Week 7

Ernest Hemingway (1899-1961),  at 18

How do we identify or define the central character, the protagonist, that is? Usually, the sheer attention given to one character over all others makes the matter simple. Still, it helps to apply certain tests.  What is the central conflict of the story? And who faces it most directly? That is, for whom is there more at stake in the issue?

Let's take "Hills Like White Elephants,"  by Ernest Hemingway, and "Popular Mechanics," by Raymond Carver, as examples, for they are difficult cases that may give rise to different interpretations and answers and show how questions such as who is the central character can serve to make us read more attentively, even if no easy answer is forthcoming. Much of what makes these two stories interesting is the style they exhibit, which has been given a name:  minimalism.  Hemingway began his career as a journalist, and the economy of news reports shaped his style.  Often there is little context or exposition provided. He stuck with the facts and unadorned objective description using mostly simple, plain words or diction and uncluttered declarative sentences.  He stripped out unnecessary commas for better flow and rhythm, removed tag phrases identifying speakers when possible. He avoided narrators who tell us what to think or signal emotions and themes overtly. He believed the implicit meanings lay below the surface details, which he explains in his iceberg theory.  Often he provides no resolution in his stories and a neutral or even nihilistic tone.  His style was very influential and in 1954 he won the Nobel Prize for literature.

Raymond Carver (1938-1988) is credited with reviving the short story in the 1970s and has a short story style resembling that of Hemingway (though each elaborated changes in style over the course of their careers).  Unlike Hemingway, who grew up well-to-do and then led a very adventuresome life, Carver had a blue collar background and struggled for many years to get ahead, hampered in great part by an addiction to alcohol.  He sobered up around the age of 40 as he feared he would die otherwise.  The last ten years of his life, in which he quit drinking and fell in love and married a writer named Tess Gallagher, were the best of his life.  Two of his poems are engraved on his tombstone:

LATE FRAGMENT
And did you get what
you wanted from this life, even so?
I did.
And what did you want?
To call myself beloved, to feel myself
beloved on the earth.

Gravy

No other word will do. For that’s what it was.

Gravy.
Gravy, these past ten years.
Alive, sober, working, loving, and
being loved by a good woman. Eleven years
ago he was told he had six months to live
at the rate he was going. And he was going
nowhere but down. So he changed his ways
somehow. He quit drinking! And the rest?
After that it was all gravy, every minute
of it, up to and including when he was told about,
well, some things that were breaking down and
building up inside his head. “Don’t weep for me,”
he said to his friends. “I’m a lucky man.
I’ve had ten years longer than I or anyone
expected. Pure Gravy. And don’t forget it.”

-----------------------------------About the Final Project-----------------------------

The personal project for the class can be fulfilled in a variety of ways:  1) a dramatic performance of a scene from a story or a recitation of some story compatible with the oral tradition; 2) a short fiction in writing or a nice illustration of one you have written or enjoyed; 3) a short film or video or narrative photo series that tells a story 4) an analytic essay of 650-1000 words on one or more of the stories read in class or otherwise appropriate.  I can read drafts or give guidance on any choice you make.

Readings for next week:

"The Found Boat," by Alice Munro, and "Summer," by David Updike.
No response:  We will do a group exercise instead in class.