In Our Time – Ernest Hemingway

I originally encountered this work with Dr. Olivia Edenfield, Georgia Southern University, College of Graduate Studies, Fall 2023. These are my scratch notes.

General Notes

• Collections don’t progress or build
• cycles – stories move forward and echo back
  • they have questions posed early and worked out by the end of the cycle
  • we see this evolution in Nick
  • Cycle suggests that you return to, or is connected by theme, character, or place (it is best to have all three)
• The placement of “My Old Man” in the cycle has been questioned; it illustrates the collapse of the respect a young boy has for his father.
• Hemingway’s relationship with his father can be interpreted inside the Nick Adams stories.
• Nick is a vessel for a more complex masculinity.
• Even without the war, Nick is working out his masculinity
• Nick is not Hemingway; rather, he is a special kind of mask
  • not 1 to 1
  • not an avatar
  • Hemingway uses his bio for Nick, but he is not Nick
  • Nick is a character that heals throughout the cycle – somebody called it “spells and incantations against despair.”
• In Our Time is about movement, a movement that would go unnoticed if we ignored the iceberg theory.

I. Indian Camp

II. The Doctor and the Doctor’s Wife

III. The End of Something

IV. The Three Day Blow

V. The Battler

VI. A Very Short Story

VII. Soldier’s Home

VIII. The Revolutionist

IX. Mr. and Mrs. Elliot

X. Cat in the Rain

XI. Out of Season

XII. Cross Country Snow

• In Hemingway’s life at the time of writing
  • Hadley is preganant
  • they are moving to Canada
  • Hemingway has a job with the Toronto Star
  • Pound has him writing vignettes
  • He is not up to writing full stories just yet
  • then he starts with “Indian Camp”
• Funicular car – runs on tension

XIII. My Old Man

• Initiation of protagonist, Joe
• most probably a recollection
• perharps a nod from EH to SherwooD Anderson
• Idealized father
• EH is never about what happens but how we handle what happens
• “I think it is charming, until you think about it.” ~ Dr. Edenfield

XIV. Big Two-Hearted River, Part I

XV. Big Two-Hearted River, Part II

• two rivers coming to form one river
• swamp – possible metaphor for war memories or domestication
• second growth (Holly’s point) messy, maybe fertility, feminine ecosystem

          L’Envoi