Norton’s in 100 years

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“Are all men men alike, or do in all writers of legend seem to be as the men which I am?” - Wilson Hines

Mrs. Spicer has told us the only things which matter, the only thing which will last, or

which sells in literature are things which “come from the heart.” For that reason alone,

I chose Ernest Hemingway.

1. His Company: “Matters of the Heart”

a. Mark Twain has been dead 100 years. He has a brand new biography.

b. Charles Dickens – 141 years.

c. Thomas Payne – 212 yrs., Common sense written in 1776.

d. Shakespeare – Everything is about the heart.

e. Canterbury Tales

f. Beowulf

g. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.

2. “Now he would never write the things that he had saved to write until he knew

enough to write them well. Well, he would not have to fail at trying to write them

either. Maybe you could never write them, and that was why you put them off and

delayed the starting. Well, he would never know, now.” – Snows of Kilimanjaro.

a. Critical: “Recording the last few hours of a writer dying of gangrene in the

African wilderness, the narrative is virtually without action; its central

conflict is a psychological one, Harry's bitter fight with himself.” -

(Hovey, web)

Norton’s in 100 years

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It took no action.

No blood shed of another.

No rape. No famine.

No race baiting.

No lusts.

Simply, fear.

And Fear, is the core animal of the heart itself.

Fear is the antagonist of Love.

3. “He remembered long ago when Williamson, the bombing officer, had been hit by

a stick bomb some one in a German patrol had thrown as he was coming in

through the wire that night and, screaming, had begged everyone to kill him. He

was a fat man, very brave, and a good officer, although addicted to fantastic

shows. But that night he was caught in the wire, with a flare lighting him up and

his bowels spilled out into the wire, so when they brought him in, alive, they had

to cut him loose. Shoot me, Harry. For Christ sake shoot me. They had an

argument one time about our Lord never sending you anything you could not bear

and someone's theory had been that meant that a certain time the pain passed you

out automatically. But he had always remembered Williamson, that night.

Nothing passed out Williamson until he gave him all his morphine tablets that he

had always saved to use himself and then they did not work right away.” (Snows

of Kilimanjaro).

a. Critic: “Their frequency (the monologues) increases towards the end of the

narrative when Harry approaches death.” – Robert Stallman, Bloom’s

Major Short Story Writers. (MacDonald, web)

b. The italic monologues intensify, become more about death than life. They

become more frequent.

Norton’s in 100 years

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4. Quotes:

a. “Dostoevsky was made by being sent to Siberia. Writers are forged in

injustice as a sword is forged.” - Hemingway, Green Hills of Africa, pg.

97.

b. “…Whatever success I have had has been through writing what I know

about.” - To Maxwell Perkins, 1928. Selected Letters, pg. 273.

Cites:

MacDonald, Scott. "Hemingway's 'The Snows of Kilimanjaro': Three

Critical Problems," Studies in Short Fiction 11, No. 1 (Winter 1974): 67–74.

Quoted as "Italics" in Harold Bloom, ed. Ernest Hemingway, Bloom's Major

Short Story Writers. Philadelphia: Chelsea House Publishing, 1999. (Updated

2007.) Bloom's Literary Reference Online. Facts On File, Inc. http://goo.gl/4jsNr

(accessed May 6, 2011).

Hovey, Richard. Hemingway: The Inward Terrain (Seattle: University of

Washington Press, 1968): 127–128. Quoted as "Autobiographical Parallels" in

Harold Bloom, ed. Ernest Hemingway, Bloom's Major Short Story Writers.

Philadelphia: Chelsea House Publishing, 1999. (Updated 2007.) Bloom's Literary

Reference Online. Facts On File, Inc. http://goo.gl/vmLyX (accessed May 6,

2011).