Short Happy Life

Short Happy Life

In the collection of stories by Ernest Hemingway that were in his book “The Snows of Kilimanjaro”, I found a variation of different kinds of language use. I also noticed the certain ways Hemingway handled the details in his stories. He’s a very intelligent and intellectual writer in the sense of his sentence structure. Some of his best stories are “A Days Wait”, “A Clean Well Lighted Place” and “The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber”.

As Shakespeare once said “a man can die but once; we owe God a death and let it go which way it will.” Hemingway’s stories are all based off this quote to some degree. The quote is actually included in one of his stories, “The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber.” Shakespeare is saying, we live to die and we must deal with the cards we are dealt. Although this is not the theme to his story I believe it plays a role in the mood and setting of most of his stories.

The uses of Hemingway’s language in his stories are crucial to the meaning of every story he writes. Behind every sentence there’s a deeper meaning, from the childish quotes by the young boy in “A Days Wait” where he mixes “miles and kilometers”, to the complex thoughts of the bartender in “A Clean Well Lighted Place” with his subtle references such as the “shadows in the leaves”. His stories are what you make them and only understanding them will give the story real meaning. The handling of detail in the story “The Short Happy Life Of Francis Macomber” is almost so detailed you might come up with an infinite number of solutions. The details