Style and Flair

Review of Hemingway

Literary Term: Style

Every man's life ends the same way. It is only the details of how he lived and how he died that distinguish one man from another. ~ Earnest Hemingway

After reading this novel, The Old Man and the Sea, and various short stories by Hemingway I feel I have a basic sense of Hemingway's style. First and foremost, the man loves detail. He always uses long syntax and diction that simply paints a setting. He has such talent of placing the reader into the scene, such as with the old man on the boat or at the fiesta. Additionally, he seems incapable of producing a true ending' instead everything he writes has a realistic ending. Due to the character development of Jacob and Brett, it was simply not realistic that they would get together at the end of the book. With unhappy endings, such as the old man in the Old Man and the Sea losing his fish, Hemingway is simply more cynical. It was not suprise to learn that Hemingway committed suicide. Another characteristic of Hemingway is his two major focuses: masculine activities and human feelings. While his tales are filled with hard-core activities such as deep-sea fishing and bull fighting, every tale also has complex journeys of human emotion and love. Personally, I enjoy Hemingway's stories and he has the ability to capture at least my attention.