ERNEST HEMINGWAY

A CLEAN, WELL-LIGHTED PLACE

1. This story takes place in Spain, I can tell because the currency used is pesetas. Because of the attitude towards men in the military I am guessing it was during the Spanish Civil War, during the 1930's. Any civil war is a dark moment; being from Colombia I know of many people who left Spain during that awful time and made Latin America their new home. I can only think that the idea of a well-lighted place was a symbol of hope for all those who were oppressed and demoralized in their homeland and needed some hope. Almost like a light ot the end of the tunnel.

2. The characters are nameless because there is no need for them to have names. They were random people; a patron and the servers in a cafe. The idea of not giving them names is to make them be as random as possible, just a few more citizens of the world. When it comes to a moment such as a civil war, it doesn't matter who the people are and what they do -- they are all people who are going through the same hardships as everyone else. By giving them names they would be given a certain status that Hemingway rendered pointless.

3. The casual occurrences at a cafe during none particular night.

4. Don't let appearances fool you.

HILLS LIKE WHITE ELEPHANTS

1. The story takes place in what seems to be a lonely, run-down train station in a small Spanish town somewhere between the cities of Barcelona and Madrid. The only thing to do there is sit and wait for the train to come, the characters have no other choice. Just like the moment in the main characters' life. The couple is in between two great moments in their relationship. They used to be happy and will be happy again, but right now they have to do what is necessary; Jig must have the operation.

2. The story is written in third-person POV. I think the narrator's attitude is neutral. There is really no decription about their emotions nor the situation. The reader is getting the facts in a straightforward manner, no emotions are revealed, there is nothing that tells us anything about the physical aspects or what the operation is going to be. Sort of making those details unimportant.

3. The style it's written in is very mundane. Hemingway doesn't use a lot of adjectives, and the lack of pronouns in the dialogue make it hard to keep up. He writes about the simply moments during life that I guess a lot of other writers omit, giving his characters very humanly traits, to which his readers can easily identify with.

ERNEST MILLER HEMINGWAY

He was born in a suburb of Chicago in 1899, and left home as soon as he finished high school to be a reporter in Kansas. He went to Italy as in a volunteer ambulance unit during WWI, where he was wounded. He returned to the USA to recover but moved again to Europe, this time France, as soon as he could. He also travelled a lot to Spain, mostly as a correspondent during the civil war. He also travelled to London to cover WWII as a journalist. After the war was over, he travelled a lot to many different places, such as Cuba and Africa, where he was inspired to write. After Castro's revolution in Cuba, however, he decided to move back home and settled down in Idaho. He had become by now depressed and anxious. He committed suicided by shooting himself. He was married four times during his life and had three sons.

(source: www.biography.com)

1. He travelled a lot through Spain
2. He was always in love with a woman
3. He almost always seemed to incorporate war in his stories