Where can I find analyses of Hemingway's story,
"Hills Like White Elephants"?
For criticism on this story, see the Ernest Hemingway Bibliography.
Here you will find an extensive listing of books and critical essays on Hemingway's work. Scroll down to the section that says, "Books Discussing Many Hemingway Works." Some of these books may have analyses of "Hills Like White Elephants,"
especially Earl Rovit's Ernest Hemingway. He tries to cover most of Hemingway's novels and short stories.
One other place to find various criticism is in Contemporary Literary Criticism published by the Gale Research Company. Each volume has hundreds of excerpts of critical commentary on a wide range of literature. Hemingway is featured in numerous volumes (6, 8, 19, 30, 41, 61, to name a few). You are likely to find something on "Hills Like White Elephants" here.
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How do I analyze Hemingway's depiction of women?
Hemingway's characterization of women is a fascinating one.
The Sun Also Rises and A Farewell to Arms are good places to start. Though do not neglect Hemingway's later work, especially the posthumous novel, The Garden of Eden.
Here the depictions of women and men are rather strange, for Hemingway that is, but perhaps illustrative of how his views of women changed throughout his life. Some critics have held Hemingway's four marriages accountable for these
changes. I, however, feel his views of women solidified much earlier on (perhaps during childhood and young adulthood). As you will see in The Garden of Eden, as his narrative structure loses its rigidity, his eccentric views of women and of women in men
(an erotic blending of the sexes of sorts) becomes exposed.
The following articles and books should help you to generate some fine insights:
Comley, Nancy R. and Robert Scholes. Hemingway's Genders: Rereading the Hemingway Text. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1994. (Probably the best scholarly work on this topic. Sheds interesting light on Hemingway's interest in homosexuality and androgyny.)
Bernice Kert's The Hemingway Women is exclusively devoted to a discussion of the women in Hemingway's life. More biographical than critical.
Latham, Aaron. "A Farewell to Machismo." The New York Times Magazine, 16 October 1977, 51-55, 80-82, 94-99. (Title speaks for itself.)
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What story can I compare to Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea?
The Old Man and the Sea
is a wonderful work to analyze, one rich with irony and symbolism (though Hemingway didn't seem to think so). You may want to focus on the seemingly
strong religious implications, or the dynamics of the relationship between Manolin and the old man, or how the boy is initiated
into manhood (as are many of Hemingway's male characters), or the familiar Hemingwayesque theme of what one loves must eventually be destroyed.
In comparing this novel to another Hemingway work, "My Old Man" is a good choice if you are inclined to discuss the similarities/differences between the old man gambler and the old man fisherman or the similarities/differences between the young narrator of "My Old Man" and Manolin, especially in regards to their feelings towards their elders. If you choose to focus on boy's initiation into manhood, almost any of the Nick Adams stories could be used ("Indian Camp" or "The End of Something").
One other interesting point concerns the whole concept of the "code hero" in relation to Santiago. Scholar Philip Young has noted that Santiago is the first of Hemingway's "code heroes" to have become old. Why is this? And why does this particular depiction of the hero appear so much later on in Hemingway's writing career (The Old Man and the Sea being published in 1952)?
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How do I analyze Hemingway's
view of masculinity in works like A Farewell to Arms, "The End of Something," "Cat in the Rain," and "Hills Like White Elephants"?
In order to
define the degree of masculinity in Hemingway's men, I believe it's important to first define the degree of feminine influence as perceived through the relational
experience between the characters. Examine the relationships and interactions between Frederic and Catherine, Nick and Marjorie, the husband and American wife, and Jig and
the American man. Is the female character given an identity in the midst of her relationship with the man? If she is lacking an identity, does this help to enhance the male's masculine
identity? In Hemingway, masculinity is often achieved through some act of negation, though there was first the desire for unity with the female (usually sexual unity), the want
of relationship, even if just for experience sake. What exactly is the male negating in the stories you mention above? Does his negation cause him to maintain/restore his masculinity?
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How are relationships explored in the story, "Fathers and Sons"?
"Fathers and Sons"
explores how a middle-aged Nick Adams chooses to remember his father and how he will choose to pass the memory of his father onto his own young son.
Driving through an unfamiliar town with his son asleep in the seat next to him, passing the "corn fields" and "thickets" of the countryside, Nick is reminded of his father. As Nick begins thinking of his father, he first recalls the physical attributes, notably his father's eyes that saw with the accuracy of a "big-horn ram" or an "eagle." He admires his father's eyes only as they are used for hunting. The clarity of vision that his father possessed could be linked to the clarity of the vision that is emerging in the mind's eye of Nick.
During his reverie, Nick also recalls the occasion when he was introduced to the word "mashing" in the morning newspaper. Nick is curious to know the word's significance. As he has done before in "Indian Camp," he appeals to his father as the knowledgeable authority. His father tells him that mashing is masturbation and if practiced regularly can result in unfortunate physical and mental handicaps. One of the handicaps he mentions is blindness. Not entirely satisfied with the superficial explanation he receives, Nick's curiosity about mashing persists. He wonders if his father has ever committed this heinous act. Reminding himself of his father's acute eyes, Nick quickly dismisses such a thought. We get the sense that in his remembrance of his father, Nick is trying very hard to control the heroic image of the man.
The story ends with several awakenings. Nick's son awakens from his snooze. The boy asks a question, which awakens Nick from his reflective trance. And later as Nick futilely tries to explain to his young son why they never visit the grave of grandfather, this serves as another awakening of sorts: Nick's probable attempt to make the memory of his father a better memory for his own son.
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How do we analyze the characters of Hemingway's story, "In Another Country"?
In many of Hemingway's war stories, a certain character often feels alienation or isolation from
himself or from a group. In this story, it is the unnamed narrator who is a stranger "in another country." While he recognizes that he and the other soldiers being treated
in the hospital have the same medals, he knows that his wounds are the least serious and that he earned his medals more by being an American than any single act of bravery.
While a part of narrator wants to belong and be accepted into this heroic group of soldiers, he willfully admits that he is afraid to die and would not have performed the courageous acts the others had performed to obtain their medals. According to the narrator, the major, who is also being treated at the hospital, does not believe in bravery.
We sense in this story that the soldiers, particularly the major, are alive physically, but dead emotionally. The horrors of war have conditioned them to turn their feelings on and off like the machines that are being used to help them recuperate. The machines are mechanical, robotic, and programmed to assist in their rehabilitation. The soldiers and the major seem to be adapting the same mechanical, programmed routine to cope with their emotional and psychological wounds.
Some wounds, however, are just too painful. The major has lost his young wife to pneumonia. As he stares out the window surrounded by photographs on the wall, the "before and after" photos showing the miracle restorative powers of the machines, we realize that there are some wounds that can never heal.
