Hemingway - War in His Short Stories - Annotated Bibliography Example

Barloon, Jim. “Very Short Stories: The Miniaturization of War in Hemingway's ‘In Our Time.’” Hemingway Review 24.2 (2005): 5-17. Print. Barloon suggests that Hemingway miniaturizes the concept of war in In Our Time. Barloon believes that Hemingway thinks that war cannot be faced directly or projected directly in a narrative. Instead, it can only be understood from its bits and pieces, such as in short stories, since the sum of war is hard to grasp. This is a good article, since it offers the insight that Hemingway sees the war story as a fragmented effort. No one can fully understand the war and its effects on different people and groups. People can only try to understand war from one viewpoint or another, but in the end, war is all these stories and maybe even more. We can never fully know the entirety of war. Beegel, Susan F. “`A Room on the Garden Side': Hemingway's Unpublished Liberation of Paris.” Studies in Short Fiction 31.4 (1994): 627-738. Print. Beegel explores the short story ‘A Room on the Garden Side.’ In this story, Hemingway depicts the war as it is, in the most realistic manner, but still bound by the rules of fiction. There is realism in the language, but there are formalistic fictional characteristics. For instance, Hemingway uses the garden light that affirms the presence of war, because it highlights newly oiled weapons piled on tactical maps. There are also "mushroom-shaped heads of the long-tubed Panzerfeusts” (629), a simile used for captured German weapons that indicate death and decay instead of the color and joviality that is common for a Parisian flower garden. Hemingway offers an honest account of the grueling realities of war, which impacts people and changes their values, attitudes, and behaviors. Cirino, Mark. “Hemingway's "Big Two-Hearted River": Nick's Strategy and the Psychology of Mental Control.” Papers on Language & Literature 47.2 (2011): 115-140. Print. Cirino analyzes Nick's strategy of returning to the woods of his youth. He shows that this action is a form of “metacognition” (116), where he can think about his thoughts. This way, he can distract his self from his own inner tribulations. Cirino argues that Big Two-Hearted River shows the refinement and complication with which Hemingway uses mental control, where Nick seeks to change his cognitive activity. Hemingway employs the theme of war to understand the psychological ramifications of active service. Mental control is needed to resolve the mental impacts of the war. This is a scholarly article that matches external metaphors and psychological experiences. The result is suppression of trauma that is self-defeating, based on Cirino’s analysis. Johnston, Kenneth G. “'The Butterfly and The Tank': Casualties Of War.” Studies in Short Fiction 26.2 (1989): 183-187. Print. Johnston seems to disagree with Trout and Lamb that the autobiographical account of Hemingway’s short stories is secondary to its literary analysis. Johnston says that Steinbeck praised The Butterfly and The Tank, because Hemingway opens himself to the violence and injustice of his time. The metaphors of the butterfly and the tank demonstrate the use of a narrative technique where two truths are used altogether. The tank pertains to the violence nurtured by the war, while the butterfly refers to ordinary occurrences. When the tank and butterfly meet, violence can erupt, because of the clash of ideologies. This article provides an important analysis to the enduring impacts of war on servicemen. The human tragedy is the death of the butterfly in every soldier. Lamb, Robert Paul. “The Love Song of Harold Krebs: Form, Argument, and Meaning in Hemingway's `Soldier's Home'.” Hemingway Review 14.2 (1995): 18-37. Print. Lamb agrees with Trout that Soldier's Home is not supposed to be understood as an autobiography. Instead, it should be seen as a product of Hemingway’s exposition, development, scene, and summary, because they all impact the meaning of the story. For him, Kreb’s experience of displacement and isolation is also a social experience. Hemingway then uses the war to depict the social impacts of war on all people concerned, not just the servicemen. The war offered action to people, but after it, there was an overwhelming sense of inertia, a feeling of floating to nowhere, which reverberated across the U.S. This is a good source, because it explores how Hemingway understands war as a social experience, and not just as an individual situation. Moreira, Peter. “Hemingway at War.” Military History 26.1 (2009): 28-35. Print. Moreira talks about Hemingway’s participation in war and how he glossed over his war experiences, such as fighting with the Arditi in World War I. He had been a Red Cross ambulance driver instead, although he did save an injured soldier, though he himself was wounded. This is more of a military history of Hemingway and it does not directly analyze Hemingway’s treatment of wars in short stories. Still, it is an important source that explains where Hemingway gets his inspiration from his war stories. It helps readers understand, for his, why Krebs says that in order for people to believe his war stories, he has to life. Exaggeration is part of being a post-active serviceman. Stewart, Matthew C. “Ernest Hemingway and World War I: Combatting Recent Psychobiographical Reassessments, Restoring the War.” Papers on Language & Literature 36.2 (2000): 198-218. Print. Stewart talks about the inner and external wounding of Hemingway that reflects in his short stories about the war. He agrees that his stories reflect his life. Nevertheless, Stewart goes beyond the autobiographical analysis and stresses that the wounds of these soldiers in his stories do not reflect the ones that the writer has. This article focuses on the psychological impacts of war on soldiers in general and as individuals. Through his stories, Hemingway reflects the wars as he sees it and from the experience of soldiers. This article shows that Hemingway treats the war as an extension of his life, as well as the life of the soldiers he observed. He must have also felt something that these servicemen have- an inexplicable loss of humanity that can never be retrieved. Trout, Steven. “‘Where Do We Go From Here?’: Ernest Hemingway's 'Soldier's Home' And American Veterans Of World War I.” Hemingway Review 20.1 (2000): 5-22. Print. Trout believes that Soldier's Home is more than an autobiographical account. He argues that Soldier's Home depicts a generation of angst and a more precise topicality that is not always easy to understand. He underscores the importance of understanding the ill-treatment endured by many past soldiers in the early 1920s and the connection between the details of Krebs's war experience, such as his unit and length and service, to the narrative's irony of the story. One of the sources of the mistreatment of the veterans comes from the Veterans' Bureau scandal of 1923. Furthermore, the veterans also endured numerous economic, social, and psychological problems. The source is scholarly, because it dissects the diverse meanings of “home” in “Soldier’s home.” Hemingway uses the theme of war to depict the widespread post-war difficulties of soldiers. Tyler, Lisa. “’Dangerous Families’ and ‘Intimate Harm’ in Hemingway's ‘Indian Camp.’” Texas Studies in Literature & Language 48.1 (2006): 37-53. Print. Tyler points out that Hemingway treats war not just in its grand scale, but as a form of violence and abuse. Every single death should be painful to readers, Hemingway seems to say. How people respond to these sufferings, such as those of war veterans and women, depict the humanity of the readers. This is an interesting article, because it erases the boundaries between enemies and allies. Instead, it shows that Hemingway wants people to feel for all who died during wars, whoever they may be. It does not matter whose side they are; they are all human beings. As humans, we should feel for their deaths. Their deaths are deaths of a part of humanity; they are gone forever, a part of humanity that cannot be materially restored. Vernon, Alex. “War, Gender, and Ernest Hemingway.” Hemingway Review 22.1 (2002): 36-58. Print. Vernon argues that Big Two-Hearted River is as much about gender as it is about the war. Without mentioning women, it is about women too. Also, though the war is not directly mentioned, the story structure reflects Nick as a soldier. Vernon says that Nick wants to forget the war, but his attitude and behavior reflect his “being” a soldier. He leaves and goes to his childhood place, his sanctuary, to forget the war, but the war is him already. It is part of who he is, and he can never run away from it. Hemingway uses the war to depict how war embeds itself into people. It is an interesting article that says, war can be people, when people have become part of it. Read More