Hemingway Timed Write

Brenda Whitten

Mr. Barnes

Honors English III

19 February 2013

Hemingway Timed Write

Ernest Hemingway’s stylistic use of nada throughout his stories left the reader pondering the controversial idea of separation and being apart, alone, but safe, with the societal ideals of connections, being together, and communication. Hemingway inserts this basic concept at the core of his works. He stresses that in order to be happy and achieve nada, one must get rid of everything, all fears, all religion, all caring.

Ernest Hemingway employed the use of nada contrasting with fear. In order to truly find nada, fear must first be completely cast out. In “Three Shots” Nick is portrayed as a scared little boy, “not afraid of anything as of yet. But he was getting very afraid” (Hemingway n.p.). This fear keeps Nick from being able to obtain nada. We see this same fear coming through in “The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber” when Francis proves himself “very publicly, to be a coward” (Hemingway 4). These fears control their lives yet Hemingway contrasts their original fears with the changing to the beliefs of nada and the ousting of the fears that originally held them back. When Francis hunts the buffalo, he “hadn’t had time to be afraid” and his “fear {was} gone like an operation…” (Hemingway 33). This visual transformation from a scared, innocent little hunter into a brave, fierce warrior illustrates the shedding of Francis’s fears and his adoption of the concept of nada.  This contrast between nada and fear creates the tension in Hemingway’s style. This tension encourages the reader to subconsciously debate the idea of nada.

Nada is the idea of nothing, or a lack of having something. Nada means to not worry about other people, places, or things and to detach oneself from the world in order to find inner peace. We see this concept through the desecration of religion in “A Clean Well-Lighted Place”. “Our nada who art in nada, nada be thy name” and the prayer continues with nada inserted to the key points (Hemingway 383). This repetition of nada and the combination with the depletion of religion combines to form the idea that nada is the absence. In this place the absence of religion but ultimately, the absence of caring—about joy, happiness, or life. The bartender goes on to realize that “it was all a nothing and a man was nothing too… but he knew it was all nada and pues nada y nada y pues nada.”  (Hemingway 383). The older, more thought provoking bartender repeats his version of the key to life, everything is nothing. {passage deleted}. Hemingway’s stylistic use of repetition really identifies this concept as the key feature throughout the story. Everything revolves around this ideal of nothing and caring for nothing in order to protect oneself. If you care about life, it is easy to get hurt, but through separation, nothing in life will ever be painful.  

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               Throughout these stories, nada is used to symbolize the lack of feelings and emotions. Nada is characterized as the ability to be happy without the use of outside sources. Nada recognizes that life is painful and uses the ideal of separation as a form of protection. According to Hemingway, if one is able to achieve nada, life becomes easier to deal with and ultimately the quality of life increases. However, nada is very hard to achieve as almost everyone has strong feelings and emotions towards at least one thing in life. It is easiest to achieve nada after undergoing a life changing or traumatic experience such as killing a buffalo or losing everyone close to him as we see in Hemingway’s writings.