1. Ernest Hemingway In Our Time

2. Hemingway in his time Hemingway was born in 1899 and was an ambulance driver in World War I. The aftermath of WWI was very important to his writing.

3. Effects of WWI Before WWI Americans and Europeans thought of themselves as innocent. Then they saw the tragedy and destructiveness of war. Life could not go on as it used to and they needed a new perspective on life.

4. Hemingway expressed the horrors and doubts of his generation- a generation trying to fill the innocence that was now gone.

5. Hemingway’s Style Hemingway achieved his goal through experimenting with language. He wrote short sentences that cut any unnecessary words. Can you give me two sentences that mean the same thing, one that is long and flowery, and the other that is short and precise? This produced hard, sharp-edged words. He was also honest about his subjects, never praising them when they should be condemned. His writing is also seen as “masculine”. What do you think that means?

6. In Our Time This is a collection of short stories published in 1925. He seldom describes emotions, yet is able to portray them. Think about how he does this while you are reading. He captures WWI in his stories, even without directly writing about it.

7. Connection to today? Many Americans thought of America as fairly innocent and untouched by the horrors of the world before September 11, 2001. Hemingway’s stories can also speak to the breaking of our innocence when we saw the plane crash into the tower on TV. Anyone who saw that can never be the same again, and that is the same emotion Hemingway is capturing about WWI.