While reading Hemingway’s In
Our Time, the one thing that constantly bothered me were the chapters in
between the stories. What are these? This topic was brought up in class once or
twice, but we never came to a satisfying conclusion on how these chapters
contributed to the book as a whole. In my opinion, these “chapters” are too
short to be actual chapters or to carry any significant plot, and I struggled
with understanding their purpose. At first I just read them without thinking
too much, considering them irrelevant to the actual stories. But the fact that In Our Time was written and put together
by Hemingway himself meant that there was a specific purpose and motive behind
the way he organized the chapters and stories. Not a single chapter was put in
the book without a reason. I am still not completely sure on why each chapter
was put in the book, but as I thought about these stories, I found that many of
them connect a piece of Hemingway himself to the book.
I think that the first 7 chapters of In Our Time directly correlate with Hemingway’s personal life experience.
If you look at the first 7 chapters, they are all related to war one way or
another. Hemingway was actually a volunteer ambulance driver for the Italian
army in World War I. When I read chapter 3, I immediately thought of World War
I as they shot Germans. Hemingway was also injured during the war and spent a
lot of time in hospitals. We see that in chapter 6 Nick was hit in the spine
and carried to the side out of the war zone. Nick was lying there waiting for a
stretcher to come and take him to the hospital. This is a very interesting connection,
as it seems Hemingway is being connected to the one character we see
consistently throughout the book: Nick. This brings up many thought-provoking
questions. Is this connection perhaps more significant than we realize? Why
would Hemingway draw such a close link between him and Nick? Could Nick
possibly represent Hemingway?
The first 7 chapters were all related to war, which makes sense
when we understand Hemingway’s connection to war. But what was really
intriguing for me is that 6 whole chapters, 9-14, were dedicated to
bullfighting. Bullfighting? What does this have anything to do with Hemingway
or even the stories themselves? Well, we know that Hemingway was a great
sportsman, as we read stories of him describing horse racing (My Old Man) and fishing
(Big Two-Hearted River). Hemingway obviously enjoys sports. But there was
another trend that constantly reappeared throughout the book: masculinity.
Hemingway seemed to glorify masculinity and the tough stoic attitude that came
along with it. When I think of bullfighting, I think of it as a very “manly”
sport. I believe that bullfighting represents the masculine theme that we
constantly see throughout the book.
These are the few ideas and thoughts I’ve come up with for
the chapters in In Our Time. However,
I still have so many questions regarding these chapters, and feel as though I
missed many important connections within them. What are your thoughts? Why did
Hemingway put these chapters in between the stories?
