Ernest Hemingway Passages

One measure of a powerful writer lies in her ability to write literature in which any passage can be set apart from its context and still express the qualities of the whole. When this occurs, the integrated profundity of the entire work is a sign of true artistry. Ernest Hemingway, an author of the Lost Generation, was one such writer who mastered the art of investing simple sentence structure with layers of complex meaning. Hemingway, who was a journalist in the earlier years of his writing career, was known for writing in a declarative or terse style of prose. The depth of emotion and meaning that he conveyed through such minimalistic text is astounding. He also experimented with a stream-of-consciousness technique developed by writers …show more content…
Hemingway's freestyle structure, careful word choice, and profound metaphors all add to the intense exploration of Frederic's feelings of fear and doubt. Childbirth is naturally a time of reflection and contemplation seeing as it brings an enormous change to the lifestyle of those who have brought the child into the world. As Frederic anxiously stands by while his lover fights to give birth to their baby, he considers the meaning of life. Faced with the fear of Catherine's death, he attempts to find a reason for the pain and suffering he has undergone and comes to the dismal conclusion that the universe is a disordered and even hostile environment—views that Hemingway's characters commonly hold. This passage exhibits the complete evolvement of Frederic's character as he establishes his philosophy of life. In this single passage, all of the major themes of the novel are expressed: religion, love, and pain. As Catherine struggles to create a life, Frederic struggles to make sense out of life and find the deeper …show more content…
And this was the price you paid for sleep-ing together. This was the end of the trap. This was what people got for loving each other. Thank God for gas, anyway. What must it have been like before there were anæsthetics? Once it started, they were in the mill-race. Catherine had a good time in the time of pregnancy. It wasn't bad. She was hardly ever sick. She was not awfully uncomfortable until toward the last. So now they got her in the end. You never got away with anything. Get away hell! It would have been the same if we had been married fifty times. And what if she should die? She won't die. People don't die in child-birth nowadays. That was what all husbands thought. Yes, but what if she should die? She won't die. She's just having a bad time. The initial labor is usually protracted. She's only having a bad time. Afterward we'd say what a bad time and Catherine would say it wasn't really so bad. But what if she should die? She can't die. Yes, but what if she should die? She can't, I tell you. Don't be a fool. It's just a bad time. It's just nature giving her hell. It's only the first labor, which is almost always protracted. Yes, but what if she should die? She can't die. Why would she die? What reason is there for her to die? There's just a child that has to be born, the by-product of good nights in Milan. It makes trouble and is born and then you look after it and get fond of it maybe. But what if she should die? She won't die. But what