Essay, Research Paper: Examining Coping Skills In Hemingway"s Short Stories

Examining Coping Skills in Hemingway's Short Stories

Ernest Hemingway writes stories that examine some of the hard truths of being human. How do I face death? How do I deal with a crippling injury? What do I want to leave as a legacy when I die? These are a few of the questions that Hemingway's characters must face. In each of the short stories; The Snows of Kilimanjaro, A Clean, Well-Lighted Place, A Day's Wait, and In Another Country, at least one of the characters faces one of these human dilemmas.

In Hemingway's A Day's Wait, The person facing a dilemma is a nine-year-old boy named Schatz. Schatz has convinced himself that he is going to die, when in reality he merely has the flu. Schatz's father narrates the story and is unaware of Schatz's erroneous deduction until the end of the story. Most nine-year-olds aren't forced to face their own death, and young Schatz faces his in a very stoic manner. He shows very little emotion and tries to protect his family from what he considers to be his death sickness.
" You can't come in…You mustn't get what I have." (1) This type of reaction comes from Schatz emulating the adults in his life. He strives to be accepted as an adult by taking on the mannerisms and reactions that he sees adult's use when they are faced with a crisis. Once the boy learns that he isn't going to die, he no longer needs a strong defense mechanism and he reverts back to behavior more typical of a child.

One of the things this story reveals is that the dilemmas we create in our minds are just as frightening, if not more frightening, than the actual physical dangers we face. There is a scene in which the father is outside hunting and we see just how hostile the physical world can be and how we are almost oblivious to these dangers. Everything outside is covered in ice to the point of making walking difficult. The father is not afraid for his safety even after falling and dropping his gun. He is happy to have found a plentiful covey of quail. The father was in actual physical danger yet his mind seems able to accept these physical dangers as part of living. Young Schatz has created a situation in his own mind that causes him to think he is on the verge of death. This imagined fear is more tangible than the actual physical danger faced by his father.

The dilemmas faced by the young American soldier in In Another Country are also a combination of real and imagined fears. He is recuperating from a war wound and is being used as test case for a type of physical therapy involving machines. Besides this physical crisis he has a dilemma revolving around fearing death if he recuperates, "…I was very much afraid to die, and often lay in bed at night by myself, afraid to die and wondering how I would be when I went back to the front again." (2) We are not told this soldier's age but he seems to be a young man. The prospect of being crippled for life at such an age is something he faces with a quiet resignation. He is still a part of life. He is observant of his surroundings, and even expresses hope of one day being married. The focus of his fear is not on how to deal with a serious injury. His focus is on the possible future death that he faces if he is returned to the front lines.

1. Ernest Hemingway, The Snows of Kilimanjaro and Other Stories (Simon and Schuster, 1995), p. 35.
2. Ibid., p.68
The Major who is in the same hospital is shown to us to be an older mentor and
example for the young American narrator. He approaches his wounds with a military bearing. He says that he has no confidence in the physical therapy machines, yet he shows his respect for the protocol that the machines symbolize. Our narrator says of him, "I do not think he ever missed a day, although I am sure he did not believe in the machines." (3) This type of obedience to structure and ritual is what he effectively uses to deal with the problems he faces in life. This coping strategy serves the Major well until he is faced with the most painful dilemma in the story. The Major's young wife dies after a sudden illness. This is the type of unexpected and catastrophic event that tests the strength of his coping strategy. The Major initially responds by berating his young protege, but after a short time he regains his composure, apologizes, and "carrying himself straight and soldierly, with tears on both his cheeks and biting his lips, he walked past the machines and out the door." (4) He spends three days away from the hospital (presumably dealing with his wife's funeral) and returns to the machines that he doesn't believe in. Once again the physical crisis of his injury is something he can effectively deal with, while the emotional pain of losing his wife shakes his world.

In The Snows of Kilimanjaro, the narrator is a writer named Harry. Harry's leg is badly infected and his group is stranded in the plains below Mount Kilimanjaro. Harry is convinced that he is going to die from his wounds and approaches his impending death by alternately lashing out at his wife and contemplating the things he has failed to do as a writer. Harry spends little time thinking about the physical situation that he is in, going as far as joking about the smell coming off his rotting leg. Instead of focusing on the physical dilemma he is in he spends most of the time expressing great regret that he has failed to document his complex and well traveled life. "He had been in it and he had watched it and it was his duty to write of it; but now he never would." (5)

He doesn't show any regret towards failing his wife. After a period of treating his wife very badly, going as far as to say he didn't love her, "… he could feel the return of acquiescence in this life of pleasant surrender." From that point on he treats her with a distant politeness. This is another example of the internal crisis being more important than the world of flesh.

This regret for things not written, combined his emotional detachment from his wife, is how Harry faces his human dilemma. He has no structure to fall back on like the Major in In Another Country. He has spent most of his life drifting around. Unlike Schatz in A Day's Wait, Harry shows little concern for those around him. The people in his life seem to be there to provide the action in his stories. This turning inward and regretting what he didn't accomplish in life is a sad and lonely way to face death. He is so wrapped up in his memories that his mental meandering starts to bleed over into the conscious

3. Ibid.
4. Ibid., p.70
5. Ibid., p.17
world. "You tell them why" he says to his wife when he returns from a dream-state where he had been questioning why "he had never written [stories from when he was in Paris]" (6)

Ultimately we are left with Harry dying and somehow achieving his own personal nirvana atop Kilimanjaro. This is troubling because we see no actions or thoughts from Harry leading us to believe that he's destined for a saintly afterlife. His wife is left with the hyenas announcing Harry's death with "a strange, human, almost crying sound" (7) Harry's death and subsequent ascension to the top of Kilimanjaro might be explained by what it was he failed to write. The stories he conjures up on his deathbed are stories of moral dilemmas he has faced in his life. Should he help a critically wounded soldier die? Should he turn in an ignorant farm hand for killing a thief? How should he cope with the atrocities of war? From his accounts he did the best that he could in these situations. The pleasant afterlife he receives is based on this life of struggle, not on the short period of selfishness and pettiness that we see at the end of his life.

In Hemingway's generational story A Clean, Well-Lighted Place, we have a view of three men at different stages of life and how they approach their life dilemmas. The story revolves around two waiters. These two waiters are discussing the actions and motivations of an old drunken man who comes to the cafe where they work to drink brandy. The view that each waiter takes about the old man shows a lot about how they face crisis and dilemmas in their own life.

"He should have killed himself last week" (8) sums up the younger waiters opinion of the old drunk. He displays no affinity to any other character besides himself. When the older waiter expresses any concern or sympathy for the old man, the younger waiter becomes even more self-focused and irritable about having to stay at work to serve the old man. The young waiter is shown to us to be concerned with the superficial dilemmas of life. When can I see my wife? When is my shift over? He approaches these dilemmas with the brashness and self-centeredness of youth.

The older waiter is a good foil to this abrasive youth. He looks at the old drunk almost as if looking in a mirror. He is the voice of the old man when the young waiter complains, "I want to go home to bed". The older waiter answers, "What is an hour?" Again when the younger waiter says, "A wife would be no good to [the old drunk] now" the older waiter retorts, "You can't tell. He might be better with a wife" (9) This is because the older waiter and the old drunk share many of the same fears and dilemmas. It's revealed at the end of the story that the older waiter suffers from insomnia and his solution is to try to find a nice cafe with plenty of light to help keep his mental demons at bay. When the older waiter is explaining to the younger waiter his reasons for not

6. Ibid., p. 23
7. Ibid., p. 27
8. Ibid., p.30
9. Ibid.

wanting to go home at night, he says, "I am of those who like to stay late at the cafe…With all those who need light for the night." (10) Thus the demons are symbolized in the story by darkness and night. This is similar to the way that the young American soldier from In Another Country dealt with his problems; be an active part of life, and quietly try to still the fears of the future.
The old drunk obviously uses alcohol to take his mind away from his problems. We aren't told the specific problems he faces, other than being deaf. We do know that they are serious enough for him to attempt suicide. Even while trying to drink the remainder of his life away he is "clean" and "He drinks without spilling" (11) This is similar to the reliance on structure that the Major from In Another Country used to maintain a semblance of composure when faced with a crisis.

The common theme in all four of these stories is how the internal struggles of the characters are played out against the physical travails they face. There are many ways to deal with the real world problems faced by everyone such as injury, pain, loss of a loved one, the horrors of war, alcoholism, and death. Hemingway is saying that these are only life and that the real struggle is within us. We can overcome or work around the physical problems we face, but the things that we are challenged with in our minds are the true test of who we are.

11. Ibid., p. 31