a clear and complete exposition of their dilemma using almost nothing but dialogue. This
dialogue even omits the main causes of disagreement: the words “abortion” and “baby.” He also
gives the reader a clear sense of how the power shifts in the couple’s relationship.

The American is anxious for Jig to have the abortion because he “doesn’t want anybody but
[her]”. He is interested in his life with Jig continuing as it has, globetrotting, and having sex in
different hotels, as Hemingway’s description of the couple’s bags confirms: “He…looked at the
bags against the wall of the station. There were labels on them from all the hotels where they had
spent nights.” To make the operation seem less frightening, he asserts that it is perfectly simple.
Interestingly, he never mentions that the operation is “safe,” a notable omission.

Ultimately, the American’s ammunition in this verbal duel with Jig is the ability to make the
relationship emotionally hostile for her, as evidenced by his reactions to her comments about the
appearance of the hills and the fact that everything she waits for tastes like licorice. Hemingway
implies Jig is more emotionally invested in the relationship, which for the American is clearly
mostly about sex.
Jig, for her part, is very reluctant to have the operation, cares to some degree about the baby
(“Doesn’t it mean anything to you?”), believes the couple’s relationship has been irrevocably
altered simply by the pregnancy (“It isn’t ours anymore”), and does not believe an abortion will
solve their problems anyway. Jig’s ammunition is that the American will probably have to support
her and the child in some way if she forgoes the abortion; the fact that he has not already left her
signals that she has some kind of hold over him, though she may not be married to him. Perhaps
he does actually love her, as he claims.

The American, as scholars have noted, clearly wants Jig to say she wants the operation in order to
absolve himself of blame, and Jig clearly refuses to give her partner that satisfaction. If she has the
operation, she maintains wordlessly, it will be because he has forced her to. That, at least, is her
attitude throughout the story. Whether an inner struggle will produce a different attitude later on
remains unclear. However, at the end of the story, Jig seems to have gotten the upper hand. Jig all
of a sudden begins smiling at the barmaid and at the American; she seems to have a new
confidence and serenity about her, and the American gives up the argument to take the bags to the
other side of the tracks. It seems that he realizes he has lost the argument and he takes a few
minutes away from her to drink another liqueur in the bar before returning to their table. Once
there, he asks if she feels better and she smiles serenely at him, telling him she is fine and
betraying no anxiety of any kind.

One of the most notable aspects of this story is that Hemingway breaks with his typical “bitch
goddess” characterization of women. Jig is a sympathetic character, ultimately more sympathetic,
scholars have argued, than the American. She sees the issue of the abortion as a multilayered
question, and considers the impact it will have upon her relationship with the American, upon the
child itself, and upon the couple’s economic means (“We could get along.”) The American, on the
other hand, considers only that he wants life to continue in a carefree fashion and that he wants to
evade the responsibilities of fatherhood. Accordingly, he tries to bully Jig into the procedure, and
this very bullying, and Jig’s resistance to it, make her the protagonist of the story.

Another important feature of the story that backs up the idea that Jig is the protagonist is that Jig
appreciates the beauty of the train station’s natural surroundings. Hemingway was a great believer
in the power of nature to edify and uplift people, and the fact that Jig understands and values
“fields of grain and trees along the banks of the Ebro,” along with their attendant mountains and
shadows of clouds, indicates that she is the character with her priorities straight. Later in the story,
Hemingway states, “the girl looked across at the hills on the dry side of the valley and the man
looked at her and at the table.” Once again, Jig is looking to nature as a guide in her time of crisis
while the American ignores the scenery.

The title of the story has led many to speculate on what the “white elephant” symbolizes for the
couple. A white elephant is generally thought of as unusual and cumbersome, in short, a problem.
Various theories exist. The white elephant could be the pregnancy, the baby itself, the abortion,
Jig’s reluctance to get the abortion, the American’s insistence that Jig abort, Jig herself and the
American himself. The most popular choices among scholars are that the white elephant is the
baby/pregnancy (the obvious choice) and the American himself, given his bullying of Jig.

“Hills Like White Elephants” is full of similes and metaphors as the language is throughout
devoid of the words “abortion” and “baby” while that is all the characters are talking of. For
example, at the beginning, Jig comments that the anis del toro tastes like licorice, and the man
says that’s the way with everything, to which the girl replies “Everything tastes of licorice.
Especially all the things you’ve waited so long for, like absinthe.” The man then replies, “Cut it
out,” rather a strong reaction to a seemingly innocuous comment. It is possible that “absinthe”
stands for something to the couple that the reader is not aware of, but it is also possible that Jig is
referring to how she has waited her whole life to get pregnant and have a baby but now it is being
spoiled for her by the American.
Short Stories of Ernest Hemingway Summary and Analysis of "The Killers"
Two men, Al and Max, come into Henry’s lunch-room where the manager, George, is talking
to Nick Adams, one of the diners. They sit down at the counter and debate about what to order.
Their first choices are to be served only after 6 o’clock, and since it’s 5 o’clock, the pork
tenderloin and chicken croquettes are not available. George lists the available choices and the men
order ham, eggs, bacon, and eggs, respectively. They are dressed alike with tight overcoats,
mufflers, and derby hats. While they eat they comment sarcastically on the liveliness of the town,
Summit, and how “bright” George and Nick are.
Suddenly, Al and Max order Nick around the other side of the counter with George and inquire if
anyone else is in in the diner. George tells them Sam, the cook, is in the kitchen, and he is told to
call Sam out to the counter. Amid mild protests from Nick and George, Al takes Nick and Sam
back into the kitchen while Max sits at the counter and George remains behind it.
When George asks Max what it’s all about, Max reveals he and Al are there to ambush and kill a
Swede named Ole Andreson, a resident of Summit, when he comes in to dinner at Henry’s at 6
o’clock. It becomes known that they are hit men hired to kill Andreson in the manner, it is
implied, of gangsters in the movies. Al announces he has tied Sam and Nick up in the kitchen
Max orders George to tell any customers that the cook is out and if that doesn’t put them off, to
cook for them himself but to get rid of them quickly. When he goes into the kitchen to make a
sandwich for a customer, he sees Al with a sawed-off shotgun sitting by the wicket and Sam and
Nick tied up in the corner.

Finally, when Andreson has failed to show up by his usual hour of 6 o’clock, Al and Max prepare
to leave. Al is reluctant to go, grumbling that Max has talked too much about why they’re in
Summit, but eventually they leave and George unties Sam and Nick. George urges Nick to warn
Andreson but Sam urges him to stay out of it.

Nick, having decided to go, walks to Hirsch’s rooming-house where Andreson lives and is let in
by Mrs. Bell, the caretaker of the establishment. Andreson, a former heavyweight boxer, is lying
on his bed in a depressed fashion and expresses no surprise when Nick tells him about Al, Max,
and their mission. Andreson appears resigned to his fate, and negates all of Nick’s suggestions that
he should go to the police, skip town, or patch up whatever matter led to the contract on him in the
first place. He says he is through running and that eventually he’ll leave his room.
Nick leaves him and speaks briefly with Mrs. Bell, who says Andreson has been depressed all day
and that it’s a shame because he’s a nice man. Upon returning to Henry’s, Nick reports to George
that Andreson was not surprised by the news and doesn’t plan to take any action to protect
himself, and they conclude that he probably double-crossed someone in Chicago; that’s the cause
of the contract on him. Nick is quite depressed by the contemplation of Andreson’s fate and
resolves to leave town.

ANALYSIS

“The Killers” is a story that deals with the familiar Hemingway themes of courage,
disillusionment, death, and futility. Nick Adams, Hemingway’s semi-autobiographical narrator in
a whole series of short stories, performs a clear act of heroism but is disappointed by the result of
it. Two killers invade the small town of Summit and hold Nick and others hostage in a diner while
they wait to kill Ole Andreson, a former boxer from Chicago with a murky past. Once the killers
leave without their quarry, Nick volunteers, at the risk of his own life, to go to Andreson’s
boarding-house and warn him of the killers’ presence. Andreson is unsurprised and resigned to his
fate, and Nick returns to the diner depressed at the contemplation of Andreson’s impending death.

“The Killers” is the story of Nick Adams’s coming-of-age through a showing of heroism and his
ultimate disillusionment as his courage fails to make a difference. Throughout the story, and
according to Hemingway critics, it is clear that Nick is an adolescent. Indeed, the killers make
persistent references to Nick as a “bright boy,” and the implication that Nick has not yet crossed
into manhood is unmistakable. When the killers leave, George urges Nick to warn Andreson and
Sam warns him not to; apparently both men are too afraid to go themselves, and the fact that Nick
knows the risks but goes anyway is a testament to his courage and an indication of the fact that he
came of age in that moment.

None of this is diminished by the fact that, at the very moment when Nick decides to warn
Andreson, Sam ironically says “Little boys always know what they want to do.” Given that Sam’s
perspective on the matter is that Nick should stay out of the Andreson dilemma for his own safety,
he likely means that Nick’s decision is like that of a little boy because it is foolish, not because it
is not courageous. What Sam views as foolishness Hemingway views as strength.

The apparent tragedy of this story is that Andreson expresses no alarm at his killers’ presence and
will probably be gunned down without a struggle, but the true tragedy is that Nick’s selfless act of
heroism produced no positive result and was therefore futile. Faced with Andreson’s
unwillingness to do anything to prevent his own death, Nick returns to the diner and expresses his
disappointment to George, who tells him not to think about it. Nick clearly feels the most strongly
of the three men in the diner that Andreson’s dilemma is unjust; George doesn’t think about it and
Sam doesn’t want to hear about it. Only Nick is left with a “damned awful” feeling not only about
Andreson’s fate, but also about the fact that he risked his life for nothing. This, Hemingway
implies, is the moment of disillusionment where a young man who has finally proved his courage
in the face of danger is confronted with the fact that his sacrifice was in vain. The world is unjust,
Nick has discovered, and this fact depresses him, as it depresses all of Hemingway’s other
protagonists.

Nick is not the only courageous character in the story; indeed, the more obvious hero is Ole
Andreson himself, who determines to face his killers stoically and without panic. According to
Hemingway scholars, this attitude is known as heroic fatalism of fatalistic heroism. It is a
testament to Hemingway’s skill at manipulating his readers’ emotions that Andreson is seen in a
positive light. For all readers know, Andreson may be a killer himself or have other highly
disreputable crimes on his conscience. It is through the portrayal of the killers as so evil and
through Nick’s vouching for him that Andreson’s image is positive and even heroic rather than
passive and weak.

The language in “The Killers” is simple and repetitive, emphasizing both the intellectual
simplicity of the characters and the suspense of the situation. The exchange of short, sharp phrases
between the killers and the three occupants of Henry’s diner has been likened to the exchange of
machine-gun fire, and the atmosphere of the story is much akin to that of the hard-boiled genre
that was popularized both in print and in film during the 1940s. “The Killers,” indeed, was
adapted for the screen three times beginning in 1946.
Short Stories of Ernest Hemingway Summary and Analysis of "In Another Country"
In the fall in Milan, a group of soldiers wounded in World War I receives treatment at a hospital
not far from the front. The narrator is Nick Adams, an American former football player, who has
been wounded in the knee. He sits in a row of machines that exercise his leg with a middle-aged
Italian officer who was once a fencing champion but who now has a withered hand. Despite the
encouragement of his doctor, the Italian has no confidence in the machines.
Nick describes the group of friends he has made at the hospital: three wounded Italian officers
who had planned to be a lawyer, painter, and soldier before the war, respectively. All three, like
Nick, have won medals from the Italian government for their service during the war. The aspiring
lawyer, in fact, has three, and is admired for it.

Another young wounded soldier tags along with Nick and his group, but has to wear a
handkerchief over his face as most of it was damaged and rebuilt during the war. Nick feels a
kinship with the officers because they have all, to a certain extent, been through the same
experiences, and because it is safer for officers to stick together in Milan as the local people
despise and taunt them.

At the same time, there is a wall between Nick and the Italians because, as he says, he received his
medal for being an American, and they actually performed feats of bravery to receive theirs. Nick
feels closer to the boy with the handkerchief because he was wounded before he had a chance to
prove himself in the war.

As Nick returns to the hospital daily to sit in the machines that exercise his leg, the major with the
withered hand teaches him Italian. One day, the major becomes angry when Nick mentions he
plans to marry, saying that men must not marry because they will inevitably lose their wives. Then
he apologizes to Nick, explaining that his young wife has just died.

Thereafter, each time the major returns to the hospital to use the machines, he stares out the
window rather than paying any attention to his treatment.

ANALYSIS

Though its narrator is never named, “In Another Country” is widely accepted as one of
Hemingway’s series of stories featuring Nick Adams, a largely autobiographical character, as the
protagonist. It was based on Hemingway’s own experiences recuperating in a Milanese hospital
after being wounded in World War I. This experience also gave rise to A Farewell to Arms.
Though the story begins with Nick’s relieved announcement that he and his fellow wounded
soldiers are out of the war and recuperating at a military hospital, it becomes clear that they are in
need of more than physical treatment in order to erase the war’s effects. Though the tone of the
narration is superficially sanguine and the setting seemingly reassuring, there are strong
underlying currents of dislocation, conflict, emptiness, and futility that indicate Nick has been
deeply marked with more than shrapnel, and that his recovery cannot be effected by physical
therapy.

Nick is alone in a foreign country and feels isolated. He states that people on the street hate
officers and yell at him as he walks past. The effect of this harassment is partially offset by Nick’s
association with three other officers and the boy with the handkerchief over his face. The five
men, brought together by necessity, walk together through the town, and feel a certain friendship
born of their status as wounded veterans. Even in this distinguished company, however, Nick is
not fully accepted. He feels inferior to the three other officers with medals as they proved their
bravery in battle and he received his medal merely for being an American. His citation is, in a
sense, hollow, and the Italians subtly shun him for this reason. He feels that he was injured before
he could prove his courage, and this gnaws at him.

Yet another source of discontent for Nick is the fact that the hospital, with its newfangled physical
therapy machines, doesn’t seem to be doing any of the soldiers much good. Nick explains that the
surgeons at the hospital were not able to rebuild satisfactorily the face of the boy with the
handkerchief. He came from an old family and his nose was never the same after the wound and
surgery, so he had to immigrate to South America after the war.

In addition, Nick strongly suggests the physical therapy machines are ineffective, both for him and
for the Italian major with the withered hand. The major repeatedly voices the opinion that the
machines are useless. At the end of the story, he hardly pays attention to his treatment, choosing
instead to stare out the window of the hospital. The whole reason that Nick remains in Italy and
associates with the people described in this story is to receive treatment at the hospital, and
Hemingway implies that this treatment is futile.

What Nick and his fellow wounded truly need, many scholars have asserted, is not physical
treatment but mental and emotional healing. These remedies are conspicuously absent from the
story, and explain Nick’s sense of depression and isolation.

Stylistically, the story makes use of repetition to emphasize the narration. For example, in the first
paragraph, which sets the tone of the story using descriptions of the landscape and fauna of Milan,
Hemingway states, “It was cold in the fall in Milan and the dark came very early.” He repeats this
idea with a slightly different emphasis at the end of the paragraph: “It was a cold fall and the wind
came down from the mountains.” In the second paragraph, too, he states “We were all at the
hospital every afternoon,” and later on he repeats, “Beyond the old hospital were the new brick
pavilions, and there we met every afternoon.” This technique not only highlights the ideas
Hemingway wants to drive home to the reader, but also gives the narration a sort of cyclical,
complete, and self-contained feeling as the same ideas are revisited with slightly different words.
Short Stories of Ernest Hemingway Summary and Analysis of "A Day's Wait"
The story opens as a father discovers that his 9-year-old boy, Schatz, has a fever. The father sends
for the doctor and he diagnoses a mild case of influenza. As long as the fever doesn’t go above
104 degrees, the doctor says, the boy will be fine, and he leaves three different types of medication
for the father to administer with instructions for each. Schatz’s temperature is determined to be
102 degrees.
When the doctor leaves, the father reads to Schatz from a book about pirates, but the boy is not
paying attention and is staring fixedly at the foot of the bed. His father suggests he try to get some
sleep, but Schatz says he would rather be awake. He also says that his father needn’t stay in the
room with him if he is bothered. His father says he isn’t bothered, and after giving him his 11
o’clock dose of medication, the father goes outside.

It is a wintry day with sleet frozen onto the countryside, and the father takes the family’s Irish
setter out hunting along a frozen creek bed. Both man and dog fall more than once on the ice
before they find a covey of quail and kill two. The father, pleased with his exploits, returns to the
house.

Upon returning home, he finds that Schatz has refused to let anyone into his room because he
doesn’t want anyone else to catch the flu. The father enters anyway and finds the boy still staring
at the foot of the bed. He takes Schatz’s temperature and finds it 102, as before. He tells Schatz his
temperature is fine, and not to worry. Schatz says he’s not worrying, but he is thinking. When the
father gives Schatz his medication, Schatz asks if he thinks the medication will help, and the father
answers affirmatively.

After attempting to interest Schatz in the pirate book and failing, the father pauses, whereupon
Schatz asks him when the father thinks Schatz will die. It emerges that Schatz has heard at school
in France that no one can live with a temperature above 44, so Schatz thinks he is sure to die with
a temperature of 102. He has been waiting to die all day.

After the father explains the difference between Fahrenheit and Celsius, Schatz relaxes, letting go
of his iron self-control and the next day he allows himself to get upset over little things.

ANALYSIS

“A Day’s Wait” deals with the familiar Hemingway theme of heroic fatalism or fatalistic heroism,
namely courage in the face of certain death. It is a testament to Hemingway’s skill and his
dedication to this theme that he can make fatalistic heroes out of 9-year-old boys as easily as out
of middle-aged has-been prizefighters on the run from gangsters and 76-year-old Spanish war
refugees. The tragedy in this story is not, of course, that the hero Schatz is doomed, but that he
believes himself to be doomed when he is in fact fine.

Schatz’s heroism is quietly but strikingly demonstrated in his words and actions over his day’s
wait. The most dramatic manifestation of Schatz’s heroism is the difference between his demeanor
during the day described by the story and his demeanor the next day. The narrator says “He was
evidently holding tight onto himself about something” before the father goes out hunting, and
when Schatz realizes he will be fine, “The hold over himself relaxed too, finally, and the next day
it was very slack and he cried very easily at little things that were of no importance.” The little boy
is stoic in the face of what he believes will be certain death; he holds his emotions in with iron
self-control all day, and even suggests that his father leave the room if he is distressed to see his
son dying. He also forbids anyone to come into his room out of concern for their health, even
though by doing so he condemns himself to die alone.

Aside from Schatz’s own behavior, the other element of the story that makes Schatz’s heroism
striking is the behavior of his father, which unintentionally worsens Schatz’s mental turmoil.
Shortly after Schatz suggests that his father need not stay with him if the spectacle of his son’s
death will bother him, the father leaves the house for hours to enjoy himself in the winter sunshine
with the family dog, a gun, and a covey of quail. The juxtaposition of the father’s enjoyment with
Schatz’s self-controlled, tragic, and solitary stoicism sharpens the reader’s sense of Schatz’s
heroism.

Most Hemingway scholars believe the narrator of this story, though unnamed, is actually Nick
Adams, Hemingway’s semi-autobiographical character who appears in a series of stories.
Hemingway’s official biographer Carlos Baker was the first to make this claim, and the fact that
original manuscripts for “Fathers and Sons,” one of Hemingway’s confirmed Nick Adams stories,
calls Adams’s boy “Schatz” seems to clinch the mater.
Short Stories of Ernest Hemingway Summary and Analysis of "Fathers and Sons"
The narrator, 38-year-old Nick Adams, is driving through a small town with his son and admiring
the fall scenery. It is farming and timber country, and Nick speculates where he would find coveys
of quail in the thickets. Thinking about quail hunting reminds him of his father, who taught him to
hunt and who has recently died. Nick remembers the most striking thing about his father were his
deep-set eyes and extremely keen eyesight. He remembers standing with his father on the shore of
a lake, and how his father would be able to see things on the opposite shore that he could not.
Nick then begins to describe his father, a nervous, sentimental, cruel, and abused man who died in
a trap and was betrayed by everyone he knew. Nick reflects he can’t write about his father yet
because too many people are alive who knew him, but he says that his father’s would be a good
story to tell, and that he might be able to get his father out of his system if he wrote about him.

Nick is grateful to his father for teaching him about two things: fishing and shooting. Nick still
harbors a passion for those two activities that he inherited from his father at an early age. Nick
says that his father was thoroughly unsound on sex, however, and recounts the older man’s advice
on the subject by way of illustration.

Once, when Nick was younger, he shot a squirrel out of a tree and the squirrel bit him when he
picked it up. He called it a “dirty little bugger,” and his father informed him that the word
“bugger” also referred to a person who engaged in bestiality, which was a heinous crime. His
father also told him that “mashing,” masturbation and frequenting prostitutes were highly
undesirable activities. In conclusion, his father said, it is best to keep your hands off people.

In spite of his defective advice, Nick says, he loved his father. He reflects on the job the
undertaker did on his father’s face, and how it failed to cover up the ravages of the previous few
years.

Nick then remembers that he received his first lessons in sex as an adolescent from Trudy Gilby, a
Native American of the Ojibway tribe, behind the Indian camp in some hemlock woods. He
describes the route from his family’s cottage through the woods to the Indian camp, and how he
used to keep company with Trudy and her brother Billy by alternately shooting at squirrels and
having sex with Trudy. Trudy reveals that her older half-brother Eddie wants to sleep with Nick’s
sister Dorothy, and Nick tells her he would shoot Eddie if he even spoke to Dorothy. He even
imagines it, and his description is so vivid that Trudy gets upset. Then Billy goes off to shoot
squirrels so Nick and Trudy can have sex, returning with a dead squirrel bigger than a cat.
Presently, Nick and the siblings part ways.

Nick’s thoughts return to the present, and he spins through a list of things that remind him of his
father, including the fall, early spring, lakes, geese and ducks, fields, and open fires. After Nick
was 15, he says, he lived apart from his father. His father loved manual labor on the farm and Nick
did not. Nick once pretended to have lost a set of his father’s underwear that had been passed
down to him because it smelled like his father, and after his father whipped him for lying he drew
a bead on his father from the woodshed.

A question about the Indians Nick knew as a boy from Nick’s son jerks Nick back to the present,
and he tells his son how he used to hunt black squirrels with Trudy and Billy Gilby. He then
remembers his sexual experiences with Trudy and his thoughts on Native Americans in general.
He tells his son that Nick’s father grew up around Native Americans as well and had friends
among them.

Nick’s son says he cannot remember what his grandfather was like, and Nick describes him as a
great hunter and fisherman, an even greater shot than Nick. His son disputes this, and then asks
why they never go to pray at his grandfather’s tomb, as people do in France, where he goes to
school. Nick says because it isn’t geographically convenient, and his son says he wants to go
anyway, and that he wants to be able to pray at Nick’s tomb as well. Nick ends the story by saying
that he sees they’ll have to go to his father’s tomb.
ANALYSIS

“Fathers and Sons” is the final story Hemingway wrote featuring his semi-autobiographical
protagonist Nick Adams. There are aspects of Hemingway’s own life, including his father’s
suicide, that are discernible in the tale, which centers on Nick’s ambivalent feelings toward his
father. The story consists of Nick’s memories of his childhood, his hunting lessons with his father,
his father’s advice on sex, and Nick’s first sexual experiences with a Native American girl.
Apparent in Nick’s musings are hints of admiration, regret, guilt, hatred and love that are all
centered on his father’s memory. Nick’s reflections are interrupted by his son, who is traveling
with him and who is curious about the grandfather he has all but forgotten.
“Fathers and Sons” owes its title to a novel of the same name by Ivan Turgenev, a Russian
novelist of the mid-19th century. The novel is about the intellectual and social divide between
aging conservatives and young nihilists. Given that Nick’s father is, to a certain degree and in
certain respects, characterized as conservative in this story, and that Hemingway, through his hero
Nick, is often viewed as disillusioned and nihilistic, the selection of this title is apt. It is also
telling in terms of drawing conclusions about the ultimate nature of the relationship between Nick
Adams and his father; ultimately, their relationship seems to have been filled with
misunderstandings, tension and conflict on every subject save hunting.

Scholarship on “Fathers and Sons” emphasizes the parallels between Nick’s relationship with his
father and Hemingway’s relationship with his. Certainly, both relationships are fraught with
ambivalence; none of Nick’s memories of his father is happy or joyful.

Nick’s first memory of his father is of his eagle eyesight; he speaks with admiration but not
warmth of his father’s ability to see clear across to the other side of a lake. Indeed, Nick’s father
brags to his son of his ability to count the sheep on a hillside that Nick can barely make out. Nick
out-and-out says his father was cruel, and softens this adjective only by adding the ones “abused”
and “betrayed.” The only positive thing his father ever contributed to Nick’s life was the
knowledge of how to fish and shoot, and even this contribution was poisoned for Nick by the fact
that his father “was always very disappointed in the way [he] shot.” At the end of the story, Nick’s
son insists on visiting his grandfather’s grave to pray, and the fact that the family has never made
a pilgrimage there is a clear indication that Nick has never cared to. He is still reluctant to go even
as his son urges him, and seems to acquiesce at the very end of the story only so his son will have
a grandfatherly figure to admire.

In terms of the parallel with Hemingway’s life, the most striking similarity is that Nick’s father
has just died via a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head, the same manner in which
Hemingway’s father Clarence died. In addition, Hemingway confessed to his official biographer
that as a child, after Clarence beat him, he used to retire to a shed with his gun and draw a bead on
his father’s head, plotting to injure the very body part that eventually was disfigured by a gunshot
wound. Clarence, according to Hemingway’s siblings and Hemingway’s biographers, was cruel,
exacting, hard, and implacably resentful toward anyone who he determined had wronged him. The
only positive emotion Hemingway felt toward him was a cool, detached admiration regarding
some of his abilities. This portrait of father-son relations comes across vividly through Nick’s
memories in “Fathers and Sons.”

Yet another strong parallel with Hemingway’s life is the fact that Nick is a writer. With respect to
his unpleasant memories about his father, Nick states, “If he wrote it he could get rid of it. He had
gotten rid of many things by writing them.” This belief in the ability of writing to process and put
into perspective personal traumas is surely demonstrated in Hemingway’s life; his experiences in
World War I and the Spanish Civil War, for example, are the subjects of many of Hemingway’s
works.

Vivid as they are, Nick seems well able to repress his unpleasant memories of his father when
discussing his father with his son. He tells his son no negative things about his grandfather, and
the juxtaposition of Nick’s myriad awful memories of the man with his laudatory words about him
to his son indicates Nick’s stoicism, a quality many recognized in Hemingway himself. According
to Nick, his father was a crack shot, a great hunter and fisherman with “wonderful eyes.” Aside
from the fact that the entire story is written from Nick’s point of view, Nick’s decision to
embellish his father’s memory for his son’s sake, leaving his own traumas at his father’s hands out
of the picture, makes Nick a somewhat heroic figure in this story. Even taking into consideration
the fact that Nick’s son is not yet 12 and therefore may need to be shielded from unpleasantness,
Nick’s behavior is admirable.

As in all Hemingway stories, nature provides a wholesome contrast to human cruelties. The
farming and timber country Nick is driving through is described as “good” country, while all of
Nick’s memories of his father are termed “not good remembering,” things that he needs to “get rid
of.” The longest and most positively inflected passages in the story are the ones that deal with the
pathways through the woods to the Indian camp. The hemlock forest where Nick had his early
hunting and sexual experiences is presented as a sort of escape from life with his father. In the
midst of Nick’s childhood misery and in the midst of his adult memories of that misery, nature
stands as a source of inspiration, beauty, and escape.
Short Stories of Ernest Hemingway Summary and Analysis of "Old Man at the Bridge"
The setting is a spot in the countryside during the Spanish Civil War. An old man with spectacles
sits exhausted by the side of the road near a pontoon bridge that crosses a river. Peasant refugees
and Republican soldiers laden with munitions and supplies flee the advancing Fascist army.

The narrator, who says that his mission is to cross the bridge and find out how far the enemy has
advanced, does so and finds the old man who was sitting by the bridge when he crossed toward
the enemy still sitting there when he crosses back. He begins talking to the old man and elicits the
information that his hometown is San Carlos; he was the last person to leave the town, as he was
anxious on behalf of some animals he had charge of.

The narrator, nervously awaiting the advent of the Fascist army and the ensuing battle between the
armies, asks the old man about the animals. The old man says he had charge of two goats, a cat,
and four pairs of pigeons. He says a major told him to leave the town and the animals because of
artillery fire. He says he has no family.

He then begins to express concern about what will happen to the animals. He says the cat will be
all right because cats can look after themselves, but he doesn’t know what will happen to the other
animals.

The narrator, more concerned for the old man’s safety than that of the animals, inquires what the
old man’s politics are, and the old man replies he has none. He is 76, has come 12 kilometers and
is too tired to go any further. The narrator tells him to walk up the road and catch a ride on a truck
to Barcelona.

The old man thanks him, but continues to express concern over the fate of the animals he left
behind. The narrator reassures him, saying the animals will be fine. The doves will fly away, the
narrator says, but the old man continues to worry about the goats. The narrator tells him it is better
not to think about it, and that he should get up and walk to the trucks.

The old man tries to get up and walk, but he is too tired and sinks back down. The narrator thinks,
in closing, that the old man’s only luck is that cats can look after themselves and that the day is
overcast so the Fascists aren’t able to launch their planes.

ANALYSIS

“Old Man at the Bridge” was inspired by Hemingway’s travels as a war correspondent during the
Spanish Civil War in the 1930s. In fact, the story was originally composed as a news dispatch
from the Amposta Bridge over the Ebro River on Easter Sunday in 1938 as the Fascists were set to
overrun the region. Hemingway was writing for the North American Newspaper Association but
decided to submit this snippet of writing as a short story to a magazine instead of as a journalistic
article, which accounts, to a certain extent, for its short length.

For all of its unorthodox origins, the story deals with familiar Hemingway themes of depression,
resignation, and impending death. The old man is the heroic fatalist or fatalistic hero of the story,
resigned to his fate as a casualty of the war. He is too old and tired to move, he says, and
demonstrates, to the narrator, and the narrator reflects that he is sure to be killed once the Fascists
advance to the bridge across the Ebro. His life is prolonged by the fact that the day is overcast and
the Fascists cannot launch their planes, and his mind is eased by the fact that cats can look after
themselves, but aside from that, the narrator says nothing can be done for him and his death seems
certain.

As occurs elsewhere in Hemingway’s writings, specifically in “The Killers,” the narrator of the
story seems more affected by the inevitability of the man’s probable fate than by the old man. Just
as the old man worries about the goats he left behind, and the narrator tells him it’s best not to
think about them, the narrator worries about the old man he will have to leave behind, but is
obviously not able to stop thinking about him.
Nevertheless, one lingering question occurs to the reader as the story closes and the narrator
bemoans the old man’s impending death. Why doesn’t the narrator help the old man at least part
of the way to the trucks bound for Barcelona? Surely everyone, including the narrator and the old
man, is going in the same direction. Surely it would not be a great imposition for the narrator to
help a 76-year-old man who had already walked 12 kilometers along at least part of the way to
safety. Are the old man’s fatalism and the narrator’s despair justified? Since this story began as a
news dispatch recounting an encounter Hemingway actually had, this question takes on more than
academic significance.

There is one symbol of hope in the story. At the beginning of the narrator’s conversation with the
old man, the birds the old man was looking after were referred to as “pigeons,” but by the end of
the story, they become “doves,” symbols of peace in wartime. The narrator makes this switch as
he asks, “Did you leave the dove cage unlocked?” It is unclear whether this is a slip of the tongue,
because the narrator is clearly distracted by the impending arrival of the enemy, or if Hemingway
is attempting to give the image of the birds flying away an even more positive tint by referring to
them as symbols of peace.
Short Stories of Ernest Hemingway Summary and Analysis of "A Simple Enquiry"
“A Simple Enquiry” is set in late March in a snowbound wooden hut in the mountains. A major
and Tonani, his adjutant, do some paperwork as the major applies oil to his sunburned face.
Presently, the major goes into the bedroom and commands Tonani to finish the paperwork. Tonani
takes out a book but then thinks better of it and buckles down to the paperwork.
Pinin, the major’s orderly, comes in to stoke the stove with pine branches. Tonani warns him to be
quiet as the major is sleeping. Pinin finishes with the stove and goes back into the recesses of the
hut.
The major calls to Tonani to send Pinin in. Pinin walks into the bedroom and shuts the door as the
major lies on the bed. The major begins asking Pinin a series of questions and elicits the facts that
Pinin is 19 and is in love with a girl that he doesn’t write to. The major then asks him if he is
corrupt, and it dawns on Pinin that the major is propositioning him. As Pinin looks shamefacedly
at the floor, the major smiles and tells Pinin to be careful, but that he won’t touch him.

Pinin leaves the room in an embarrassed manner and Tonani, watching him, smiles knowingly.
The major, in the bedroom, wonders to himself whether Pinin lied.

ANALYSIS

“A Simple Enquiry” is a very short story that is not as simple as its title implies. It concerns the
sexual orientations of three soldiers in the Italian army who are stationed in a snowbound hut. The
implication is that there is a war on, as the major tells Pinin he has less chance of being killed if he
stays on as the major’s servant than if he returns to his platoon. However, the implications of the
rest of the soldiers’ actions and dialogue, including the major’s “simple enquiry” of Pinin, are far
less clear.

The beginning of the story is straightforward enough. The major the boss of the operation, and he
orders Tonani to finish the paperwork they were both doing so he can have a nap. Tonani, in turn,
tells Pinin to be quiet when stoking the stove as the major is sleeping. The power dynamics
between the three characters are thus established according to rank.

During the major’s questioning of Pinin, he seems to be propositioning the boy, but a few
moments in the text call this surface reading into question. The first is where Pinin stands looking
shamefacedly at the ground, refusing to answer the major’s questions and Hemingway reveals the
major is thinking: “He was really relieved: life in the army was too complicated.” If he had been
actually propositioning Pinin, he may have been angry or annoyed that the boy was “superior” and
unresponsive to his advances. Thus, the major may simply have been testing Pinin to see if Pinin
would respond; that is the reading the phrase “life in the army was too complicated” encourages.

The second moment that calls the obvious interpretation of the “simple enquiry” into question is
when the major gives Pinin the choice of whether to return to his platoon or to stay on as his
orderly, recommending the latter course to the boy. If the major had truly been propositioning
Pinin, he would more probably not have wanted him around anymore and sent him back to his
platoon. This would be more in line with the major’s behavior in the beginning of the story; he
treats Tonani and Pinin as if they are there for his convenience.

Another ambiguous gesture in the text is Tonani’s smile when Pinin walks embarrassedly out of
the major’s room following the simple enquiry. He obviously is aware of what happened behind
the closed door, but is he smiling because he knows the major was testing Pinin, or because the
major was actually propositioning him? Perhaps he isn’t even thinking about whether the major’s
advances were genuine or not, just that the incident occurred; he is simply amused at Pinin’s
expense.

The final ambiguous moment in the story is where the major wonders if Pinin lied to him.
Evidence for Pinin as a liar includes the fact that Pinin says he is in love with a girl but he never
writes to her. It seems improbable that though there is a war on, Pinin never writes to the girl he is
in love with. Thus, the story concludes with a final ambiguous occurrence that leaves the reader
wondering about the meaning of the entire narrative and about Hemingway’s intentions in writing
it.
Short Stories of Ernest Hemingway Summary and Analysis of "Up in Michigan"
The story opens in a small town in Michigan called Horton’s Bay. The countryside round about
the town is farming and timber country and catches breezes from Lake Michigan. Jim Gilmore,
originally from Canada, is the town blacksmith, does a good job, and takes his meals at D.J.
Smith’s, where Liz Coates works in the kitchen. Liz is obsessed with Jim but he doesn’t think
about her much beyond a vague sense of appreciation at how neat her hair is.
Liz and Mrs. Smith see Jim, D.J. Smith, and Charley Wyman off on a fall deer-hunting trip. The
women were cooking for four days beforehand and although Liz wanted to make something
special for Jim, she was too embarrassed to attempt it.
Anticipation of the Jim’s return builds inside Liz all the time they are gone, but when they do
return with three deer, she is disappointed because nothing special happened. That night, Charley
Wyman stays to supper at Smith’s and the men drink whiskey before dinner. Dinner passes
without incident, and Mr. and Mrs. Smith go upstairs, leaving Jim and Charley drinking together
in the front room and Liz in the kitchen.

Jim comes out of the front room obviously drunk and enters the kitchen, where Liz is reading a
book. He starts touching her, and though she is shocked because no one has touched her before,
she enjoys it. Jim suggests they go for a walk and they exit the house, kissing on the way down to
the warehouse on the dock.

They sit down on the dock next to the warehouse and Jim starts feeling Liz up. She is scared and
eager, but as Jim insists on having sex, fear takes over Liz and she tells him to stop. He doesn’t
stop, and when he’s finished he falls asleep on top of her.

She gets up and tries to rouse Jim, but as he doesn’t stir she begins to cry. However, she kisses his
cheek and puts her coat over him, then walks up toward the house.

ANALYSIS

“Up in Michigan” is a tale of an unequal romantic encounter and the disillusionment that results
from it. Liz Coates, while obsessed with Jim Gilmore, the town blacksmith, is unprepared for a
whiskey-soaked Jim’s sexual advances one fall evening. The sexual encounter that results has
been the subject of fierce debate among Hemingway scholars; some term it “rape” while others
argue Liz seduced Jim.

Hemingway’s own language hints that Liz was not wholly opposed to the encounter though what
she actually says to Jim makes it clear that she is; the fact that there is a discrepancy between what
she is thinking and what she tells Jim does not excuse Jim’s forcing himself on her. He is not privy
to her thoughts and the fact that he disregards her commands to stop indicates a good deal of
cruelty, arrogance or both.

It has often been observed by Hemingway scholars that stylistically, “Up in Michigan” is an
imitation of the repetitive style popularized by Gertrude Stein. For example, in the third paragraph
of the story, Hemingway describes Liz’s feelings about Jim almost entirely using the phrase “she
liked it”: “She liked it about his mustache. She liked it about how white his teeth were when he
smiled.” This not only emphasizes the fact that Liz is a simple, unsophisticated girl, but also
drives home the degree to which Liz is obsessed with Jim. She barely thinks about anything else,
and it seems there is nothing she doesn’t like about him.

“Up in Michigan” is written largely from Liz’s point of view, and this fact makes the story notable
in the Hemingway canon. Most of his stories are written from a male perspective, and most of his
female characters are unsympathetic, either helpless or shrewish. Liz falls partially into the first
category; her behavior is naïve, lovelorn and somewhat passive, but she is nevertheless a
sympathetic character. Because of Hemingway’s extensive narration from her point of view, the
reader takes the journey from infatuation to disillusionment with her.
This fact, coupled with the fact that Liz experiences the familiar Hemingway theme of
disillusionment, implies that she is the protagonist of the story. Liz is disillusioned about love and
sex following her experience with Jim. After an extended period of complete and utter obsession
with Jim, Liz finally has the chance to be physically intimate with him, but the encounter turns
into a rough and unpleasant experience. The object of her obsession takes her virginity and then
falls dead asleep as if nothing had happened. Hemingway gives the character of Liz a decidedly
sympathetic cast.

Nonetheless, the characters of Jim and Liz play to established gender stereotypes. Jim is a
blacksmith, usually considered a manly profession, and discusses politics and keeps up with the
news. He also goes out hunting with his neighbors and gets drunk with them upon his return, two
traditionally masculine rituals. Liz, on the other hand, is completely subsumed in kitchen duties
and in watching Jim. Her obsession with him approaches hero worship, and when their
relationship reaches a crisis on the dock, she says no, but her nature prevents further confrontation
when he ignores her.