life. As the practitioners of the tradition moved from London to Paris, the American
expatriates became exposed to a new style of writing. No one was more infl uenced by
the trend than Ernest Hemingway, whose aesthetic evolved in the early 1920s under
the infl uence of Ford Madox Ford, Ezra Pound, and others who had been Imagists the
decade before. To this new method of rendering fi ction Hemingway added the social
and intellectual concerns of the decade: the devastation of the war, the loss of
220
James Nagel
confi dence in the institutions that had directed social values in earlier times, and the
collapse of religion and customs that formed the core principles for earlier generations.
Most of his protagonists have been wounded in some important way, and many of
them, having lost faith in traditional values, strive to establish new codes to guide
their behavior.
Hemingway expressed these new ideas from the beginning of his mature fi ction,
depicting a frank but cruel sexuality in “ Up in Michigan, ” suicide in “ Indian Camp, ”
unhappy marriage in “ The Doctor and the Doctor ’ s Wife, ” adolescent sexuality in
“ Ten Indians, ” and abortion in “ Hills Like White Elephants. ” To these harsh domestic
issues he added the psychological consequences of violence in “ A Way You ’ ll Never
Be, ” the aftermath of wounding in “ In Another Country, ” the lingering impact of
war even when the fi ghting ended in
“
Soldier
’
s Home.
”
Death was a theme in
Hemingway ’
s African stories, as in “ The Snows of Kilimanjaro ”
and “ The Short,
Happy Life of Francis Macomber, ” and the emptiness of life forms the thematic center
of “ A Clean, Well - Lighted Place, ” one of the great stories in English.
F. Scott Fitzgerald ’ s work focused primarily on the domestic issues of the Jazz Age,
but his fi nest story, “ Babylon Revisited, ” deals with life in Paris after the war. Other
stories, “ Winter Dreams, ” “ Absolution, ” and “ The Rich Boy, ” for example, stress the
psychological struggles of adolescence and the desire of the central characters to be
accepted into the country - club set. The varied and complex fi ction of William Faulkner
transcends simple description, but his best work takes place in Yoknapatawpha, a
fi ctional county in Mississippi containing characters who reappear in multiple works.
Among his fi nest stories are those that capture the value struggles of poor whites, as
in “ Barn Burning ” ; African Americans attempting to survive in Southern society, an
issue in “ That Evening Sun ” and “ The Fire and the Hearth ” ; and the multi - layered
collapse of “ aristocratic ” whites in such works as “ A Rose for Emily. ” Many stories
develop other themes, such as the vanishing wilderness and the loss of its moral
instruction, as does “ The Old People, ” “ Delta Autumn, ” and Faulkner ’ s fi nest effort
in short fi ction, “ The Bear, ” a complex story that combines many of his central themes:
the mythological ritual of hunting for a young white boy guided by an elderly man
of color, the disappearing delta forest, the haunting moral legacy of slavery, the inter-
actions of people across the social strata. No other writer captured such depth in his
portrayal of a region as did Faulkner, and no one employed more complex strategies
of narrative method, structure, and thematic development than he did in his remark-
able stories and novels.
Anzia Yezierska followed the work of Abraham Cahan in portraying the travails
of Jewish immigrants to the New World, although with a special emphasis on the
plight of urban women. In “ The Fat of the Land, ” for example, a mother battles
poverty and despair only to fi nd in her old age that the economic advances her family
has made have left her empty, longing for the close - knit society of her younger years.
“ Children of Loneliness ” deals with the loss of family, “ Wild Winter Love ” with
suicide. One of her last stories, “ A Chair in Heaven, ” returns to the idea that fi nancial
enrichment does not bring contentment and inner peace. In the later years of the
The Twentieth Century
221
century, Jewish writers were a dominant force in American letters for several decades.
The period featured the fi ne stories of Philip Roth, especially those in
Goodbye,
Columbus , such as “ Defender of the Faith ” ; Saul Bellow, who won a Nobel Prize for
Literature; Cynthia Ozick; Bernard Malamud; and Isaac Bashevis Singer. Their
collective impact was immense, and it expanded and deepened American fi ction.
The African American stories of Charles Chesnutt, Jessie Faucet, Paul Lawrence
Dunbar, Alice Dunbar - Nelson, and Frances Ellen Watkins Harper in the nineteenth
century were followed in the twentieth by the fi ction of Jean Toomer, Langston
Hughes, and Zora Neale Hurston. Toomer ’ s Cane from 1923 was hailed as a master-
piece, and “ Blood Burning Moon ” has been widely anthologized throughout the many
decades since. Langston Hughes, known primarily as a poet, was also a prolifi c writer
of short fi ction, publishing ten volumes in the form. “ Slave on the Block ” shows white
people fascinated with African American culture, a common theme during the Harlem
Renaissance. His “ Simple ” stories, about Jessie B. Semple, capture the vernacular,
folkways, and tone of black life, as does
“
Possum, Race, and Face.
”
Zora Neale
Hurston, trained in anthropology, concentrated on portraying the folklore, language,
and local traditions of the deep South in such stories as “ The Conscience of the Court, ”
“ Sweat, ” and “ Under the Bridge. ”
Other African American writers contributed to the genre in the years that followed,
most notable among them were James Baldwin (whose “ Sonny ’ s Blues ” and “ This
Morning, This Evening, So Soon ” are among his best - known works) and Ernest Gaines
(whose “ The Sky is Gray ” opens his collection Bloodline ). Amiri Baraka ’ s Tales (1967)
is composed of both stories and poems in an experimental confi guration similar to
that of Toomer ’ s Cane in 1923. Ralph Ellison contributed numerous stories in addi-
tion to Invisible Man, for which he is best known, and some of them, “ Flying Home, ”
for instance, have been widely anthologized. Gloria Naylor ’ s story cycle The Women
of Brewster Place established her credentials in the genre, as did Jamaica Kincaid ’ s short
fi ction in the New Yorker, later brought together in Annie John . Toni Morrison ’ s stories
are immensely popular, and frequently anthologized, if often overshadowed by her
award winning novels. Similarly, Alice Walker is famous for The Color Purple , but her
story “ Everyday Use ” is read by millions of college students. James Alan McPherson ’ s
“ Of Cabbages and Kings ” is also widely known along with Toni Cade Babara ’ s “ The
Lesson. ” At the end of the twentieth century, the African American story remained a
vibrant and vital force in literature.
Many other
ethnic groups have emerged to forge important contributions to
the form as well. In Native American fi ction, for example, Sherman Alexie instilled
new energy into the form with such stories as “ The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfi ght
in Heaven ” and “ Because My Father Always Said He Was the Only Indian Who
Saw Jimi Hendrix Play ‘ The Star - Spangled Banner ’ at Woodstock. ” Louise Erdrich,
whose natural genre is the collection of inter
-
related stories, has become famous
for
The Beat Queen
and
Love Medicine
, a volume often misinterpreted as a novel.
“ The Red Convertible ” is one of her most often anthologized tales. Leslie Marmon
Silko ’ s “ Yellow Woman ” and “ Storyteller ” are complex narratives with a thematic
222
James Nagel
edge often missing in Erdrich ’ s work. Susan Power, educated in the Ivy League, and
holding a law degree, brought an intellectual rigor to the story in such works as
“ Morse Code. ”
Asian American writers have also enriched American literature with their stories,
perhaps the most famous of which are those in Maxine Hong Kingston ’ s Woman
Warrior and the sixteen stories that make up Amy Tan ’ s The Joy Luck Club , of which
“ Four Directions ” and “ Rules of the Game ” are among the most widely read. Hisaye
Yamamoto ’ s Seventeen Syllables consists of short fi ction about the Japanese internment
experience during World War II, the best of which is perhaps “ The Legend of Miss
Sasagawara, ” a stunningly insightful psychological portrait. Frank Chin ’ s work intro-
duced a new defi ant tone to Asian American writing. In such stories as “ The Only
Real Day ” and “ Railroad Standard Time, ” his fi ction establishes an angry protagonist
who insists on abolishing stereotypes and expressing an assertive personality who
dominates, rather than simply persists, in society. Gish Jen has developed a broad
following for her portrayal of Chinese American families in “ Who ’ s Irish, ” for example,
and the emergence of Yiyun Li in 2005 with “ The Princess of Nebraska ” revealed an
immigrant writer who can, with sensitivity and grace, depict issues of ethnicity and
sexual preference with great artistic skill.
Latino writers also contributed to the richness of American literature. Sandra
Cisneros burst on the scene with a dramatically poetic volume of fi ctional vignettes,
The House on Mango Street , which won the Before Columbus American Book Award.
More mythological in scope are the stories in Woman Hollering Creek . Judith Ortiz
Cofer draws on her Puerto Rican background to enrich her short fi ction, as she did
in the award winning “ Nada, ” which shows the anguish of death in war. Much of her
work bends genres into semi - autobiographical, creative non - fi ction, but, throughout,
she mixes humor with tragedy, bitter resentment of racism with the satisfaction of
functioning in American society. Helena Mar í a Viramontes uses her fi ction to express
social protest against the social and sexual forces that oppress Chicana women in
California, as she does in “ The Cariboo Cafe ” from The Moths and Other Stories. Her
second volume of stories was entitled Paris Rats in E. L. A. Julia Alvarez used her
background in the Dominican Republic to introduce new characters experiencing an
old theme, immigrants going through the process of assimilation. The four sisters in
the fi fteen stories that comprise How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents , for example,
deal with language acquisition, cultural loss, familial strife, and romance in a new
society.
Throughout the century important writers emerged who addressed other kinds of
concerns. Flannery O ’ Connor, for example, wrote about her native South in such
masterpieces as “ A Good Man is Hard to Find, ” and Eudora Welty addressed the same
region in such landmark stories as “ Petrifi ed Man. ” John Updike placed his stories in
New England and the mid - Atlantic states, as did Andre Dubus, both writers captur-
ing domestic dramas in their compelling stories. Dubus ’ s “ Killings ” received a great
deal of attention after it was made into a Hollywood motion picture entitled In the
Bedroom . Garrison Keillor addressed his short fi ction to his native Minnesota and the
The Twentieth Century
223
mythical town of Lake Wobegone. In a vast number of brief vignettes, all closely
related to the oral tradition, he dealt humorously yet poignantly with the ordinary
situations of small - town life. Tim O ’ Brien sprang from the same area, but his work
is focused on the moral confusion and confl ict surrounding the war in Viet Nam, and
his stories in The Things They Carried are brilliant evocations of the ethical compro-
mises in combat, all contained in such works as “ The Sweetheart of the Song Tra
Bong. ” Robert Olen Butler ’ s short fi ction mirrors that of O ’ Brien. Rather than tracing
Americans in action in Southeast Asia, Butler deals with Vietnamese who have immi-
grated to Louisiana in the aftermath of the war. His characters still carry the war with
them, in their memories, dreams, and family tragedies.
In essence, the late twentieth century enjoyed the fruition of the American story,
a richness beyond measure. From the controlled minimalism of Raymond Carver ’ s
“ Cathedral ” and the fi nely crafted components of Susan Minot ’ s Monkeys to the experi-
mentation in such Donald Barthelme stories as “ Views of My Father Weeping ” or
John Barth ’ s “ Night - Sea Journey, ” the potential of the genre seems limitless. Bobbie
Ann Mason is perhaps less innovative in form but richer in her explorations of human
emotion in everyday situations, as in “ Shiloh ” and “ A New - Wave Format. ” The stories
of Bharati Mukherjee, such as “ The Tenant ” or “ A Four - Hundred - Year - Old Woman, ”
are a reminder that immigration to the New World is an ongoing process, and new
citizens continue to enrich the culture of the United States now as they did in the
late nineteenth century. To be sure, short fi ction in twentieth - century America has
left a rich and complex legacy, one fi lled with impressive artistry, social confl ict, and
enormous potential for sustained innovation, and it is one that is only beginning to
be explored and understood.
15
The Hemingway Story
George Monteiro
In a 1950 front - page review of Ernest Hemingway ’ s Across the River and Into the Trees
in the New York Times Book Review the writer John O ’ Hara proclaimed that the book ’ s
author was the most important writer in the English language since the death of
Shakespeare in 1616. The reaction to O ’ Hara ’ s statement was immediate and loud.
In fact, O ’ Hara ’ s opinion achieved such notoriety, and was so long - lasting, that a full
ten years later O ’ Hara was still trying to explain what he had meant in insisting on
Hemingway ’ s great historical importance.
The various circumstances that have made him the most important are not all of a purely
literary nature. Some are anything but. We start with a fi rst - rate, original, conscientious
artist, who caught on because of his excellence. The literary and then the general public
very quickly realized that a great artist was functioning in our midst. Publicity grew
and grew, and Hemingway helped it to grow, not always deliberately but sometimes
deliberately. He had an unusual, almost comical name; he was a big, strong, highly
personable man. He associated himself, through his work, with big things: Africa, Italy,
Spain, war, hunting, fi shing, bullfi ghting, The Novel, Style, death, violence, castration,
and a teasing remoteness from his homeland and from the lit ’ ry life. All these things
make you think of Hemingway, and each and all of them add to his importance, that
carries over from one writing job to another. I have a theory that there has not been a
single issue of the Sunday Times book section in the past twenty years that has failed
to mention Hemingway; his name is a synonym for writer with millions of people who
have never read any work of fi ction. 1
Born in 1899, in Oak Park, Illinois, Ernest Hemingway was the son of Clarence
and Grace Hall Hemingway. He was educated in the public schools of Oak Park,
where, in addition to his studies, he played football and wrote for school publications.
Upon graduation he was hired as a cub reporter for the Kansas City Star . In May 1918
he joined the Red Cross ambulance corps, arriving in Italy a few weeks later. Wounded
at the front in early July, he returned to Oak Park a war hero. After the war he worked
The Hemingway Story
225
for a time in and around Chicago and later for a Toronto newspaper. On September
3, 1921, he married Hadley Richardson. His commitment to a literary career can be
considered to have begun at that time, starting out, mainly, with short stories.
That he would commit himself fully to the task of becoming a professional writer
was the single great choice behind Hemingway ’ s decision in 1921 to leave for Europe.
He was 22 years old, and he was eager to try Paris, the home then of such famed
exiled writers as Gertrude Stein, James Joyce, and Ezra Pound. In December 1921,
Ernest and Hadley sailed from New York on the Leopoldina. He was to spend most
of the decade in Europe; by the time he returned to the United States he had become
A Companion to the American Short Story Page 49
