About the short stories: WileyCDA/LitNote/ Hemingway-s-Short-Stories. id-10,pageNum-3.html

Excerpts:

In the beginning, Hemingway wrote about himself, and he would continue to write himself into all, or most, of his characters until his death.

Hemingway’s genius as an American original was evident long before he produced his novels that are today considered masterpieces of American literature. Both critics and readers have hailed his short stories as proof that a pure, true American literature was finally possible.

Hemingway's writing style in the Short Stories: WileyCDA/LitNote/ Hemingway-s-Short-Stories. id-10,pageNum-70.html

Excerpts:

From the beginning of his writing career in the 1920s, Hemingway’s writing style occasioned a great deal of comment and controversy. Basically, a typical Hemingway novel or short story is written in simple, direct, unadorned prose. Possibly, the style developed because of his early journalistic training. The reality, however, is this: Before Hemingway began publishing his short stories and sketches, American writers affected British mannerisms.

Hemingway took great pains with his work; he revised tirelessly. “A writer’s style,” he said, “should be direct and personal, his imagery rich and earthy, and his words simple and vigorous.” Hemingway more than fulfilled his own requirements for good writing. His words are simple and vigorous, burnished and uniquely brilliant.

Themes of the Short Stories: WileyCDA/LitNote/ Hemingway-s-Short-Stories. id-10,pageNum-57.html

In his novels and especially in his short stories, Hemingway often uses mountains to symbolize goodness, the purity, and cleanness, and he uses the plains as a symbol of evil and confusion. This contrast has often been commented on by Hemingway scholars.

Not surprisingly, because death is at the core of this story, one of the central themes that occurs again and again in Hemingway’s stories and novels is man’s direct encounter with death or with approaching death. Whether a man is in war and on the battlefield (as Nick Adams is in several stories; as are Hemingway heroes in his novels A Farewell to Arms, For Whom the Bell Tolls, and parts of The Sun Also Rises) or facing death (as Nick Adams is when he is severely wounded in “A Way You’ll Never Be” and “In Another Country”), or on big game hunts, facing charging animals (as Francis Macomber is in “A Short Happy Life”), the theme of man’s direct encounter with death is always pivotal to the story. Death is always present as Hemingway examines how man reacts and behaves in the face of death.

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