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The Concept of Death and Violence in Ernest Hemingway’s Works

Khaleel Bakheet l Ismail*1 , Mohamed Ali Musa
1.Teachers’’ College, Dalanj University, Dalanj, Sudan Email: [email protected]
2. Sudan University of Science and Technology – College of Language
ABSTRACT
The aim of this research is to investigate the concept of death and violence in Ernest
Hemingway’s works. It is a thematic analytical study which tries to find out essential
features of the writer’s literary activity and to explain why the above coupled with the
essential messages on the concept of death and violence, portrayed in Hemingway’s
novels, are some of the reasons why his works have been rendered classics of the
American literature. The method used is descriptive analytical method. In the first part
descriptive method is followed, whereas in the second part analytical method is adopted. It
tries to answer some questions, such as: How far Hemingway’s character portrayal and
writing style are determined by the concept of violence and death? Does the choice of
words (diction) and plot structure (narration and chronology) is determined by the theme
of death and violence? From the theoretical study and analyses of his works the research
concludes that Hemingway is a distinguishing writer whose narrative structure, character
representation and writing style are uniquely bound by the concept of death and violence.
And the research recommends that, because of his distinctive writing style and simplicity,
his works especially short stories should be taught to in universities and schools as well.

Key words: Grace under Pressure, Code Hero, stoicism, Suicide.

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Introduction
American literature in the twentieth century exhibits two qualities which make it
distinctive: in a sense it is individualistic in term of its rebellion against social, moral,
traditional, cultural and literary convention. On the other hand, it is a search for a national
vernacular so that writers might write in a way that is wholly American. It is also
characterized by its diversity, more violence, more liberation outlook, brutality and death,
more scientific in techniques, heterogeneous and cosmopolitan in its scope.
The rise of realism came strikingly after the civil war between the industrial north and
agricultural south. Then in the twentieth century an opposing tendency came as a reaction

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to realism comprising different forms of repudiation of external objectivity including

psychological fiction, neo-romanticism, impressionism, symbolism, neostoicism and other
forms of anti-realistic experiments.
Thus, in spite of the general cynicism, modern America is tremendously creative in
literature, especially novel form. There is a kind of rejection of American traditional
culture, and many literary men and novelists like: Ezra Pound, Gertrud Stein, T. S. Eliot,
and Ernest Hemingway took the form of expatriation. They were also attracted by Europe
with its lack of traditionalism and its more sophisticated attitudes towards literary
production, especially novel.
Under such a condition the American novelist and Noble prize winner Ernest Miller
Hemingway put himself into a towering fame, established what is called Hemingwayan
style, with creative ideological themes which include phrases such as: Code of Moral,
Grace Under Pressure, neostoicism, Death and Love, Man the Sinner, Brutality and
Violence, and the Persistence of Desire. So, this research is aimed at discussing one of the
crucial aspects of Hemingway' s literary career; that is, Death and Violence in his Works.
Statement of the problem
With the communication revolution, American society become more mobile and
homogeneous, and regionalism, the dominant mode of the 19th century literature, all but,
vanished, except in the works of some writers. At the same time, American writers began
to exert a major influence on world literature. After the world war, horror and the brutal
reality of the war had a crucial impact on the American imagination. There were rapid
changes in society, and rebellion changes in fiction. These changes have brought into
beings many problems concerning understanding, analyzing, and relating American
fictional production with the local color. There are many problems concerning expression,
stylistic techniques, intersexuality, juxtapositions, structures, methodology of writing with
different approaches. All of these different problematic aspects are going to be discussed
throughout research.
The Objectives of the Research
This research is aiming at achieving the following objectives:
1. To probe the general characteristics of modern American fiction, especially novel,
and to what extent it has contributed to the world literature.
2. Portraying Hemingway' s novels with their different styles, techniques, ideas and to
see how far Hemingway was able to coin different themes like Grace under
Pressure, Death and violence in his fictional works.
3. To depict Hemingway' s life and its resemblance to his literary career.
4. To investigate the different aspects of realism in American novel presented by
Hemingway' s novels: A Farewell to Arms, For Whom the Bell Tolls and The Sun
Also Rises.
5. To investigate the thematic representation of death and violence in Hemingway’s
works.
The Questions of the Study
This research is intended to answer the following questions:
1. How is Hemingway' s life reflected in his writing?
2. How far the character portrayal and representation is determined through the
theme of death and violence?
3. Does the choice of words (diction) and plot structure (narration and chronology)
is determined by the theme of death and violence?

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4. How is the "iceberg principle" used in Hemingway' s works?

The Methodology
This research is descriptive and analytical. However, the researcher has adopted a number
of critical approaches in order to analyze the novels under consideration, including
historical, psychological and formalistic approaches. In the first part descriptive method is
followed, whereas in the second part analytical method is adopted.
Hemingway’s Fame and Literary Reputation
Hemingway lived with the expectation of fulfilling his idea of ideal masculinity. This
embraced the notion of honor, courage and strength as the most important factor in life by
implying capability of acting with “grace under pressure”, meaning to be able to act as a
man even in the most brutal situation.
It seems that during his whole literary career Hemingway has focused on creating a
strong public image as a stereotype of macho behavior and on increasing his fame as a
celebrity. In his essay on Hemingway’s style, Hugh Kenner1 suggests that, the vital
connection between detachment and emotion, between the substance and the surface of his
art. In 1923 Hemingway abandoned journalism for fiction, lived an impoverished
expatriate life in the attics and cafés of Paris. He boxed in Paris, skied in Austria, fished in
Spain and tested his courage against the bulls in Pamplona. He described this world of
men without women in his books, and suggested that the same courage and skill were
required for both killing and creating. He had as Meyers2 says: four attractive wives—one
for each big book—fathered three sons, and became a model of how to live as well as how
to write, of the art of life as well as the life of art.
Moreover he acts and writes like an intellectual and his glorification of machismo, blood
sports, physical violence, war and death, made him appear to be far less intelligent than he
actually was. His public image attracted a vast number of readers and his major novels
achieved immense popular and financial success.
Saul Bellow3 praised him for his ability to withstand the threatening test of violent
experience and sudden fame, and said his dramatic characters were an expression of his
inner strength: Hemingway thinks of himself as a representative man, one who has had the
necessary qualifying experiences. He has not been disintegrated by the fighting, the
drinking, the wounds, the turbulence, the glamour, he has not gotten lost in the capitals of
the world, nor has he disappeared in the huge continents, nor has he been made
anonymous within the oceanic human crowd. He keeps the outlines of his personality
Norman Mailer4saw him as a tragic figure wrestling, with destructive self-knowledge: “It
is not likely that Hemingway was a brave man who sought danger for the sake of the
sensations it provided him. What is more likely the truth of his own odyssey is that he
struggled with his cowardice and against a secret lust to suicide all his life, that his inner
landscape was a nightmare, and he spent his nights wrestling with the gods. It may even be
that the final judgment on his work may come to the notion that what he failed to do was
tragic, but what he accomplished was heroic, for it is possible that he carried a weight of
anxiety with him which would have suffocated any man smaller than himself.”
That is why Hemingway remains one of the most famous American novelists. It is, as
Raeburn5 mentions, almost ‘as though the 20th century itself has come to a sudden, violent,
and premature end’
Like most middle class, argues Cawelti6 American boys at the turn of the century, young
Hemingway was brought up on the tales of Horatio Alger, in which worthy, healthy
minded lads rapidly ascended the ladder of success. Moreover, Ernest Hemingway

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suggests Braudy7 emerged as a prime case of someone who was fatally caught between his
genius and its popularity’. Towards the end of his life, the image of papa Hemingway
outdoors, fishing or hunting or at war had come to supplant that of the dedicated artist at
his desk.
In his book, John Raeburn8 emphasizes two basic points about Hemingway’s fame: ‘First,
Hemingway became the most public of all American writers. Second and somewhat
judgmental point is that, what happened was Hemingway’s own fault.
In calling particular attention to his bravery and unwillingness to compromise, Carlos
Baker9 prints for the first time his definition of guts as Grace under Pressure, a phrase that
became a famous ingredient of his legend. It is his art that makes him worth writing about.
Ross10goes: ‘to describe as precisely as possible how Hemingway, who had the nerve to
be like nobody else on earth, looked and sounded when he was in action , talking between
work periods- to give a picture of the man as he was , in his uniqueness and with his
vitality and his enormous spirit of fun intact.’
He was the first American artist, who announces his prominence as argues Donaldson11
.He was determined to distance himself from the conventional image of the aesthete as an
effete and a sexual creature, just as he had done, fictionally with the early story. As
Donaldson observes, whether the subject was bullfighting, big-game hunting, or the battle
for Madrid, Hemingway was as if writing about himself, and sketching towards an
autobiography of the personality he chose to present to the public.
Moreover, Hotcher12 adds that, Hemingway’s presentation for himself may have owed
something to altruism, but he may also have adopted his image to gain approval and
attention, to prevent raids on his psyche, to prove himself against the most demanding
tests, or for all these reasons. He was an extremely complex man whose actions could not
conveniently be ascribed to single causes.
Nevertheless, in spite of his fame, like some American writers, Hemingway’s
suicide in 1961 offered a final act of cohesion in a world where the false and the true
were hard to tell a part. Braudy13 writes, but he was far more famous, and hence far
more subject to ‘a fragmentation of self and public image’ than the others. One of
the things that caused him to take his life may well have been the disparity between
universal fame and his fading powers.
Literary Reputation
It seems to me necessary to distinguish his popularity with the general public from his
literary reputation proper among his fellow novelist and among critics. In both cases, his
score is high, but for different reasons. He achieved popularity with common readers, first,
of course, because he wrote romantic stories, which seemed as good as true , and secondly,
because he extolled a new style of living , tougher, more daring, more heroic and
idealistic, than one encountered in everyday life. Asselineaw14agrees with what I have
said. He says: True, the critics and literary men generally considered Hemingway rather
immature and thought that he had little to say, but they did not mind, for he said it
wonderfully. In short, they admired his style, that extraordinary style with punch in it,
which takes the vernacular as its instrument and manages to make it express everything
and anything, for, with this unpromising medium, he renders sensations in the most vivid
way and at the same time succeeds in creating a fourth and even fifth dimensions, to take
up his own word.
In the early 1920s he received sympathetic encouragement and practical help from
Sherwood Anderson, Gertrude Stein, Ford Madox Ford, Ezra Pound and Scott Fitzgerald.

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He was, as Meyers 15adds: ‘the rising star of American literature and seemed to have the
surest future. More importantly, he expresses his characteristic themes of violence,
stoicism, war and death in perfectly controlled prose; and seems to exercise all emotion
from his work while allowing it to move powerfully beneath the surface.
By presenting a succession of images,’ writes Harry Levin 16 ‘each of which has its
brief moment when it commands the reader’s undivided attention, he achieves his special
vividness and fluidity….He derives his strength from a power to visualize episodes
through the eyes of those most directly involved.’
Tony Tanner17 adds: ‘It is this elevation of intensity over continuity, the “now” over
history, and the evidence of the senses over the constructs of the mind that determines the
whole point of view and strategy of Hemingway’s prose and explains his essential
preoccupation with what we might call the “over sensitized hero.”Criticism ‘has played an
unusually important part in Hemingway’s career. He received almost universal praise in
the 1920s and reached the peak of his contemporary reputation with ‘A Farewell to Arms’
in 1929, and For Whom the Bell Tolls (1940).
However, Jacqueline Tavernier-Courbin18argues that: ‘Hemingway’s works covered his
whole career and contained interesting analyses of his various phobias ( fear of darkness,
fear of death , fear of fear, morbid competitiveness, etc).’ she showed that his heroes were
projections less of what he was than of what he would have liked to be and indeed tried
hard to become.
Thus, Hemingway, in my view, wanted readers to admire him and to bask in their
admiration, though in his inmost heart he knew he was deceiving both the others and
himself.
Ralph Ellison19has described the psychological and aesthetic effect of Hemingway’s life
and language, and explained why he was an even more important model for him than the
black novelist Richard Wright: Because he appreciated the things of this earth which I
love…. Because he wrote with such precision…. Because all that he wrote was involved
with a spirit beyond the tragic…. Because Hemingway was a greater artist than Wright….
Because Hemingway loved the American language and the joy of writing.
This last testimony is the real portrait of Hemingway as a man of no comparison
throughout the twentieth century.

The Writing Style of Hemingway

Hemingway was the pioneer of a new style of writing that was certainly based on
modernism, but was enriched by his own personal ability to write “live in action”. He
created a new kind of prose, which became a model to follow and is part of the reason why
his style is still imitated all over the world. The main focus of his writing was the factual.
He, as Lynn20 claims: ‘from almost the beginning of his writing career, Hemingway
employed a distinctive style which drew comment from many critics. Hemingway does
not give way to lengthy geographical and psychological description. His style has been
said to lack substance because he avoids direct statements and descriptions of emotion.’

I think Hemingway’s style is distinctive, and it may have influenced decades of writers.
I think it is because Hemingway’s style grew out of his own head, his own experiences,
his own necessities for creating something in the way that he did so that he was not
starting with his style, he was starting with sensibility. His main issue was to record the

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bare actions and thoughts through a controlled use of words and a stylistic and bodily
toughness, creating what has been defined as the “dispassionate understatement”. He put
down exactly the sights, sounds and smells that had evoked an emotion. It is through his
synthetic but very exact use of words that Hemingway succeeds in telling only the surface
of the story leaving the text full of hidden meanings, creating a subtext as we will se in his
concept of iceberg theory of writing.

Hemingway's Iceberg Principle

Hemingway' s theory of omission is widely referred to as the "iceberg principle." He
explains this principle in chapter 16 of his 1932 book, Death in the Afternoon. Essentially,
the principle states that by omitting certain parts of a story, a writer actually strengthens
that story. The writer must be conscious of these omissions and be writing true enough in
order for the reader to sense the omitted parts. When the reader senses the omitted parts, a
greater perception and understanding for the story can be achieved.
In his works, prose style is as important to the work as the content. Hemingway' s
style includes the use of short, choppy sentences that are descriptive and have underlying
meanings that are integral to the work. Hemingway uses this technique, the iceberg, to
portray meaning and depth to a character without directly stating what the reader should
be thinking. The Iceberg is a writing theory by Ernest Hemingway, which he puts forward
in Death in the Afternoon, as follows: If a writer of a prose knows enough about what he is
writing about he may omit things that he knows and the reader, if the writer is writing
truly enough, will have a feeling of those things as strongly as though the writer had stated
them. The dignity of movement of the iceberg is due to only one-eighth of it being above
water. The writer who omits things because he does not know them only makes hollow
places in his writing.
In other words, a story can communicate by subtext. For instance, Hemingway' s
Hills like White Elephants never once mentions the word "abortion," though that is what
the story's characters seem to be discussing. At the end of The Sun Also Rises, Jake Barnes
and Brett Ashley contemplate a life together. At the end of A Farewell to Arms, Frederic
Henry walks back to his hotel alone in the rain. At the end of For Whom the Bell Tolls,
Robert Jordan awaits his impending death. The fate of these characters is never directly
stated. Hemingway doesn' t tell the reader that Jake Barnes and Brett Ashley will never be
together. Instead, it is "pretty to think" that they could have had a damned good life
together. Hemingway doesn' t tell the reader what lies in store for Frederic Henry after he
leaves his dead lover in the hospital. Does his walk alone in the rain represent emotional
freedom or devastation? Robert Jordan is surely to die at the end of For Whom the Bell
Tolls, but Hemingway leaves the reader with the image of Jordan' s "heart beating" against
the forest floor.
To explain Hemingway’s style in a few paragraphs in such a manner as to satisfy those
who have read his articles and books is almost impossible. It is a simple style, straight
forward and modest. He relates a story in the form of straight journalism, but because he is
a master of transmitting emotion with out embellishing it, the product is even more
enjoyable.
Hemingway’s Character Portrayal
In his character portrayal, Hemingway’s hero is usually masculine, who is hard drinking;
loves hunting, sports, sex, fishing, and bullfights; and many times has a war injury, faces
the most brutal set of circumstances, violence and even death and still demonstrates grace

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under pressure. A man can never act in a cowardly way. He must not show that he is
afraid or trembling or frightened in the presence of death.
A basis for all of the actions of all Hemingway characters, especially the heroes is the
concept of violence death. The idea of death lies behind all of the character’s actions in
Hemingway novels.
Hemingway’s Heroes
The portrayal of heroism is an essential aspect of literature. Hemingway’s protagonist is a
recurring hero in a progression of novels and has become an exercise in fictional
biography. Nick Adams Nick Adams Stories1924/6 grows into Jake Barnes The Sun Also
Rises1927, into Fredric Henry A Farewell to Arms 1929, into Robert Jordan For Whom the
Bell Tolls 1940, into Richard Countwell Across the River and Into the Trees 1950, and
into Santiago, The Old Man and the Sea1954.
All these are considered to be one character at different stages as Rovit23 states: There are
two Hemingway’s heroes: Nick Adams hero (tyro) and the code hero (tutor). The generic
Nick Adams character, who lives through the course of Hemingway’s fiction, appears first
as the shocked invisible voice of the miniatures of In Our Times; he grows up through
Hemingway’s three volumes of short stories, and at least four of his novels, sometimes
changing his name into Jake Barnes, Fredric Henry, Mr. Frazer, Macomber, Harry, Robert
Jordan, Richard Cantwell, and Santiago.
It is inferred from what Rovit mentions; Hemingway’s hero takes a large variety of
fictional forms, but in each of his manifestations, he is professionally developed.
They gain skills, endurance, courage and honor, which are some characteristics which
these heroes are equipped to evaluation. Rovit adds: The code which does concern
Hemingway and his heroes is the process of learning how to make one’s passive
vulnerability into a strong, rather than a week position, and how to exact the maximum
amount of reward (honor, dignity) out of these encounters…… the code is the ethic, or
philosophic perspective, through which Hemingway tries to impart meaning and value to
the seeming futility of a man’s headlong rush toward death. And the Hemingway code
does more than erect a barrier of resignation or stoicism between man’s struggles and
ultimate values.
It is inferred from what Rovit mentioned that the real Hemingway hero consists of two
lessons: the ability to make realistic promises to one, and the ability to forgive one self’s
past. The characters in all Hemingway’s stories reveal much about how he feels about men
and the role they should play in society. So, the Hemingway hero is a man whose concepts
are shaped by his view of violence and death, that in the face of death a man must perform
certain acts and these acts often involve enjoying or taking the most he can from life. The
Hemingway man is a man of action. But his actions are based upon a concept of life
(Grace under Pressure). And this leads us to the hero through which Ernest Hemingway
represents his concepts of life, (the Code Hero).

Hemingway’s Code Hero

Indigenous to almost all of Hemingway' s novels and in fact to a study of Hemingway in
general is the concept of the Hemingway hero, sometimes more popularly known as the
"code hero." When Hemingway' s novels first began to appear, they were readily accepted
by the American reading public. Part of this reception was due to the fact that Hemingway
had created a new type of fictional character whose basic response to life appealed very
strongly to the people of the 1920s.

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For many decades, Hemingway and the code hero have been synonymous, and the
numerous historical revisions focusing o n his psychosexuality, gender politics, and the
like, have done little to erode this association in the minds of many readers.
Broer and Holland24 say: The idea of the code hero was born out of necessity, as a means
of coping with an unsettling or absurd world, and as we now grapple with the postmodern
condition, the concept is not only relevant but, perhaps, more necessary than ever. Because
the code hero is grounded in the existential being in the world, in contradistinction to a
world of absolutes, it offers the potential for transcendence beyond or escape from
arbitrary and restrictive cultural and ideological conventions.
Lastly, another distinguishing quality of the classic Code Hero is the capacity to truly live
life to the fullest by embracing every opportunity and experience. However, this code hero
is usually associated with some characters who act as consumers. Lilburn25 mentions that
all the characters are consumers of something: Brett consumes men, Bill and Mike
consume alcohol, and Robert Cohn consumes himself, in a sense, in the gradual
dismantling of his manhood.

Thus, through the course of character portrayal Hemingway is able to show how he
developed the style which is characterized by a photographic realism through the deeds,
actions and the reactions of his heroes. Thus, Hemingway characters representation is
determined by the concept of death and violence. And the uses of different technique are
there to reflect overall skeleton of his literary works.
Great Themes in Hemingway’s Works
“Man is not made for defeat.” This is one of many quotations of Ernest Hemingway that
reflects not only his personal outlook on life, but many facets of his works of novels and
short stories.
Life and death, violence, brutality and love, fishing, war, sex, bullfighting, stoicism, grace
under pressure and the Mediterranean region Hemingway brought a tremendous deal of
what is middle class Americanism into literature, without very many people recognizing
what he has done.
Grace under Pressure

In Hemingway' s novels, heroes are often involved in activities that risk death- in fact; they
might be said to court death. To be a hero, Hemingway believes that a man must display
grace under pressure. Hemingway’s code hero is usually characterized by the concept of
grace under pressure throughout his fictional career. The principal ideals in the code are
honor, courage, and stoic endurance through stress, misfortune, and pain (Grace under
Pressure). The hero' s world is often violent and disorderly. The term "grace under
pressure" is often used to describe the conduct of the Hemingway code hero. Robert
Jordan of For Whom the Bell Tolls fits this mould in many ways, although he is more
thoughtful, and less physical than other Hemingway heroes, such as Jake Barnes in The
Sun Also Rises and Harry Morgan in To Have and Have Not. In A Farwell to Arms,
although less important in this novel than in his 1926 novel The Sun Also Rises,
Hemingway maps out what it means to be a hero. Chiefly, the "Hemingway hero," as
literary criticism frequently tags him, is a man of action who coolly exhibits "grace under
pressure" while confronting death.

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Love, War, and Loss.

Ernest Hemingway often dealt with themes of love and war in his novels and short stories.
In his works, he explored the various aspects of love and war, including sexual initiation,
sexual guilt, falling in love, falling out of love, and accepting the responsibilities of love.
In his changing concept of love, Hemingway was especially attracted to the relationship
which exists between sexual love and death. Thus, many of his fictional works provide an
exploration of the relationship between passion and destruction, love and death. In this
regard, loss of love and inability to love are also important themes in Hemingway' s work.

Hemingway' s first important novel, The Sun Also Rises, is directly concerned with the
inability to love. The story centers on Jake Barnes, an American journalist who is living in
Paris during the 1920' s. Jake is in love with an Englishwoman named Brett Ashley. Death
however, separates these two, as it does the piratical Harry Morgan and his wife in To
Have and Have Not (1937), failing writer Harry Walden and his wife in "The Snows of
Kilimanjaro" (1935), beautiful people on safari Francis and Margo Macomber in the short
story "The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber" (1936), and guerrilla dynamiter
Robert Jordan and his young lover Maria in hiss novel of the Spanish Civil War, For
Whom the Bell Tolls (1940). The middle-aged, dying Colonel Cantwell and his teenage
Countess Renata in Across the River and Into the Trees are similarly separated by
Cantwell' s fatal heart attack.

In posthumous novels similar couples are painter Thomas Hudson and his actress ex-wife,
separated first by divorce and then by death in Islands in the Stream (1970), as well as
troubled newly weds David and Catherine Bourne in The Garden of Eden (1986).
Ernest and his first wife Hadley in the posthumous memoir novel of 1920s Paris, A
Moveable Feast (1964), also find trouble in marriage and impending separation. Even The
Old Man and the Sea (1952), very nearly a book without women, characterizes the old
Cuban fisherman Santiago as a man who finds the death of his wife still so painful to
contemplate that he keeps her photograph flat on a shelf under his folded spare shirt rather
than in full view so that he will not be reminded of the loss of her.
In all of these works, it is the love and often the memory of its loss that is a core element
in the appeal to a reader. It is in A Farewell to Arms that the First World War is most
directly treated, and the loss of love through Catherine Barkley' s death in childbirth is not
merely paralleled by the war. Images of war, disease, and death are set in counterpoint
against the passing seasons in the mountain landscape of northern Italy in the novel' s
famous opening chapter.
The Spanish Civil War of For Whom the Bell Tolls offers another tale of love and war, but
the stakes of this war are different, and the lovers perhaps more positively viewed than
those of A Farewell to Arms. The novel' s protagonist, Robert Jordan, is a university
instructor of Spanish from Montana who has come to fight for the Spanish Republic in the
mountains north of Madrid.
In A Farewell to Arms the soldiers who work under Frederic Henry' s command become
individuals, yet they are not at the center of the novel' s concerns. In For Whom the Bell
Tolls, where the novel' s epigraph, taken from John Donne, proclaims "No man is an Iland,
intire of it selfe," the individual members of the band become even more individualized
and contribute more to Robert Jordan' s fate. It is true of the depictions of the Spanish

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countryside in The Sun Also Rises and For Whom the Bell Tolls, where the beauty of the
landscape is often in contrast with the ignorance or savagery of mankind.
Eventually, whether we think of love or of war or of wilderness as we read the great
themes in Hemingway, it probably is loss that produces the final effect upon the reader.
There is no question that Hemingway as writer is a realist in subject matter as well as a
modernist in form.
Violence, Illness and Death
For Jake Barnes of The Sun Also Rises(1926), Fredrick Henry of A Farewell to
Arms(1929) ,Robert Jordan of For Whom the Bell Tolls(1940) , Santiago of The Old Man
and the Sea(1954), Harry of “Snows of Kilimanjaro,” and Nick Adams of “Indian Camp,”
violence, illness and death are an ever-present part of life. In these novels and short
stories, Hemingway portrays characters suffering from physical illness and mental disease.
Hemingway seems to suggest that to live is to live with disease (Grace under Pressure).
Indeed, the world in which Hemingway lived was a world of illness. A part of multiple
wars, unsuccessful relationships, and the “lost generation,”
Avoiding violence, illness, pain and death is impossible in the world of Hemingway’s
literature, just as it was for Hemingway in his own life. To Hemingway, writing itself was
a coping mechanism. Just like their creator, his characters’ only possible course of action
is to find a way to cope with the pain inherent in the human condition. Romances in The
Sun Also Rises, A Farewell to Arms, and For Whom the Bell Tolls can be perceived as
injurious.
In “The Snows of Kilimanjaro,” Hemingway does more than simply illustrate a character
suffering from gangrene. In The Sun Also Rises, the protagonist and narrator, Jacob
Barnes, is a World War I veteran who suffered an injury to his genitals. He is physically
emasculated by a war injury. Even Maria of For Whom the Bell Tolls hurts Robert’s
ability to complete his work at times. At first glance, Hemingway seems to portray love,
marriage, and women as inevitable paths to heartache and injury. Living, for
Hemingway’s characters, is a struggle to accept and survive.
Characters like Maria of For Whom the Bell Tolls and Catherine of A Farewell to Arms
serve as caregivers to those they love. Hemingway depicts another positive effect of
illness in The Sun Also Rises; Jake and Brett’s seemingly impossible love affair is kept
somewhat platonic by Jake’s war injury. In this way, some relationships in Hemingway’s
works are actually strengthened by the adversity of violence, illness and an eventually
death.
The metaphysical concern about the nature of the individual' s existence in relation to the
world made Hemingway conceive his protagonists as alienated individuals fighting a
losing battle against the odds of life with courage (code hero), endurance (stoicism) and
will as their only weapons (Grace under Pressure). Hemingway, in his novels and short
stories, presents human life as a perpetual struggle which ends only in endurance of
violence, brutality (Grace under Pressure) and eventual death. And all these works are
more or less bound by the concept of violence and death which is shaped by the theme of
grace under pressure. In a world of pain and failure, the individual also has his own
weapon to assert the dignity of his existence.
Conclusion
Perhaps no figure in American literature of the twentieth-century dominated the
literary landscape, as Ernest Hemingway did during the twentieth century and after. Often
embracing a life of danger from bullfighting and boxing to hunting wild game in Africa,

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including two successive plane crashes on safari, Hemingway’s life was a constant
adventure with several violent, brutal and near death experiences. His first books are
episodes in the experience of a young whose sensitivity has been violated in various ways,
physically, emotionally, and spiritually. Common to almost all of Hemingway’s novels is
the concept of the Hemingway hero, sometimes known as the “code hero..
The Hemingway hero is a man whose concepts are shaped by his view of violence
and death, that in the face of death a man must perform certain acts and these acts often
involve enjoying or taking the most he can from life (grace under pressure).
Hemingway code hero exemplified by the expatriate of the lost generation Jake
Barnes in The Sun Also Rises (1926), the soldier Frederic Henry in A Farewell to Arms,
the American dynamist with the guerilla fighters Robert Jordan in For Whom The Bell
Tolls (1940), and the fisherman Santiago in The Old Man and the Sea (1952), involves
qualities of stoicism, courage, honor, endurance, and self-control. There are also
psychological effects of violence depicted in Hemingway' s novels and short fiction, which
are ever-present in his descriptions of war, bullfighting, big-game hunting, and surviving
in the wilderness, violence and death. His fiction is at its strongest in its portraits of male
characters struggling to define their identities and find honor in a chaotic world by means
of grace under pressure.
His distinctive writing style is characterized by economy and understatement, and had a
significant influence on the development of twentieth century fiction writing. There are
some characteristics of his writing style: Stark minimalist nature, grade school-like
grammar, austere word choice, unvarnished descriptions, short, declarative sentences, uses
language accessible to the common reader. His protagonists are typically stoical men who
exhibit an ideal described as grace under pressure. Many of his works are considered now
as classics of American literature.

Results

The following results are reached:

1. Although there are a number of novelists reached a distinguished level in their

literary career during and after the twentieth century, Ernest Hemingway is the
most influential novelist who climbed the ladder of fame and reputation without
question , who ended up suicidally six years after wining the Noble Prize for
Literature.
2. His character portrayal and representation and the characteristics of his writing
style are determined through the theme of death and violence.
3. The choice of Hemingway’s words (diction) and plot structure (narration and
chronology) are determined by the theme of death and violence.

Recommendations

The researcher recommends that Hemingway’s novels to be studied in depth, especially by

scholars of English literature and students as well. Moreover, the researcher recommends
that, in order to understand and appreciate the underlying ideas of Hemingway, it is
important not to look at his works with a mere natural admiration for an individual who
fights the good fight in a world of reality overshadowed by the concept of death and

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violence, but as a pivotal figure in literature and his works have to be taught in our
institutions of higher education.

References

1. Kenner, H. (1975). Small Ritual Truths, ‘A Homemade World’ .New York:

2. Meyers, J. (2005). Ernest Hemingway: the critical heritage Volume 7 of The
Critical heritage series. USA: Routledge.
3. Bellow, S. (1953). Hemingway and the Image of Man, ‘Partisan Review
4. Mailer, N. (1963), Punching Papa, ‘New York Review of Books
5. Raeburn, J. (1984). Fame Become of Him: Hemingway as Public Writer.
Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
6. Cawelti, J. G. (1965) Apostles of the Self-Made Man. Chicago: University of
Chicago Press
7. Braudy, L. (1986) The Frenzy of Renown: Fame and its History. New York:
Oxford University Press
8. Ibid, (1984).
9. Baker, C. (1969). Ernest Hemingway: A life story. New York: Charles Scribner'
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Sons.
10. Ross, L (1964) Portrait of Hemingway: Reporting. New York: Simon and
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11. Donaldson, S. (1996) The Cambridge Guide to Hemingway. Cambridge:
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12. Hotchner, A. E. (1999).Papa Hemingway: A Personal Memoir. New Ed. New
York: Carroll & Graf
13. Ibid (1986)
14. Asselineaw, R. C. (1963). The Literary Reputation of Hemingway in Europe,
Paris: New York: New York University Press.
15. Ibid (1986)
16. Harry Levin, (1951), Observations on the Style of Ernest Hemingway, ‘Kenyon
Review
17. Tanner, T. (1965) Ernest Hemingway’s Unhurried Sensations, ‘Reign of Wonder’
Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press
18. Tavernier-Courbin, J. (1979). Ernest Hemingway: L’ Education Europeenne de
Nick Adams. Paris: Canadian Review of American Studies. Didier
19. Ellison, R. ( 1964) The World and the Jug, ‘Shadow and Act’ New York:
20. Lynn, K. S. (1987). Hemingway. New York: Fawcett Columbine
21. Rovit, E. (1963). Ernest Hemingway. New York: Twayne
22. Broer, L. R. and Holland, G. (2002) Hemingway and Women: Female Critics and
the Female Voice .Tuscaloosa, Alabama: The University of Alabama Press
23. Lilburn, J. M. (1999). Essays on Novels for Students. Ontario: The University of
Western Ontario Press.

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