Hemingway’s writing in the three stories that I have looked at is distinctly his. He use simple,
direct, and unadorned prose, and a lot of repetition. When reading Hemingway you can often
feel that there is something brewing just under the surface, and his unconventional style
makes the reader feel some of the confusion and fear of his main characters. He also does not
concern himself with direct war and battles, and this makes him stand out from the traditional
war narratives that came before him, and further pulls the reader into the confused headspace
of a veteran. His writing style also makes the stories feel out of time, in the sense that you
could place the stories in any modern setting and year, and it would not feel out of place.
Hemingway is in control of the short story as a format. He cuts anything that does not belong.
His writing is dense and therefor needs a lot of unpacking, and the stories start in the middle
of action, in medias res. The biggest difference between Hemingway and the others I have
compared him to, is that he have a single focus, and that focus is on the main characters.
Hemingway removes the action of battles, which could have given him a lot of drive.
Conflict makes drama, and drama is the most important thing in a story to give it drive,
according to among others Robert McKee (McKee, 1998, p.138). To conclude, Hemingway’s
writing is authentically his own, and his focus and techniques are well put together to make
stories about the damage that war can do to a person, both physically and mentally, that
makes the reader empathize with the charter and to some extant feel the dread they
experience. This is a contrast to the objective writings from history books, and prose of battle
that many writers use in their own war narratives.
