American Studies ETDs

Publication Date

12-22-1977

Abstract

Hemingway’s early short stories, In Our Time, Men Without Women, his early novel, The Sun Also Rises, and his later novel, The Old Man and the Sea, all fit into a recurrent American literary and philosophic canon, the confrontation with Nothingness. First, this paper explains what is meant by the experience or confrontation with Nothingness. Second, the paper attempts to draw comparisons between Hemingway’s experiences with Nothingness and that experience as it shows in five other American writers, specifically Hawthorne, Melville, Twain, Salinger, and Wolfe. Third, this paper attempts to make clear the casual relationship in Hemingway’s work between various negative experiences (experiences of Nothingness) and subsequent positive experiences. Specifically, Hemingway’s characters often make, either consciously or unconsciously, consistent and sometimes successful attempts to bring these negative and subsequent positive experiences close together in such a way as to arrive at an operating synthesis, that is, a way of viewing life and participating in it that enables certain of his characters to lead their lives with some degree of satisfaction and meaning.

Language

English

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

American Studies

Level of Degree

Doctoral

Department Name

American Studies

First Committee Member (Chair)

Paul F. Schmidt

Second Committee Member

Roy Glenwood Pickett

Third Committee Member

Joel M. Jones

Fourth Committee Member

Ferenc Morton Szasz

Fifth Committee Member

Samuel Bruce Girgus

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