Hemingway:The Syntax of Resistance and the Symbolism of Style

When turning to most any introduction to Hemingway’s work, one is directed almost without fail to the stylistic qualities of ironic understatement, terseness, colloquial simphcity—qualities which elucidate intensify the tight-lipped stoic response to a bitter meaningless fate which is typical of Hemingway’s central characters. Useful as these traditional by now anticipated observations are in revealing the author’s art to the uninitiated, there are a few additional stylistic features I would like to emphasize in order to better clarify the fundamental propriety of Hemingway’s style as it corresponds to—in fact embodies—meaning in his fiction. The characteristic feature of Hemingway’s prose style can, I believe, be identified as resistance —resistance, that is, to supplying any connective devices between his sentences other than the coordinate or sequential; connective words such as and or after or then are common