Here are some prompts for the Hemingway stories I’ve asked you to read for today. Remember, you’re also welcome to respond to another student’s comment or to anything in the reading that interested you.
Soldier’s Home
- What is the significance of the two pictures mentioned at the very beginning of the story? Why do you think Hemingway chose to begin with these descriptions?
- Why does Krebs lie about his war experiences? How is lying significant in the story
- Who do you think is most to blame for Harold Krebs’ feelings of isolation and alienation in “Soldier’s Home”–Krebs himself or his hometown? Both? Neither?
- Talk about religion in either or both stories
A Clean, Well-Lighted Place
- Discuss the title of “A Clean, Well-Lighted Place.” Why is it so important that the café be clean and well-lit? What darkness are the characters trying to fend off?
- Describe the two waiters and what they’re each like. Why does one sympathize with the old man and the other doesn’t?
- Many people read this as a story at least partly about order and disorder. Comment on this view?
Biography
- Discuss anything you read in the first two chapters of the biography that captured your attention
Ernest Hemingway appears to me— drawing both from his writings and the biography— as a person who struggled immensely with his own mind and often with family, but who allowed that heaviness to bleed into his works (or maybe couldn’t help it bleeding in, even unintentionally). I’m halfway through The Sun Also Rises, and I’ve just read “A Soldier’s Home” and “A Clean, Well-Lighted Place,” so clearly I haven’t read very much Hemingway, but even in this small selection, the topics we covered in class and in the biography come through very clearly in his narrators. These two short stories reminded me very much of Franz Kafka’s The Metamorphosis, both in the content of the story itself (the way families interact, the main character’s disposition toward life, themes of mental illness) and in my feeling that the author’s own mentality comes through so strongly in the story. Before I had even read about Kafka’s life, his self-loathing mindset and unrelenting worry even when surrounded by friends was obvious in Gregor Samsa. Similarly, Jake Barnes and Harold Kreb seem to be very thinly-veiled versions of the author himself, especially the aspect of him that struggled with war and shame. Of course all stories are reflections in some way of the creator, but these have particularly stood out to me as almost-autobiographical in a way that other stories haven’t as obviously. Barnes dealt with impotence as the result of a war wound; Krebs seems to be simultaneously completely reliant on and also ashamed of his lying habit which evolved due to his town’s response (or lack thereof) to his experiences in war. I’m interested in psychiatry and particularly trauma, and this portrayal of shame interests me because so often veterans who experience regret or shame do so because they committed some sort of violent act, allowed one to happen (or feel that they did), or have survivor’s guilt. Kreb refers to these sorts of events as “atrocity stories” that captured the attention of his hometown. Hemingway and his characters, however, endured situations that were extremely physically and mentally difficult, but were “actualities,” wounds that deeply affected soldiers but that civilians couldn’t be “thrilled” by.
Another layer to Hemingway’s stories that I understood a little more clearly after reading Hutchisson’s biography was his family life and their strong religious background. “A Soldier’s Home” is such a short story and when reading it for the first time I felt that the first six of the eight pages were only working up to the end: Kreb’s inner thoughts dominate the story as he sits on the porch watching unobtainable women pass by, or his favorite sister play. The first several pages are a very slowly rising action, though it’s not plot points adding up toward some major resolution, it’s simply the reader being more and more insight into Kreb until we can finally understand the ending. It’s only during his interaction with his mother that there’s some sort of explosion and resolution. I love this sort of story: one which takes place almost entirely in the mind or in interactions, rather than physical stakes. In the biography I learned that Hemingway’s grandfather, whom the family called Abba, led almost daily a prayer in the home. Everyone would kneel, heads bowed, while Abba looked upwards and prayed— Hemingway’s sister Marcelline describes this in her memoir as if Abba were looking directly at God. It was impossible for me to not immediately connect this to Kreb’s mother praying for him on the floor in their home, but I’m not sure to what extent I should be connecting Hemingway’s life and Krebs. The aspect of shame seems a clear overlap to me, but he was raised in a religious home and later in life converted to Catholicism, so from what I’ve read (again, only a little) it would seem that Kreb has some issues with religion— “‘I’m not in His kingdom’”— that Hemingway didn’t share. However, the feelings towards the mother and father are shared by the author and the character: Krebs tells his mother he does not love her, then almost immediately recants. His father is barely mentioned in the story. Hutchisson’s biography tells us that Hemingway’s father was a very passive person, and was often resented by his son for this. Likewise he was said to have conflicting feelings toward his mother: she was at least not passive, and was loving toward her children, but was still very uninterested in housework-type duties which her children may have needed. Hemingway once told a friend that he “wouldn’t hesitate to shoot at her.” The beginning of “A Soldier’s Home” gave me a clear strong connection to the author, but this ending opened up many more questions; I’d like to learn more about how he felt about religion to compare with his characters. Kreb states that his mother “made him lie.” I was confused about which was the lie— that he didn’t love her, or that he did? Learning more about his relationship with both parents, and perhaps how the war affected his feelings toward them, could help me understand this ending much more clearly.
“A Clean, Well-Lighted Place” is another short story that confused me in some ways, but that I found extremely interesting as far as the character’s inner voice, it’s reliability. Again, it reminded me of Gregor Samsa, particularly the last few lines: “…he would go home to his room. He would lie in the bed and finally, with daylight, he would go to sleep. After all, he said to himself, it is probably only insomnia. Many must have it.” This was a clear unreliable narrator moment where we’re given a burst of insight into a character’s mind where previously we were mainly given dialogue and action. Here we’re suddenly shown that this obsession with cleanliness, bright and dignified and quiet areas, is somehow deeply affecting this character. He has apparently even convinced himself (or is trying to) that the reason he can’t sleep in the dark is simply common insomnia. This older waiter, and presumably the old man, fear “nothing,” or “nada y pues nada y nada….” This is another example of a story that I believe I’d have much more insight into if I read more of Hemigway’s story, or at least more of his biography. I absolutely loved this story, especially the fact that even though we get a direct answer to some of the stories major questions— “What did he fear?” “It was all a nothing and man was nothing too.” “…light was all it needed…”— meaning must still be looked for by each individual reader, and so many interpretations can be made.
What I found really interesting in Hemingway’s “A Clean, Well-Lighted Place” was his use of the word ‘nothing’ throughout the story. At first, the waiter explains to the other that the old man in the cafe tried to kill himself over nothing, and that his position of wealth and possession of material things was all that should make him content in life. However, as the story continues, we learn that the older waiter of the two sympathizes with the old man. We learn that he needs a clean, well-lighted place for himself in the late hours at night. You notice that as he turns off the electric light in the cafe, his thoughts seem to deteriorate into the darkness that has physically occurred. He ponders the meaning of life and man and circles back to the old man trying to kill himself over nothing. The fear that nothing in their lives matter and that they were nothing either. The waiter had said to the younger waiter, “I have never had confidence and I am not young.” He also asks the younger waiter if he fears going home before the usual hour. All these thoughts on the surface of his mind seem to intensify and take over once the light is gone. The title of the story and the old man’s reason for staying at the cafe are because sometimes all it takes in your life not to slip into this darkness is order and a daily routine that gets you out of your house and away from your bad thoughts. To have a day-to-day schedule helps to prevent self-deprecating thoughts and that life is meaningless. In the end the waiter enters into a bar, just like the old man, and the barman thinks of him as crazy. The waiter however is just like the old man in wanting to return home and let the thought of ‘nada’ overtake them.
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