A Brief Story In Ernest Hemingway's A Very Short Story

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A Very Short Story Ernest Hemingway is considered one of the most significant fiction writers of the 20th century. He is famous for his specific style of writing, the so called iceberg theory, which is clearly seen in his short stories and novels. Undoubtedly the unique thing that makes his short stories so special is the fact that after you read them you get the main idea but there are many things that remain unspoken or have a deeper meaning. You have to reread the text and use your imagination to get the whole picture of the text. Hemingway accomplishes that outcome by making use of his iceberg theory - the ability to omit as much as possible from the context and interpretation of the story, leaving the reader to intuit its entire meaning. …show more content…

Although this story is fiction it is influenced to certain extent by the author’s personal life. The main character is not named throughout the whole story but it is assumable that he is Nick from the other stories in “In Our Time”. However, he is a soldier who gets injured during a certain war and takes shine to the nurse who is looking after him. The words “soldier”, “nurse” and “war” are actually never mentioned in the text. We can reach these conclusions by the facts that the main character is carried to the roof which means that he is wounded, and the mentioned searchlights imply that it is a period of war. The intimacy between the nurse and the soldier is implied in the end of the first paragraph – “Luz sat on the bed. She was cool and fresh in the hot night.” Their love is confirmed later in the text, when they are praying in the Duomo and reveal their desire to get married “so they could not lose it.” The fact that they are afraid that they could “lose it” brings in the feeling of anxiety to the reader. Later on this feeling builds up even more with the quarrel that they have on their way to Milan. They Although they kiss goodbye they still haven’t finished their argument and separate in bad terms. The climax of the story comes shortly afterwards. After having an affair with an Italian major, Luz ends the relationship saying that “it was only a boy and girl love”. In such a