Critical Themes In The Writings Of Hemingway Essays -

Critical Themes In The Writings Of Hemingway Critical Themes in the Writings of Hemingway: Life & Death, Fishing, War, Sex, Bullfighting, and the Mediterranean Region Hemingway brought a tremendous deal of what is middle class Americanism into literature, without very many people recognizing what he has done. He had nothing short of a writers mind; a mind like a vacuum cleaner that swept his life experiences clean, picking up any little thing, technique, or possible subject that might be of use (Astro 3). From the beginning, Hemingway had made a careful and conscientious formula for the art of the novel (Hoffman 142). This preconceived formula contained certain themes that recur with great frequency and power throughout Hemingways writings. Such themes include an obsessive fascination with life and death, an interest in fishing, war, bullfighting, a strange perception of sex and an unusual fixation on the Mediterranean region. In Hemingways writings, the symbols are implicit; they follow the laws of reality to such a degree that in themselves they form a whole story (Wilson 2). Hemingways heros battles consist of conquering dread, a dread which is connected with earlier experiences, and which appears as a fear of life or death. These two elements, life and death, seem to take two opposite forms, but in reality they are the same. Life ends with death, because death is a constituent part of life, therefore life includes death (Scott 24). If you follow the main lines through Hemingways writings, you will very easily discover that everything deals with a sick, mortally wounded mans fight to overcome the dread arising from his meeting with life (Young 21). In Hemingways world, death begins in childhood, as described with unsurpassed mastery in the short story Indian Camp. This story tells of young boy, Nick, who is present while his father, the doctor, performs a cesarean section on an Indian woman, without anesthesia, equipped with only a jackknife and fishing leaders to sew the wound up with. The Indian womans husband lies in the upper bunk during the operation, with the woolen blanket drawn up over his head. When they lift up the blanket, he has cut his throat. It is here that Hemingways long autobiography begins; this is how it feels to be human. Nick, the hero, has received his wound. He is scared to death, and all of his later experiences are more or less repetitions and variations of the same theme (Rovit 98). Hemingways field of vision was filled with cruelty, violence and pain. It bids fair to become his only theme, but soon another is added: What does one do to survive? Hemingways answer: fishing and hunting. This was because Hemingway, at 14, experienced the loss of his father through suicide, and was left with the skills of fishing and hunting that he had learned from his father as a young boy (Young 15). The lonely man with the rod fishing endlessly up and down a river seeks what all fisherman with a spiritual life get out of fishing: peace of soul. In its universality it quite simply belongs with being outdoors, with being alone in the woods and camping out, sleeping deeply, and looking at the river when you wake. The fish has purity as a life element. The fly, hook, or the spoon bait that enters the water sinks in reality down into the mind. The theme of fishing is exemplary in Hemingways The Old Man and the Sea. Here the man and his fate are all alone: man, sky, sea and boat. All external circumstances are taken away, only the human and the battle remain. Deep under this man in his boat there moves a being, wet, shiny, big and strange. This is the fish. It is lifes mystery that he has beneath him. He is on the ocean with life (Brenner 67). The old man pursues this mystery alone on his vessel. For three days it drags him out to sea. He talks to the fish, and he understands it. He is close to the very inmost, ultimate thing in life. And yet he takes the fishes life. He then sails back to land with the swordfish latched to the side of the boat. To him, this