Стилистический анализ текста “A Very Short Story” by Ernest Hemingway

The story under the title “A Very Short Story” was written by one of the most world-famous American writers – Ernest Hemingway. Himself a great sportsman - Hemingway liked to portray soldiers, hunters, bullfighters - tough, at times primitive people whose courage and honesty are set against the brutal ways of modern society, and who in this confrontation lose hope and faith. His straightforward prose, his spare dialogue, and his predilection for understatement are particularly effective in his short stories.

Analyzing the text "A Very Short Story" we observe that the author makes use of the colloquial style avoiding professionalisms and pompous bookish words and phrases. Hemingway resorts to the language of every day life and surely it is a deliberate choice of vocabulary. Such a laconic and neat narration demonstrates the talent of the author and makes us aware of the genre of this literary creation – a novel. It tells us about war and peace, about senses and disappointments, about lie and truth.

So, the subject matter of the story under discussion is love of a man and a woman, which was lost because of the ruined dreams and awkward misunderstanding between them. Realizing all this we can for sure read between the lines the message of Hemingway, as if saying – reach your goals by all powers and opportunities, stay firm on your way and be persistent in your attempts.

Indeed, how often people surrender, go back and leave their dreams when just a step divides them from what they were looking for.

Here we can say that a little unnecessary quarrel became the point of couples’ parting. If just one of them could concede to another… Perhaps it could be a great history of love, who knows? The following sentence confirms the message mentioned above: “She hoped he would have a great career, and believed in him absolutely”. The truth is that everything turned out vice versa, not the way she imagined.

The stylistic device – antithesis – skillfully used by Ernest Hemingway proves the same could be said about her: “and she expected, absolutely unexpectedly, to be married in the spring.” We know she never did.

What concerns the text itself, it is told in the 3rd person narrative. The narration is not interlaced with descriptive passages and dialogues of the personages. It is extraordinarily poor for colorful emotions and vivid actions. Only dry, concrete and taciturn facts are present in here.

It is important to note, however, that such a dull narration, as by mistake it would seem, can give us no new idea, but the author displays a mastery in rendering the subtleties and contradictions of life. Hemingway pursued his own purpose by composing the narration this way, and he was a success in it.

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Другие лингво-стилистические анализы рассказов Эрнеста Хемингуэя:

• Canary For One
• Cat in the Rain
  
• On the American Dead in Spain

Stylistic analysis "On The American Dead In Spain" by Ernest Hemingway

The story under the title "On the American Dead in Spain" was written by Ernest Hemingway, who was one of the most famous American novelists, short-story writer and essayist, whose deceptively simple prose style have influenced wide range of writers.

The whole story is very short and resembles a tale spoken by an old military man. So, the subject matter of the story is the recollections of the events of the war on the Spanish area where the Lincoln Battalion held for four and a half months along the heights of the Jarama River, described by the author as eulogy (of /to) those who gave their lives in the sake of the freedom. The controlling idea deduced by the author is that not a single soldier of that fight is forgotten, all of them live in the hearts of people they protected. If to revise that Hemingway visited Spain not once and liked this country, we can underline that the given idea is quite patriotic.

What concerns the text itself, it is told in the 1st person narrative, though we don’t have any obvious evidences of Hemingway’s presence, usually marked by the personal pronoun “I”. But on the other hand, we always feel as if the author narrates us the story right now, we feel how passion, sorrow and hate boils in him, as if ready to return everything to fight again: “The Spanish people will rise again as they have always risen before against tyranny.”

The narration is interlaced with descriptive, historical and lyrical passages. We can be convinced of that for example by reading the first passage of the story:

“The dead sleep cold in Spain tonight. Snow blows through the olive groves, sifting against the tree roots. Snow drifts over the mounds with small headboards. (When there was time for headboards.) The olive trees are thin in the cold wind because their lower branches were once cut to cover tanks, and the dead sleep cold in the small hills above the Jarama River. It was cold that February when they died there and since then the dead have not noticed the changes of the seasons.”

What matters here is that there are no dialogues of personages and no individual characters at all. Just the common reference to people: the dead, the Spanish people, the fascists, the Spanish peasants, the Spanish workers. This also proves the type of narration being close to the recollection.

The prevailing mood of the story is rather gloomy and sometimes lyrical, coming into more optimistic at the end. Such words as dead, die, slavery, war – make it gloomy. The sentences like “The black trees will come to life with small green leaves, and there will be blossoms on the apple trees along the Jarama River” add some lyrical tone to the narration. And the assurance of the author in the future supplements the text with some kind of the optimism.

The style of the author is colloquial, he doesn’t applies here pompous bookish words or professionalisms, as the coloquial style fully corresponds the given situation. This fact demonstrates the talent of Hemingway as an outstanding writer.

The logical structure of the text is not simple, as while reading we come across the passages of different length. The last paragraph for example consists of only one sentence. And the logical argumentation of the paragraphs needs also deep considering of the reader, as the sentences of different passages are closely combined with the certain subject line.

Among the stylistic devices used by the author we would name the repetition, which aims to stress the things important for the narrator: “For our dead are a part of the earth of Spain now and the earth of Spain can never die”, “and there is forever for them to remember them in”.

The cases of parallel construction also contain some implied sense: “Each winter it will seem to die and each spring it will come alive again.”

All in all, the story reflects the author's preoccupation with the moral self and can give food for thought to anyone who is able to think.

Анализ "Cat in the Rain" by Ernest Hemingway

The story under the title “Cat in the Rain” was written by Ernest Hemingway, one of the most favourite American novelists, short-story writer and essayist, whose deceptively simple prose style has influenced wide range of writers. 

So, the story begins with the description of the hotel where two Americans stopped. It was raining, that’s why the couple stayed in and just a cat in the rain attracted the young woman’s attention. She wanted to get the cat inside but failed and was brought another cat. 

The problem of the story lies very deeply and we are to uncover it. The story is written in one mood which constantly and directly increases. It starts from the beginning where it’s created by a persistent and repeated use of the “rain” with a number of phrases associating it, such as puddles, deserted square, glistening war monument. 

Repetition is one of the widely used and favourite stylistic devices of Hemingway. Here he applies it to reveal the relationship of the protagonist to the old hotel owner (she liked ... , she liked...). As the verb “to like” is not used to characterize relations of the wife to her husband, this contrast is full of the concealed but easily read meaning. 

Though the cases of repetition in the story may seem a bit obtrusive, their modifications enter into the core of the narration very organically. They carry emotional character, however penetrating the story the deep sorrow becomes evident gradually. We realize that little, as if meaningless, capricious wishes of a young woman reveal the drama of her fate, the absence of comfort in her life, comparable with the cat in the rain. 

The title of the story anticipates this confrontation and the fact that the cat’s image makes great play twice – just increases the total effect. In fact, the young woman pines for love, for home, for her family. And the purring cat she’d like to have and to stroke is a traditional symbol of home and comfort she lacks so much. She wants warmth, attention, care, joy, happiness; however she is brought the cat – a pitiful substitution of that, what she, a young, beautiful woman needs incredibly. This is the main problem of the novel we tried to uncover. 

Perhaps the hotel owner didn’t get the reason of her yearnings and took her wish for whim. But dignity, deference and respectfulness of the old man are confronted to egoism and carelessness of George not occasionally. The war monument is also mentioned deliberately. The world George and his wife belong to – is uncomfortable, homeless after-war world, where the fates of young people joined with such hardships and troubles. 

If to speak about the text itself, it is told in the 3rd person narrative. the description is interlaced with descriptive passages and dialogues of the personages. The author makes extensive use of repetitions to render the story more vivid, convincing, more real and emotional. 

The author's style is remarkable for its powerful sweep, brilliant illustrations and deep psychological analysis. Everything he touches seems to reflect the feelings of the heroes. 

The story reveals the author's great knowledge of man's inner world. He penetrates into the subtlest windings of the human heart.

Анализ "A Canary For One" by Ernest Hemingway

The story under the title "A Canary for One" was written by one of the most famous writers of the 20th century – Ernest Hemingway.

The story begins with the description of the train going to Paris and the passengers in it. They are the main characters: the American lady with her canary, and a man with his wife. The plot of the story is quite simple – the passengers traveling to Paris in the same compartment have a common and easy conversation while the trip, and finally part reaching their destination. Though it seems quite a usual thing, lots of facts prove the story to be one of the great works of Hemingway’s genius.

Let’s begin with the protagonist of the story – the American lady. The author doesn’t even mention her name as it’s unnecessary. In the whole story there are no names at all. What we know of her – she is a bit deaf and has a daughter. No mentioning her husband. So we may guess for the time being she has no husband at all, or his existence is so unimportant for her. This is the first sign of her loneliness.

What concerns her daughter, it’s well-known that she was madly in love with a Swiss fellow, but it turned out they parted. No explanations, just a fact. The American lady kept on saying that American men make the best husbands. It is possible that the mother didn’t let her daughter marry her Swiss boyfriend, as he belonged to the “wrong” nationality, not the American. So she took the canary for her girl as a present – perhaps to console her sufferings and torments. That little canary singing so beautifully – was a solace for the girl who lost her love ...

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