In The End of Something, I noticed the typical writing style of Hemingway much more than in the previous stories. I will tell you right now that I am no expert on Hemingway as I have only read The Sun Also Rises, but I could definitely see some similarities between this story’s structure and that of The Sun Also Rises.
The first attribute of Hemingway’s writing that I noticed was how he never outright states the character’s problem. Throughout The End of Something, we are given hints that Nick is not happy about something, and although at the end of the story we see it is because he is ending it with Marjorie, we are never really told why. The way that Hemingway manages to evade telling us why Nick is having issues with his now ex girlfriend is typical. He does the same thing in The Sun Also Rises with respect to a certain injury of Jake’s that is a huge part of the book. Since the reason Nick breaks up with Marjorie and Jake’s injury are so critical to the story, I expected that those facts would be stated at some point, but instead we are left to infer. The fact that we don’t know anything about the relationship is eluded in the name of the story The End of Something where the “something” is very vague. Typical Hemingway.
The second attribute is in the way that the dialogues are written. He makes them short, and keeping with the first attribute, they skirt away from telling us exactly what is going on. Another facet of the dialogues is that they are repetitive. An example of this is when Marjorie and Nick first start fighting:
“I know it,” Marjorie said happily.
“You know everything,” Nick said.
“Oh, Nick, please cut it out! Please, please, don't be that way?”
“I can’t help it,” Nick said. “You do. You know everything. That’s the trouble. You know you do.”
Marjorie did not say anything.
“I’ve taught you everything. You know you do. What don’t you know, anyway?”
In this dialogue, we see the short sentences as well as the repetition. Nick says “You know you do” twice and all of his sentences have very similar messages. The end product of this type of dialogue is that we get limited information on what is happening.
From my limited experience with Hemingway, I have noticed a couple of trends in his writing and for some reason these trends were more prominent in The End of Something than in the other Hemingway stories we have read so far.
When we studied _The Sun Also Rises_ last semester, we noted how often Hemingway depicts a two-person, rapid-fire dialogue, often with one participant a lot more talkative than the other. This story is an excellent example of that kind of scenario, as we read into Nick's non-responses to Marjorie's enthusiastic efforts to engage him. We, too, can tell that "something is wrong"--but we don't know what, exactly, and neither, apparently, does Nick.
ReplyDeleteGood observations! I haven't even read "The Sun Also Rises" but "The End of Something" reminded me a lot of "Hills like White Elephants". Using the two attributes, we also don't get an explicit explanation of the situation in HLWE. We're left to infer about an abortion, but all we get are indirect "euphemisms" about an "simple operation" that "lets the air in".
ReplyDeleteHLWE also has a two person dialogue. The American tries to lead the conversation while the girl doesn't want to talk. It also has the repetition, short sentences, and indirect information like you mentioned.
I'm still not sure exactly how I feel about Hemingway's style- it can almost get a little tiresome having to interpret everything and being confused a lot of the time. Hopefully it'll grow on me though.
You make some very good points in this post. I considered the rapid-fire, one on one dialogue to be a defining aspect of "The Sun Also Rises" and I like Sarah's observation that this was also an integral part of "Hills Like White Elephants." In fact, the entire setup of this story reminds me a lot of "Hills Like White Elephants." Both stories deal with a romantic couple who are arguing about something, and in both of the stories the exact problem is never really explicitly mentioned, although "The End of Something" definitely has a much less ambiguous ending.
ReplyDeleteGood points! Hemingway has a very distinct writing style, and it can be hard to put it into words. I haven't read any of his other writing besides what we've done this semester, but I already find his technique interesting. In my opinion, short dialogue, short sentences, and the "iceberg phenomenon" are all characteristic of Hemingway's style. I definitely see this in the short story you addressed, "The End of Something."
ReplyDeleteI hadn't read any Hemingway before taking this class, but I see what you mean when you say that this story is typical of his writing style! I think all the Hemingway stories that we've read are vague in some ways, never completely explaining what's going on, but just showing that there's some kind of conflict. "The End of Something" kind of reminded me of "Hills Like White Elephants" because both stories are cryptic, but imply that there are conflicts between couples.
ReplyDeleteThe similarities between the vagueness around a problem in "Hills Like White Elephants" and "The End of Something" is really a great connection between two Hemingway stories. We see the similarity in structure, even though the prior is a mere two pages. Hemingway has a way of simply throwing you into a story, forcing you to fend for yourself to understand what is going on and comprehend the rapid fire dialogue between characters. He would never simply just state an issue and explain how the characters would solve it; that would be much too easy, and it wouldn't be Hemingway.
ReplyDeleteI personally am not a huge Hemingway fan. Perhaps I am judging too quickly, because I've only read "In Our Time". But like you said, Hemingway does have a very distinct writing style- concise, slightly ambiguous. I think my expectations were very high for Hemingway because of his reputation, I'm not saying that he's not an excellent writer, but his writing style that you have clearly identified, is just not for me.
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