senior seminar paper

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Waldenberg 1 Hana Vaughn Waldenberg ENG 418- Christopher Wise August 9, 2015 Senior Seminar Paper Life & Death (Ever Returning On its Course) What is death? Is death defined as what happens when our heart stops beating once and for all, or are there other sub definitions of the word? The dictionary definition of death is “the end of life, the time where someone or something dies” and also “the permanent end of something that is not alive, the ruin or destruction of something” (Merriam-Webster). How are different types of death received and can one type of death be “better” or more heroic than another? In Hemingway’s writing, I have often found that his descriptions of death extend beyond the ending of a life and point towards the extinction of something that can only be felt. The physical death of a person is of course inevitable, but this other type of death is much vaguer and perhaps happens several, maybe countless times in a person’s life time. The death I am speaking of can only be described as the death of one’s hopes, ambitions and personal will to live. Hemingway also seems to question what it means to die nobly, and for something you believe

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Page 1: senior seminar paper

Waldenberg 1

Hana Vaughn Waldenberg

ENG 418- Christopher Wise

August 9, 2015

Senior Seminar Paper

Life & Death (Ever Returning On its Course)

What is death? Is death defined as what happens when our heart stops beating once and for all, or

are there other sub definitions of the word? The dictionary definition of death is “the end of life, the time

where someone or something dies” and also “the permanent end of something that is not alive, the ruin or

destruction of something” (Merriam-Webster). How are different types of death received and can one

type of death be “better” or more heroic than another? In Hemingway’s writing, I have often found that

his descriptions of death extend beyond the ending of a life and point towards the extinction of something

that can only be felt. The physical death of a person is of course inevitable, but this other type of death is

much vaguer and perhaps happens several, maybe countless times in a person’s life time. The death I am

speaking of can only be described as the death of one’s hopes, ambitions and personal will to live.

Hemingway also seems to question what it means to die nobly, and for something you believe in; at times

I believe he even questions whether the way we die matters or if it is a mere device, a cliché (like the light

at the end of the tunnel) used to give people hope that dying won’t be the end. Throughout this paper, I

will analyze excerpts of short stories and novels Hemingway has written in order to try and track this

theme of death, both physical and emotional, in his work, while simultaneously questioning

Hemingway’s motivation in painting death in the light which he does.

To begin with, I will analyze the ideas of death present in “Soldier’s Home”. In this story a

soldier called Krebs comes home from war and must deal with not being validated by anyone unless he

tells them what they want to hear and not merely what he personally experienced.

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“At first Krebs, who had been at Belleau Wood, Soissons, the Champagne, St. Mihiel and

in the Argonne did not want to talk about the war at all. Later he felt the need to talk but

no one wanted to hear about it. His town had heard too many atrocity stories to be thrilled

by actualities. Krebs found that to be listened to at all he had to lie, and after he had done

this twice he, too, had a reaction against the war and against talking about it. A distaste

for everything that had happened to him in the war set in because of the lies he had

told”(111).

Krebs’ inability to be himself with people is resulting in a loneliness that begins to make him feel numb

and maybe even dead to the world he returned to from war. Although he was an active participant in the

war and likely has true stories of his own to tell, maybe even stories he needs to tell to feel okay about

what happened, he is silenced by the ignorance of others and their lack of interest in the truth. When no

one cares what experiences you have it becomes awfully hard to care about anyone.

“‘I’ve worried about you too much, Harold,” his mother went on. “I know the

temptations you must have been exposed to. I know how weak men are. I know what

your own dear grandfather, my own father, told us about the Civil War and I have prayed

for you. I pray for you all day long, Harold.” Krebs looked at the bacon fat hardening on

his plate. “Your father is worried, too,” his mother went on. “He thinks you have lost

your ambition, that you haven’t got a definite aim in life’”(115).

In this quote where his mother talks of his lack of ambition, it points to a much bigger side effect of war.

After all this fighting and all this lying to impress people Krebs still has a hard time feeling like he did

anything, maybe now he feels ambition is shallow and even useless. Ambition does not matter compared

to some of the experiences he has had. How can you return from war with no one thanking you and still

have hope for new things to come? Perhaps a lack of hope and ambition is a type of death as well.

“‘Don’t you love your mother, dear boy?’

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‘No,’ Krebs said.

His mother looked at him across the table. Her eyes were shiny. She started crying.

‘I don’t love anybody,’ Krebs said.

It wasn’t any good. He couldn’t tell her, he couldn’t make her see it. It was silly to have said

it’”(116).

Krebs seems to feel he understands something his mother does not. He doesn’t seem to have emotions for

people the way his other does for him. Judging by the context, it seems this is not always how Krebs has

been, it’s as though he changed since being gone at war. Perhaps he has a sort of nihilistic point of view

on life where he just feels nothing matters. Emotions likely have no place in war, and it seems Krebs feels

that nothing he learned or sacrificed in the war has anyplace at home so he must feel very bitter and alone

and this relationship between him and his mother is somewhat dead because of it. He tries to do her small

favors by pretending things are not different between them and in his outlook on life but this is a lie and

he knows it. He is also probably feeling rejected by society as they did not celebrate his return the way

they celebrated soldiers who came home earlier. He’s not the war hero they were expecting and so they

don’t know how to label him; but Krebs doesn’t know who to be now either. He experiences a sort of

death of self when he must continuously lie about what happened in the war to please or even to be talked

to by others. He cares about receiving affirmation that what he did was right but he doesn’t even entirely

believe that it was as he cannot even see himself having a place in the kingdom of heaven. Since he is not

receiving affirmation about what really happened and he is not receiving grace from his parents because

they can’t see that he needs time to recover, his ability and will to love other people also seems to have

died.

In “Indian Camp” I observe both physical and metaphoric death. The Doctor in the story has

brought his son Nick to watch him deliver a baby and things happen that even the doctor couldn’t quite

anticipate. When they get to the Indian Camp and into the cabin he says “This lady is going to have a

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baby, Nick”. Nick replies that he knows and then his father responds “You don’t know” (68). This seems

inconsequential until it is thought about in the grand scheme of life. Nick realizes that the purpose of his

and his father’s journey is to deliver a baby for this laboring woman but he does not understand other

facets of what having a baby means; such as the pressure the father of the baby is feeling, or the sadness

the baby and baby’s mother will later feel. Nick quite literally cannot understand the weight of bringing

new life into the world and what that feels like to those involved. The responsibility of caring for this new

small life could feel like death to some people, some feel the responsibility is too great to bear and they

do not want it for themselves. It’s hard to say whether Nick’s father was speaking to the complexity of

life when he told Nick he didn’t know, but it certainly applies that Nick would know as little about the

responsibility of a new life as he would about the mechanics of birthing a child. When the Doctor has

delivered the baby, he has the idea that he should check on the father.

“‘ Ought to have a look at the proud father. They’re usually the worst sufferers in these little

affairs,’ the Doctor said. ‘I must say he took it all pretty quietly.’ He pulled the blanket back from

the Indian’s head. It came away wet. He mounted on the edge of the lower bunk with the lamp in

one hand and looked in. The Indian lay with his face toward the wall. His throat had been cut

from ear to ear.”(69).

The line about fathers being the worst sufferers is truly very interesting. Hemingway himself was of

course a father and while one cannot claim this has direct personal meaning to his own life, it must be

considered since he wrote the short story about the suicide of a father. Physically it must be said that the

woman in labor would be the “worst sufferer” but here the Doctor asserts that it is in fact the man who

suffers most. Does this mean men suffer most when new life comes about? Is the “proud father” line there

to be ironic? Perhaps Hemingway is asserting that there is no pride in new life, just as there is no pride in

death. Both life and death are natural but sometimes quite unwelcome. This scene does portray a very

interesting metaphor though; the Indian would rather cut his own throat, killing himself than be exposed

to new life. Maybe this is to imply that some find death easier to manage than life.

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“‘ Take Nick out of the shanty, George,’ the Doctor said.

There was no need of that. Nick, standing in the door of the kitchen, had a good view of the upper

bunk when his father, the lamp in one hand, tipped the Indian’s head back. It was beginning to be

daylight when they waked along the logging road back toward the lake.

‘I’m terribly sorry I brought you along, Nickie,’ said his father, all his post-operative exhilaration

gone. ‘It was an awful mess to put you through.’

‘Do ladies always have such a hard time having babies?’ Nick asked.

‘No, that was very exceptional.’

‘Why did he kill himself, Daddy?’

‘I don’t know, Nick. He couldn’t stand things, I guess.’

‘Do many men kill themselves, Daddy?’

‘Not very many, Nick.’

‘Do many women?’

‘Hardly ever.’

‘Don’t they ever?’

‘Oh, yes. They do sometimes.’

…‘Is dying hard, Daddy?’

‘No, I think it’s pretty easy Nick. It all depends’”(69-70).

The Doctor is clearly unhappy with how much of life he has allowed his son to view; he would have liked

to keep him sheltered from death probably for a little bit longer. The Doctor seems more upset than Nick,

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Nick is merely curious about death and who is capable of taking their own life. The part about women

“hardly ever” killing themselves is really interesting, the doctor obviously feels men have it really rough.

These questions Nick is asking imply that he is growing up. When he is witnessing the birth he does not

want to see it and it is too much for him, “his curiosity had been gone for a long time” is what the novel

says about him not wanting to watch the gory birth. However here we see his curiosity shift to death; he

feels life is self-explanatory, as he says at the beginning he “knows” the woman is having a baby, but it

feels his father is almost the opposite; his father appears to think death is somewhat natural and self-

explanatory and this passage shows Nick beginning to think about death as being as natural as life and

maybe even easier than life. After all, he didn’t even hear the Indian man in the top bunk make a sound,

but there he went, quietly in the night. The woman however had a very hard labor so, quite literally, it

must appear to Nick that death is more painless than life. I don’t think this is a part of Nick dying as much

as it is a part of him growing, it is as though he knows death better now and while he is still afraid of it,

the beginning and end of life are likely on a more even playing field for him now that he has witnessed

the progression and end of both.

The next story I want to discuss is “Hills like White Elephants”. In this story we see at least a few

types of death being discussed. The first type is the literal death or termination of pregnancy that

represents the end of a fetus’ path to life.

“‘I’ll go with you and I’ll stay with you all the time. They just let the air in and then it’s all

perfectly natural.’

‘Then what will we do afterwards?’

‘We’ll be fine afterwards. Just like we were before.’

‘What makes you think so?’

‘That’s the only thing that bothers us. It’s the only thing that’s made us unhappy.’

The girl looked at the bead curtain, put her hand out and took hold of two of the strings of

beads.

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‘And you think then we’ll be all right and be happy.’

‘I know we will. You don’t have to be afraid. I’ve known lots of people that have done

it.’”(212).

“Hills like White Elephants” depicts a couple at a crossroads in their relationship. The crossroads itself is

implied as there has been no ultimatum, but it seems the woman feels the man she is with will only love

her if she does not have the baby she is pregnant with. He works hard to persuade her to do it but the

woman needs almost no persuading because she is so eager to please him.

“‘That’s the only thing that bothers us. It’s the only thing that’s made us unhappy.’

The girl looked at the bead curtain, put her hand out and took hold of two of the strings of beads.

‘And you think then we’ll be all right and be happy.’

‘I know we will. You don’t have to be afraid. I’ve known lots of people that have done it.’”(212).

This excerpt of the text seems like it is discussing more than an abortion to me. The text explicitly

discusses how life will change and that it has been done before but I think this can be read as talking

about natural death as well as the termination of a pregnancy. The line where he says “You don’t have to

be afraid. I’ve known lots of people that have done it” sounds like it could be applied to several things but

in this instance I find it interesting to play with the subject of this line. The woman is so uncertain if she

can ever be happy after she has the abortion and it is very reminiscent of the story “Indian Camp” where

the father of the newborn was so sure his happiness was over that he went ahead and ended his life

because it was perhaps easier to kill himself then to live on. The outcome of life and death are equally

unknown and it seems one of the only reassurances we have as humans are that others before us have both

lived and died. These are small consolations and are likely why we have clichés about living a good life

that are popularly said at weddings, funerals, and everywhere in between. It seems like clichés are used to

reassure people of their fate when no one has anything of substance or concrete truth to support the claim

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that “we’ll be alright and happy”. When there is no real answer to “what happens after you die” you must

have some pretense of faith in a God, a good life, or good times in order to not feel you’ve been cheated

at the end of your life. In this next passage the two discuss how if they end the possibility of the fetus

living, they will then have another shot at living the life they once lived; the life before the death of their

freedom. Later in the story the two discuss whether the man will love the woman more if she terminates

the pregnancy.

“‘I don’t care about me.’

‘Well, I care about you.’

‘Oh, yes. But I don’t care about me. And I’ll do it and then everything will be fine’”(213).

As we see the woman making choices simply to please the man she loves we also see a sort of death of

the individual that happens when she no longer cares about herself at all but instead only cares about

keeping the person she loves in her life and making him happy at whatever cost. Soon after this passage

comes her realization that something about their opportunity has shifted, there’s the need for the surgery

now and the weight of it isn’t something she can ignore.

“‘We can have the whole world.’

‘No, we can’t.’

‘We can go everywhere.’

‘No, we can’t. It isn’t ours anymore.’

‘It’s ours.’

‘No, it isn’t. And once they take it away, you never get it back’”(213).

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Somehow, the woman feels that the world isn’t really for her anymore, like she has done something to

deserve it less or has seen something she cannot un see and now will never be able to blithely live in this

world she understands too well. This seems like a death of her naivety and innocence. Now that she

knows some of life’s un-pleasantries it seems she cares about living maybe a little bit less because she

will never live in the same way again. Clearly this death of innocence is not true physical death but

instead perhaps the death of how this woman perceived the world. She is incapable of seeing it this way

anymore; it cannot be undone or reversed.

In For Whom the Bell Tolls there is a lot of talk of life and death and how the time for each is

decided by duty. Robert Jordan is a complex character who sees both reasons for living and reasons for

dying while simultaneously recognizing that he almost has to convince himself that there is a reason to

die fighting for a cause.

“Dying was nothing and he had no picture of it nor fear of it in his mind. But living was a field of

grain bowing in the wind on the side of a hill. Living was a hawk in the sky. Living was an

earthen jar of water in the dust of the threshing with the grain flailed out and the chaff blowing.

Living was a horse between your legs and a carbine under one leg and a hill and a valley and a

stream with trees along it and the far side of the valley and the hills beyond” (312-313).

It is clear, now he has fallen in love with Maria he feels his life has only just begun, maybe now more

than ever there are more good reasons to live than to die- but he has to fight among his comrades who

have a common hatred of fascism in order to win the war.

“He looked down the hill slope again and he thought, I hate to leave it, is all. I hate to leave it

very much and I hope I have done some good in it. I have tried with what talent I had. Have, you

mean. All right, have” (467).

In this last quote Robert Jordan is reflecting on his life although he has not yet died. He knows this is it

for him and hopes he has done enough in his life to warrant this death, because if he hasn’t that means he

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has lived an unfulfilled life. He also has the comfort of believing that he and Maria will be together

always, even after death so this must help him to feel ready to die. He sees death as being something one

does after they have tended to all of their responsibilities and duties. It is interesting to see how different

soldiers manage their impending death and strive to come to terms with it.

“Passionaria says ‘Better to die on thy-’” Joaquin was saying to himself as the drone came nearer

them. Then he shifted suddenly into “Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee; Blessed art

thou among women and Blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray

for us sinners now and at the hour of our death. Amen. Holy Mary, Mother of God,” he started,

then he remembered quickly, as the roar came now unbearably and started an act of contrition

racing in it, “Oh my God, I am heartily sorry for having offended thee who art worthy of all my

love-”(321).

Joaquin is afraid and unsure how to reassure himself in the face of death. He begins by reciting one cliché

that brings him comfort and when that is not enough he begins on another cliché, praying to Mary to save

his soul. Joaquin might generally believe and have faith that this will save him or he might be acting out

of fear and uncertainty. It is a clear theme in Hemingway’s novels for people to hold fast to familiar

clichés in order to calm themselves down and make a new transition feel easier or more certain. Even

belief in what you are fighting for isn’t always enough to keep people from fearing death.

The short story “A Clean, Well-Lighted Place” has a quote which acts to contradict Joaquin’s

reliance on religion in his time of need.

"Some lived in it but never felt it but knew it all was nada y pues nada y nada y pues nada. Our

nada who art in nada, nada be thy name thy kingdom nada thy will be nada in nada as it is in

nada. Give us this nada our daily nada and nada us our nada as we nada our nadas and nada us not

into nada but deliver us from nada; pues nada" (291).

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This passage shows that it’s all crap, nothing matters, nothing has meaning, and the one we pray for is

nothing and gives us nothing. It reminds me of the quote on page 178 of A farewell To Arms where it says

“in defeat we become Christians.” This is really important because it knocks down the clichés I

previously mentioned and takes a hard, nihilistic look at life. Nothing matters, not life, not death, not your

feelings about life or death or even whether you choose life or death; it’s unsettling but at least everything

is the same. This scares most people and would likely not be helpful to think about if you were going into

battle. It is hard to consider life and death, look it straight in the eyes and just say “deliver us from nada”

and that’s why this excerpt is so chilling next to Joaquin’s unabashed need for faith in something.

Similarly in the film American Sniper Bradley Cooper’s character, Chris Kyle claims his friend

was dead the moment he wrote a letter home questioning his purpose in the war and whether it was a

good reason to be fighting a war at all. Robert Jordan is constantly questioning throughout the whole

novel but I believe he would assert that questioning is inevitable and a part of life and would not at all

advocate brainwashing one’s self to serve a cause no matter what you personally believe. It’s like that

saying “I think (doubt) therefore I am”. I think that is a death of self quite similar to what we saw in

“Hills like White Elephants”. If you aren’t living for yourself or what you believe in, are you really living

at all? What kind of life is that? Is it any better than death? Is there anymore bravery in living than there is

in fighting for one’s country on principle? Maybe both are just the noble, popular things to do.

In A Farewell to Arms Fredrick Henry falls in love with Catherine and then is expecting a child

with her. Once the baby is born there is an interaction between Fredrick Henry and the nurse that is

reminiscent of what might have happened had the baby’s father lived in “Indian Camp”.

“A doctor came in followed by a nurse. He held something in his two hands that looked like a

freshly skinned rabbit and hurried across the corridor with it and I through another door. I went

down to the door he had gone into and found them in the room doing things to a new-born child.

The doctor held him up for me to see. He held him by the heels and slapped him.

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‘Is he all right?’

‘He’s magnificent. He’ll weigh five kilos.’

I had no feeling for him. He did not seem to have anything to do with me. I felt no feeling of

fatherhood.

‘Aren’t you proud of your son?’ the nurse asked. They were washing him and wrapping him in

something. I saw the little dark face and dark hand, but I did not see him move or hear him cry.

The doctor was doing something to him again. He looked upset.

‘No,’ I said. ‘He nearly killed his mother’”(325).

Fredrick Henry was not happy about the new life of his son if it meant losing the life of the woman he

loved. His fatherhood to the child is conditional on whether or not birthing the boy kills Catherine. The

life of the one was entirely unwelcome if it meant the death of the mother. This is a new relationship of

life and death that we have not yet seen in Hemingway’s stories. If Catherine dies, so too does Fredrick

Henry’s chance at happiness. If the boy had died and the mother had lived perhaps Fredrick Henry would

believe life could go on, like in “Hills like White Elephants”. Perhaps life is not worth the sacrifice of

another life. Not in the war Fredrick Henry has lost belief in and not in his family life. Catherine had

given him hope that even though the war was not what he had thought he could find solace in a new life

with her but now even that possibility dies with her. With his wife’s death Fredrick Henry loses all hope

and likely any motivation to move on. Perhaps the reason Fredrick Henry felt no bond to his son was

because he was not yet sure of the cost of his birth, he still didn’t know if Catherine was alright. It seems

unlikely that Fredrick Henry would father this baby if it had lived. So maybe the way someone comes to

life and the way someone dies does matter in this case; because if you die at the cost of another’s life that

puts things in a different light. Maybe it doesn’t make it nobler or meaningful but instead makes it

changed, like the part in “Hills like White Elephants” where the woman feels like the world is no longer

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hers anymore. If Fredrick Henry’s son had lived and caused the death of his mother his father would

never be able to see him with joy ever again, and therefor would not identify as the boy’s father.

Hemingway derived the name of The Sun Also Rises from a verse found in the bible, Ecclesiastes

1:4-6 which says “Generations come and generations go, but the earth remains forever. The sun rises and

the sun sets and hurries back to where it rises. The wind blows to the south and turns to the north; round

and round it goes, ever returning on its course.” This is such a great quote when considering the cycle of

life and death and how both come in different circumstances but are inevitable. I think there is comfort in

knowing that you will definitely live and definitely die. If those are the only guarantees there can’t be

much disappointment, there can’t be much purpose either but it sets all humans as equals, in a way. It’s

interesting to think about people discussing whether a life was noble or fully lived or whether a death was

heroic or cowardly. How do those labels function? What do they tell us really, they classify life and death

but does life and death need any sort of attempt at classification? It will show up with or without being

classified. I think most people who would look at The Sun Also Rises would see Jake Barnes and pity him,

and maybe they would feel he had a bad life. But those around him had “bad lives” in different ways.

Lady Brett will likely never be satisfied or made whole by anyone, not even herself yet Jake Barnes

seems to have come to terms with his life and his injury as well. Jake seems to divulge some meaning in

life through his pursuit of the Catholic faith. Since Jake Barnes sustained an injury in the war, his sexual

and romantic life has pretty much died. He is a lot like Jesus in how he feels the temptations of the flesh

but never acquiesces; only he doesn’t have the choice to give in. By default this makes him good at being

religious and adhering to the scriptures. Jake’s particular condition could represent a death of choice; he is

never asked if he wishes to remain celibate but his body requires that he must and so by default

Catholicism fits his lifestyle well. He isn’t like most people because most people embrace clichés for

comfort but instead; Jake Barnes almost is a cliché. He’s a perfect candidate for Catholicism and

abstinence but it wasn’t his choice; how do you believe in something you never wanted chose to be a part

of? This is somewhat similar to people who are drafted into the military and then must fight in a war that

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they may not particularly believe in. This seems to track themes of friendship and shows us several

scenarios that would constitute the death of a friendship as Jake finds several of his friends annoying,

often mediating their fights and Lady Brett bores him with the details of her every love interest.

“At the end of the street I saw the cathedral and walked up toward it. The first time I saw it I

thought the façade was ugly but liked it now. I went inside. It was dim and dark and the pillars

went high up, and there were people praying, and it smelt of incense, and there were some

wonderful big windows. I knelt and started to pray and prayed for everybody I thought of, Brett

and Mike and Bill and Robert Cohn and myself, and all the bullfighters, separately for the ones I

liked, and lumping all the rest, then I prayed for myself again, and while I was praying for myself

I found I was getting sleepy, so I prayed that the bull fights would be good, and that it would be a

fine fiesta, and that we would get some fishing. I wondered if there was anything else I might

pray for, and I thought I would like to have some money, so I prayed that I would make a lot of

money, and then I started to think how I would make it, and thinking of making money reminded

me of the count, and I started wondering about where he was, and regretting I hadn’t seen him

that last night in Montmartre, and about something funny Brett told me about him, and as all the

time I was kneeling with my forehead on the wood in front of me, and was thinking of myself as

praying, I was a little ashamed, and regretted that I was such a rotten Catholic, but realized there

was nothing I could do about it, at least for a while, and maybe never, but that anyway it was a

grand religion, and I only wished I felt religious and maybe I would the next time..”(102-103).

Although it would seem Jake Barnes is built to be a Catholic, the act of praying to an unseen God with

reverence and devotion still doesn’t come naturally to him. He can’t quite contrive the devotion required

to buy into this religion but he feels like he should, or maybe he feels like he might as well in his position.

People and parts of people die in all sorts of ways and we see that throughout Hemingway’s

work. There is a constant question of life and death and which is easiest and I don’t think Hemingway

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ever answers that question but rather raises the question. I think he wanted to make people ask questions

about the conventions we have for life and death and to maybe blur the lines of morality having anything

to do with making the choice to live or die. The questions of life and death are summed up in this word

oblivion. Oblivion is “the state of something that is not remembered, used, or thought about any more, the

state of being unconscious or unaware, the state of not knowing what is going on around you, the state of

being destroyed” (Merriam-Webster). This might be the real theme in all of Hemingway’s work because

it does not just encompass death but life too. Many people fear dying because they don’t know what that

will look like for them. Will it be Heaven or Hell or something better or something worse? Is there a God

to answer to and do I want there to be? Will I be remembered when I am gone and for what? I believe

Hemingway embraces oblivion wholeheartedly. We cannot know, we can only hope to guess if there is

meaning, if any of it is worth anything and if the nobility with which we lived our lives will ever matter

or be called into question by a God. I believe Hemingway often conveyed in his novels that there is no

right or wrong, there is feeling good and feeling bad and times where we desire life and death but really,

all the labels like dying a hero’s death or dying a cowards death or living life to the fullest (clichés)

merely act as hopeful attempts at classifying that which cannot be classified and knowing that which

cannot be known. Is it nobler to be a father to your baby or remove yourself from the life of a baby you

could never love? Was it worth fighting in a war for what you believe in if you die at the end or worse

still, if you live at the end? Krebs is not dead but he seems dead in the way he now lives. The fear of what

will come after an abortion, can you find yourself again after death, the fear of consequences and if the

right choice was made. Maybe this is oblivion; no one knows but people try both in the hopes of grasping

an answer. And clichés abound in support of both. But all we know is life and death; “generations come

and generations go but the earth shall remain forever”. That is all we know and it is likely Hemingway

would question whether we could even know that much for sure.

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Works Cited

Hemingway, Ernest. “A Clean, Well-Lighted Place.” The Complete Short Stories of Ernest Hemingway.

New York, NY: Scribner, 1987. 288-291. Print.

Eastwood, Clint, dir. American Sniper. Perf. Bradley Cooper. 2015. DVD-ROM.

Bible Gateway. N.p., n.d. Web. 11 Aug. 2015. Path: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?

search=Ecclesiastes+1&version=NIV.

Hemingway, Ernest. For Whom the Bell Tolls. New York, NY: Scribner, 1940. 1-471. Print.

Hemingway, Ernest. “Hills Like White Elephants.” The Complete Short Stories of Ernest Hemingway.

New York, NY: Scribner, 1987. 211-214. Print.

Hemingway, Ernest. “Indian Camp.” The Complete Short Stories of Ernest Hemingway. New York,

NY: Scribner, 1987. 67-70. Print.

Merriam-Webster. N.p., n.d. Web. 6 Aug. 2015. Path: www.merriam-webster.com

Hemingway, Ernest. “Soldier’s Home.” The Complete Short Stories of Ernest Hemingway. New York,

NY: Scribner, 1987. 111-116. Print.

Hemingway, Ernest. The Sun Also Rises. New York, NY: Scribner, 1926. 1-250. Print.