AMERICAN SHORT STORIES 1920 PRESENT Lite (2)

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AMERICAN
SHORT
STORIES
1920 TO THE PRESENT
M A N Y V O I C E S L I T E R A T U R E

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M A N Y V O I C E S L I T E R A T U R E S E R I E S
AMERICAN SHORT STORIES
1920 TO THE PRESENT
Perfection Learning

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EDITORIAL DIRECTOR Julie A. Schumacher
SENIOR EDITORS Rebecca Christian,Terry Ofner
EDITORIAL ASSISTANTS Suzanne Foggia, Megan Snyder
PERMISSIONS Meghan Schumacher
DESIGN William Seabright and Associates, Glencoe, Illinois
TEACHER REVIEWERS LoAnn Campbell, Retired Teacher of English, Ames
High School, Ames, Iowa
Eric D.Turley,Teacher of English, Johnsburg High
School, Johnsburg, Illinois
STUDENT REVIEWERS Luke Scheele, Hermann High School, Hermann,
Missouri
George Thompson, Hoover High School,
Des Moines, Iowa
Dr. Neil E. Nakadate, consultant for this book, is a Professor of English at Iowa
State University, Ames, Iowa. A recipient of the Iowa State University Foundation
Award for Career Achievement in Teaching, Dr. Nakadate earned a Ph.D. in English
from Indiana University and specializes in contemporary American fiction. He is
the author of several books and articles, including Understanding Jane Smiley. Dr.
Nakadate reviewed selections for this volume and helped to shape the table of
contents. His work also includes the essay “On Style” and the essays that introduce
each unit. In addition, he wrote The Author’s Style feature, which appears before
each story.
Copyright © 2003 by Perfection Learning Corporation
1000 North Second Avenue
P.O. Box 500, Logan, Iowa 51546-0500
Tel:฀1-800-831-4190฀•฀Fax:฀1-800-543-2745
All rights reserved. No part of this book may
be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever
without written permission from the publisher.
Printed in the United States of America
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Hardback฀ISBN-10:฀0-7569-9950-2฀฀฀ISBN-13:฀978-0-7569-9950-6

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UNIT ONE
Literature from the 1920s to the 1940s
IN ANOTHER COUNTRY (1927) ERNEST HEMINGWAY 21
HE (1930) KATHERINE ANNE PORTER 29
BABYLON REVISITED (1931) F. SCOTT FITZGERALD 43
THE FAR AND THE NEAR (1935) THOMAS WOLFE 67
SUCKER (1936) CARSON MCCULLERS 73
THE CHRYSANTHEMUMS (1937) JOHN STEINBECK 85
WHY I LIVE AT THE P.O. (1941) EUDORA WELTY 99
THE BLACK BALL (ca. 1941) RALPH ELLISON 115
THE SECRET LIFE OF WALTER MITTY (1942) JAMES THURBER 127
THE LOTTERY (1944) SHIRLEY JACKSON 135
MIRIAM (1945) TRUMAN CAPOTE 147
Responding to Unit One 162
TO THE READER 8
ON STYLE 10
LITERARY ELEMENTS OF THE SHORT STORY 13

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UNIT TWO
Literature from the 1950s and 1960s
THE VELDT (1950) RAY BRADBURY 169
BARN BURNING (1950) WILLIAM FAULKNER 185
ANGEL LEVINE (1955) BERNARD MALAMUD 207
THE WRYSONS (1958) JOHN CHEEVER 221
HARRISON BERGERON (1961) KURT VONNEGUT 231
EVERYTHING THAT RISES MUST CONVERGE (1961)
FLANNERY O’CONNOR 241
A & P (1961) JOHN UPDIKE 259
THE SKY IS GRAY (1963) ERNEST J. GAINES 269
THE WOOING OF ARIADNE (1965) HARRY MARK PETRAKIS 299
Responding to Unit Two 314

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UNIT THREE
Literature from the 1970s and 1980s
THE KEY (1970) ISAAC BASHEVIS SINGER 321
THE FLOWERS (1973) ALICE WALKER 333
WHERE HAVE YOU GONE, CHARMING BILLY? (1975) TIM O’BRIEN 337
EVERYTHING STUCK TO HIM (1981) RAYMOND CARVER 349
DETROIT SKYLINE, 1949 (1982) BOBBIE ANN MASON 357
AMERICAN HORSE (1983) LOUISE ERDRICH 377
THE WRITER IN THE FAMILY (1984) E.L. DOCTOROW 391
THE FISH (1986) RUSSELL BANKS 407
TRUCKSTOP (1987) GARRISON KEILLOR 417
RULES OF THE GAME (1989) AMY TAN 425
Responding to Unit Three 438

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UNIT FOUR
Literature from the 1990s
LADIES AND GENTLEMEN: (1990) JOYCE CAROL OATES 445
FAULT LINES (1992) BARBARA KINGSOLVER 455
TOP OF THE FOOD CHAIN (1992) T. CORAGHESSAN BOYLE 467
LETTERS FROM MY FATHER (1992) ROBERT OLEN BUTLER 475
THIS IS WHAT IT MEANS TO SAY PHOENIX, ARIZONA (1993)
SHERMAN ALEXIE 485
THE INTRUDER (1995) ANDRE DUBUS 499
MORTALS (1996) TOBIAS WOLFF 513
CHARLIE HOGLE’S EARRING (1997) PAUL THEROUX 525
Responding to Unit Four 540
GLOSSARY OF LITERARY TERMS 542
INDEX OF TITLES AND AUTHORS 546
©
Alex
Katz/Licensed
by
VAGA,
New
York,
NY

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8
n American father in search of his daughter in France. A ranch woman
in the Salinas Valley who yearns for companionship and a sense of self-
worth. A postmistress in Mississippi who decides to live at the post office
after feuding with her eccentric family. A terrified soldier in Vietnam who
longs for his Minnesota home.
These are some of the characters and situations you will encounter in
American Short Stories: 1920 to the Present. They are as varied as the geography
of the U.S. itself. Yet their common denominator is that each is part of a short
story, a form—like jazz or baseball—that some claim is uniquely American.
Of course, thousands of American short stories have been written, and
collections of them abound. What sets this volume apart is its emphasis on
the authors’ writing styles. By examining approaches as diverse as the spare,
understated prose of Ernest Hemingway and the dazzling imagery of Louise
Erdrich, you will come to recognize many elements of style. It has been said
that style is comprised of the fingerprints an author leaves on a story, mak-
ing it so unmistakably his or hers that a careful reader can tell who has writ-
ten it without the byline.
As many of the writers in this volume have remarked, good reading
comes before good writing. Reading this book and completing the activities
will help you shape your own writing style.
Aside from what you will learn about style, this volume provides an
overview of the American short story’s development over the last century.
Many literary historians credit Edgar Allan Poe, the master of horror, with
inventing, or at least refining, the short story form in the mid-19th century.
He saw the short story as different from the novel not only in length but also
in intention and form. Writing when Americans were still trying to create a
distinct literature for their country, Poe developed highly atmospheric, tightly
constructed stories in which brevity and unity contributed to a single,
focused effect.
Other American writers followed Poe’s example by developing their own
subjects and methods. From the beginning, a particular focus of the
American short story has been the theme of personal identity, often explored
TO THE READER

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9
in stories of personal quests that determine an individual’s sense of self and
relationship to others and the world.
During the 19th century, nearly all of the basic themes and issues of the
American short story were introduced and developed by writers such as
Nathaniel Hawthorne, Herman Melville, Mark Twain, and Kate Chopin.
These and other writers focused on specifically American locations, subjects,
and problems, developing a wide range of styles for storytelling. Their sto-
ries arose from local history, moral fables, character studies, and the dilem-
mas posed by race and class.
Against the backdrop of westward expansion, the effects of the Industrial
Revolution, and the impact of wave after wave of immigration, American
writers explored crucial moments of insight in response to conflicts and
dilemmas. The short story—with its limited cast of characters, few scenes or
episodes, and focus on a single effect—provided a good forum for such
explorations. It was practical, besides. With Americans spread out across a
continent, ten cent magazines delivered nationwide by mail gave the coun-
try a sense of having its own literature. It also provided a mass market for
short story writers.
Change was even more rapid in the 20th century, when the stories in this
volume begin. Social, political, and cultural developments included the
building of transcontinental highways, the Constitutional amendment
allowing women to vote, and broad recognition that World War I had intro-
duced a new era of fears and possibilities. American stories since 1920 fre-
quently focus on the relationships of individuals to the changing times,
other people, and locations both familiar and new.
Many 20th-century writers whose works are represented in this book
convey a firm sense of regional identity. Others focus on the lives of people
in the city and the suburbs. Still others explore ethnic identity. The
approaches of these writers range from the use of straightforward plots with
conventional language to the creation of quirky plot lines, points of view,
and narrative voices. The tone ranges from assertive pride to playful irony to
sympathy for suffering and loss.
Since the United States is constantly changing, no single story could
appropriately be called the American story. America is a complex whole,
comprised of countless individual experiences. To read this collection of
short stories is not to define the American experience so much as to learn
from various pieces of it. It is to find yourself—in a phrase borrowed from
John Steinbeck—in search of America.

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10
ON STYLE
s you study this collection of American short stories, you will be intro-
duced to some of the 20th century’s most important writers. Almost cer-
tainly you won’t “like” every one, but each author has a unique message to
send and a distinctive way of sending it. The way a writer conveys a message
is called his or her style. Whether in clothing, music, visual art, or literature,
style is easy to see but hard to define. You might think of style in writing as
the way thoughts are dressed. While reading this collection of the greatest
short stories from the 20th century, you will be able to explore the authors’
styles. Analyzing style will make you a more perceptive reader and help you
develop your own writer’s voice. A good definition of style for this book is
that it is the author’s distinctive manner of expression.
As in most arts, it takes time and familiarity to recognize distinctions
among literary styles. Perhaps an analogy will help here. To the untrained
eye, a forest is just a collection of indistinct trees. To the trained eye, howev-
er, the forest is composed of a grove of white oaks on the hillside, a stand of
willows by the stream, and thorn-bearing hawthorn trees along its edges. As
you read, follow the Literary Lens prompts and pay close attention to the
information about the author’s life and style that precedes each selection.
Before long, clear distinctions will emerge.
In fact, some writers have such distinctive styles that they have spawned
imitators. The works of authors who follow paths blazed by Ernest
Hemingway and William Faulkner are sometimes called “Hemingwayesque”
or “Faulknerian.” Hemingway probably would have been startled by such
praise. He once wrote, “In stating as fully as I could how things were, it was
often very difficult and I wrote awkwardly and the awkwardness is what they
called my style.”
Hemingway is not alone in implying that he never deliberately set out
to create a style, but only wrote as well as he could instinctively. Katherine
Anne Porter once complained, “I’ve been called a stylist until I really could
tear my hair out. And I simply don’t believe in style. Style is you.”
Style is hard to describe because part of it is a certain indefinable
uniqueness. Some aspects of style are easier to pin down, however. That’s

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11
because style includes the set of choices and techniques that enable a writer
to tell a story. Choices regarding characterization, setting, and tone—to
name a few—impact the style of a story. But there are other sources of style,
such as the author’s background, whether that author is a man or a woman,
and the author’s race or ethnicity.
For example, F. Scott Fitzgerald grew up in modest circumstances in St.
Paul, Minnesota. He later left the Midwest and became fascinated with the
flamboyant rich of the East Coast. Fitzgerald’s descriptions often mix criti-
cism, sympathy, and awe for the rich lifestyle, as in this one-line character
sketch in his novel The Great Gatsby: “Her voice is full of money.” The sto-
ries of Alice Walker, on the other hand, come out of her experience as a
woman of color growing up in the United States. Her fiction often depicts a
female character finding her way in an environment of oppression.
Personal values also determine writers’ attitudes toward their characters.
John Steinbeck’s sympathies for those who fled the Oklahoma Dust Bowl of
the 1930s went into his writing about the struggle of common people for
economic justice. Flannery O’Connor’s fiction reflects her devout
Catholicism; her grotesque characters and often violent story lines express
her belief in the need for salvation. The combination of background, gen-
der, ethnicity, and values makes up the author’s world view.
Style also develops from writers’ responses to earlier writers they have
read. Some choose to work within a stylistic tradition, such as social real-
ism, in which the everyday lives of characters are depicted against a social,
political, and economic background that is presented as a matter of fact.
John Steinbeck, Katherine Anne Porter, John Updike, and Russell Banks are
among the American writers in this tradition. Other writers rebel against tra-
dition or find it necessary to innovate. They develop new styles to convey a
particular point of view. For example, William Faulkner uses internal
monologue to narrate stories through characters whose limitations would
make it impossible for them to tell their stories in the usual way. Ray
Bradbury and Kurt Vonnegut use futuristic settings in order to question and
probe current attitudes and trends.
Another aspect of style is tone, or the author’s attitude toward his or her
subject. Words such as “sympathetic,” “comic,” “passionate,” or “harsh” can
be used to describe the attitude of the writer. The tone helps determine the
story’s intellectual and emotional impact on the reader. One of the domi-
nant tones of fiction in the 20th century is irony. Irony reflects the sadness
or humor resulting from the gap between life as it is idealized, and life as it

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12
really is. Generally irony is used to criticize some aspect of society or to
reveal the silliness of people’s behavior. Irony also results from unusual or
unexpected points of view, oddly humorous situations, and shocking reve-
lations or sudden turns of event. Sherman Alexie uses ironic humor to
reveal the sad realities of Native American life on and off the reservation.
Flannery O’Connor, Kurt Vonnegut, John Cheever, Joyce Carol Oates, and
T. Coraghessan Boyle are among many whose stories use irony that is some-
times comic and sometimes bitingly satirical.
Finally, style includes the way a writer uses language. Some writers, like
Thomas Wolfe, are said to be lyrical—that is, expressing intense personal
emotions in much the same way as a songwriter or poet. Some, like
Raymond Carver, are considered minimalists—that is, they let the events of
the story speak for themselves without much interpretation from the author.
Others, like Harry Mark Petrakis, are described as colorful, meaning full of
variety and interest. Still others, such as T. Coraghessan Boyle, are labeled
energetic, writing in a way that is so highly charged the reader has little
choice but to go along for the ride.
Other contributions to style include: language used by the story’s narra-
tor and in the dialogue of characters; variations in dialect and usage that are
tied to particular groups of people or regions of the country; repetitions of
key words and phrases; and even the length and structure of individual sen-
tences. Truman Capote once wrote, “I think of myself as a stylist, and styl-
ists can become notoriously obsessed with the placing of a comma, the
weight of a semicolon.”
Faulkner’s long, sometimes convoluted sentences convey the dynamic
intensity of his characters’ thoughts and emotions while the dialogue of his
characters is written in the rural vernacular of his native Mississippi. The
rhythm of Yiddish storytelling is reflected in the prose of Isaac Bashevis
Singer. The speech of Katherine Anne Porter’s characters often reflects her
roots in rural Texas and the languages of Mexico and other countries in
which she lived. The dialogue of the American-born daughters and native
Chinese mothers in Amy Tan’s stories reveal the barriers that language dif-
ferences can create within a family as well as within a society.
Ultimately, how you respond to the author’s style contributes greatly to
the pleasure of reading. As American poet Robert Frost put it, “All the fun’s
in how you say a thing.”

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13
nce upon a time” is a phrase that beckons young and old alike because
it lets readers or listeners know that a story is coming. Whether it unfolds
through the oral tradition, on the screen of a television, or in the pages of a
book like this one, a story takes us out of our lives and helps us make sense
of them at the same time.
A story can be defined simply as a telling of incidents or events. A useful
definition for this book is that a story is a fictional narrative shorter than a
novel. Whatever the definition, a story contains the following basic elements.
Plot
Simply put, the plot of a story is what happens in it. As one old saying has
it, the writer gets the hero up a tree and then gets him back down again. Also
known as narrative structure, a plot usually includes causality: one event
causes another, which causes another, and so on until the story ends. There
are a variety of ways that stories move from beginning to end. The most
common plot structure moves from exposition through rising action to a
climax, followed by the resolution.
In the exposition we are introduced to the main character, or protago-
nist, in his or her familiar setting—be that a neighborhood in New York
City or a farm in the Salinas Valley of California. If the narrative continued
describing this “normal” life, there would be no story. A problem or conflict
is needed to move the story forward. The conflict may be external—perhaps
between the protagonist and a family member or between the protagonist
and nature; or the problem may be internal—between the protagonist’s
sense of duty and her desire for freedom, for example. Complex stories often
have both external and internal conflicts. As the conflict deepens, the story
is propelled through the rising action to the climax, or high point. Here that
bully of an aunt is confronted, the life-saving fire is started, or the inner
demon is discovered. The tension of the climax is released in the resolu-
tion, or as it sometimes called, the dénouement, a French word that literally
LITERARY ELEMENTS OF THE SHORT STORY

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14
means “untying.” In the resolution, the knot of the conflict is untied and
everyone that is still alive goes on to a new “normal” existence.
Of course, not all stories conform to the above plot structure. Some sto-
ries start at a high point in the action, employing a technique known as in
media res, which means “in the midst of things.” Such stories will fill in the
exposition along the way through dialogue or embedded stories. Another
approach is to tell the ending first and fill in the rest through flashbacks,
one effect of which is to make the reader pay close attention to motives and
causes. Whatever the plot structure, you can be sure that there will be a prob-
lem and a character to confront it.
Character
Readers keep turning the pages of stories mainly because they are interested
in what happens to the characters. Called characterization, the development
of believable characters is perhaps the most basic task of the author. But
writers have many tools at their disposal. Besides direct description of a
character’s traits, the author can also reveal character through actions,
speeches, thoughts, feelings, and interactions with others. Depending on the
type of story being told and the stylistic tradition the author is working in,
characters may be fully drawn and realistic or they may be representative
character types. How important they are to the story determines whether
they are main or primary characters, secondary characters, or minor charac-
ters. The more crucial the character is to the plot, the more he or she will be
developed by the author. Even in stories that stress realism, some minor
characters might only be present as types rather than as individuals.
Another important part of characterization is point of view, or the eyes
through which the story is told. This is determined through the author’s
choice of narrator. There are three main narrative points of view: first per-
son, third person limited, and third person omniscient. In the first per-
son or “I” point of view, the narrator tells his or her own story as Huck does
in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. The third person limited narrator is a
character in the story and only sees, hears, and knows what that character
could see, hear, and know. This means that he or she might only have partial
knowledge and understanding of the events and other characters. Doctor
Watson of the Sherlock Holmes tales is a good example of this type of narra-
tor. Often this limited point of view is that of the major character or protag-
onist, but sometimes the author chooses to tell the story from the limited
point of view of a secondary character.

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15
The third person omniscient narrator sees all and is able to comment on
any aspect of the story because he or she is an outsider, not a character in
the story. Readers often like to equate the omniscient narrator with the
author, but it is good to remember that any narrator or point of view is a
carefully developed tool and not simply the author’s voice. Some stories
switch back and forth between various points of view.
Setting
A setting is where and when a story takes place. It is important because
environment has a strong impact on what happens in a story. In this book,
for example, some stories are set in Harlem, New York; a ranching area of
California; and a sleepy town in the Deep South. These environments
influence not only the action but also the characters’ attitudes. Setting can
also help to shape how characters speak and behave. Sometimes the setting
of a story assumes almost as much importance in the reader’s imagination
as memorable characters do.
Theme
The theme is the underlying meaning or message of a story. A story may
evoke more than one theme, depending upon your interpretation of the
narrative. For example, a story in which a character struggles with a decision
to lead a conventional life or seek freedom and adventure could be interpreted
several ways. One person might summarize the theme of the story as “rash
behavior leads to ruin,” whereas another might say “it is better to have tried
and failed than to have never tried at all.” Whatever theme you might come
up with for a story, it is important to realize that the theme statement is not
the story. Authors usually don’t write stories with a theme in mind. They
might get an idea from a news item which gives them an idea for a character.
Once the character is alive on the page, the character may take the story into
places the author never dreamed. And that is the point, after all. We read
stories so that they will take us to places we have never been before.
Have a good trip!
For a full list of literary terms, see the Glossary of Literary Terms on pages
542–545.

UNIT ONE

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18
The years between 1920 and 1950 were ones of tumult and
growth for the United States. This was reflected in the literature
of the period as the country recovered from the trauma of
World War I and then reveled in the energetic social and cul-
tural ferment of the “Roaring Twenties.” The exuberance of the
twenties was stilled in the thirties as the country grappled with
economic disaster, which began with the stock market crash of
1929. The crash, which was followed by a long-term depres-
sion and a terrible drought in the country’s heartland, led to
quiet despair for many Americans. Ironically, it took World
War II to restore the economy as the country’s factories began
to produce the material needed to allow the U.S. to take a lead-
ing role in stopping fascism and imperialism in Europe.
The thirties and forties were major decades in the era
referred to as modern. In this period, much of the writing
reflected a national mood of sober reality rather than the ear-
lier optimism of the beginning of the century. A sense of sepa-
ration, deprivation, and loss was prevalent. This is reflected in
many of the stories and novels of the era, such as Ernest
Hemingway’s war stories and F. Scott Fitzgerald’s tales of The
Jazz Age and the “crack-up” that followed it. Meanwhile, John
Steinbeck contributed gritty stories of working-class struggle.
In many of the short stories from the period, dreaming, heal-
ing, and survival are prominent themes. Also notable is a tone
of wistfulness for something better—more money and security,
more excitement or love, peace in the family and the world.
American literature of this era also reflected the begin-
nings of numerous migrations. African Americans were drawn
from the South by promises of more freedom and economic
opportunity up North. The artistic flowering of the Harlem
top to bottom: 1930: Couple Descending a
Staircase by J.C. Leyendecker illustrates the
indulgent pursuit of pleasure and wealth
during the 1920s. ★ 1933: The White Angel
Breadline by Dorothea Lange.This and
other Lange photos put a face on
the devastation of the Great Depression.
★ 1945: The Liberation of Buchenwald
by Margaret Bourke-White showed the
world the horror of the WWII Nazi
concentration camps.

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19
Renaissance was one reflection of this trend. At the same time,
there was a nationwide migration from the country to the
cities, giving rise to new possibilities as well as new problems.
A strain of nostalgia for simpler or more innocent times can be
heard in the stories of Wolfe and Fitzgerald. And finally, tens
of thousands were drawn toward the “golden” West, a migra-
tion chronicled in the fiction of John Steinbeck.
Many of the stories of this period focus less on historical
or public events than on the specific places and families in
which individuals made their lives. In his novels and stories,
Thomas Wolfe wrote poignantly about what it means to long
for home, and James Thurber’s cartoons and stories provided
readers with a humorous view of their own silliness. Regional
writers from the Midwest (including Hemingway and
Fitzgerald) and from the South (Wolfe, William Faulkner,
Carson McCullers, Eudora Welty, and Truman Capote) gained
a national readership.
The styles of this period range from the pared-down sen-
tences of Hemingway to the brilliantly descriptive writing of
Fitzgerald and the emotional prose of Wolfe. Katherine Anne
Porter developed sensitive and
complex character studies.
Faulkner experimented with inter-
nal monologue and stream-of-
consciousness. The basic tone of
literature of the era was ironic—
one that called attention to the
gap between what people believed
and wanted, and what their lives
were really like.
top to bottom: 1930: Adolph Hitler at a Nazi
rally in Dortmund, Germany. ★ 1936: Death
of a Loyalist Soldier by Robert Capa, taken
during the Spanish Civil War (1936–1939).
Almost 3,000 American volunteers formed the
Abe Lincoln Brigade in a losing cause to
defend Spain against a military takeover led
by General Francisco Franco. ★ 1936: Dust
Bowl by Arthur Rothstein. Severe drought
caused the collapse of farming in the Midwest
at a time when America was already suffering
from the Depression. ★ 1940: St. Paul’s
Cathedral was photographed by John Topham
during a WWII firebomb attack on London.
★ 1945: Iwo Jima by Joe Rosenthal. Marines
raise the flag at the top of Mt. Suribachi on the
Japanese island of Iwo Jima.A fierce battle for
the island raged for 36 days and resulted
in over 23,000 U.S. casualties, including three
of the flag raisers in the picture.

Ernest Hemingway
1899–1961
About the Author
An innovative writing style and an adventurous,
much-publicized life made Ernest Hemingway
not only one of the most influential writers of
the 20th century but also a cultural icon. A
leader of the post-World War I group of artists
known as “The Lost Generation,” Hemingway
was a big game hunter and fisherman, world
traveler, and war correspondent.These pursuits
influenced his work, which is often set in Africa
or Europe.
Born to a doctor’s family in Oak Park,
Illinois, Hemingway edited his high school news-
paper and worked as a reporter at The Kansas
City Star. He served as an ambu-
lance driver during World War I
and was seriously wounded at
the age of eighteen.
Like the heroes of his fic-
tion, the author courted danger to prove his
courage.Two plane crashes late in life left him in
a state of chronic pain that some say prompted
his suicide. Like his father before him, he died of
a self-inflicted gunshot wound. Among his best-
known works are the novels A Farewell to Arms
and The Old Man and the Sea, the latter of which
earned the Pulitzer Prize.
Pay attention to the mood of this story.
The Author’s Style
Many of Hemingway’s stories involve initiations
or tests, both of which stress codes of conduct
that typically require courage and endurance. His
characters are involved in violent activities such
as boxing, hunting, bullfighting, and combat,
where they are in a position to suffer both phys-
ical and psychological wounds.
Spare,understated prose is a hallmark of the
Hemingway style. It emphasizes carefully pared-
down declarative sentences based on simple
syntax, strategic repetition, and a minimum of
explanatory material. This style nevertheless
conveys his characters’ situations and feelings.It is
considered by many to be his most important
contribution to 20th-century American fiction.
Hemingway mistrusted flowery and official-sound-
ing language, preferring to use much simpler, con-
crete language in both narration and dialogue.
The ironic tone of Hemingway’s storytelling
is also crucial. In his war stories, it reflects his
cynicism about authorities who use notions such
as duty in pushing naïve soldiers to sacrifice
themselves. Sometimes a Hemingway character
uses irony to protect himself from fully acknowl-
edging the depth of his pain. So it is particularly
important whenever a Hemingway character
does make a direct statement about his feelings
or his situation.The story you are about to read
owes its insight to the author’s personal war
experiences.
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LITERARY LENS
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n the fall the war was always there, but we did not go to it any
more. It was cold in the fall in Milan
1
and the dark came very
early. Then the electric lights came on, and it was pleasant
along the streets looking in the windows. There was much
game hanging outside the shops, and the snow powdered in
the fur of the foxes and the wind blew their tails. The deer
hung stiff and heavy and empty, and small birds blew in the
wind and the wind turned their feathers. It was a cold fall and the
wind came down from the mountains.
We were all at the hospital every afternoon, and there were
different ways of walking across the town through the dusk to the
hospital. Two of the ways were alongside canals, but they were long.
Always, though, you crossed a bridge across a canal to enter the
ERNEST HEMINGWAY
21
IN
ANOTHER
COUNTRY
IN
ANOTHER
COUNTRY
1 Milan: a large city in northern Italy
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22 Ernest Hemingway
hospital. There was a choice of three bridges. On one of them a woman sold
roasted chestnuts. It was warm, standing in front of her charcoal fire, and the
chestnuts were warm afterward in your pocket. The hospital was very old and
very beautiful, and you entered through a gate and walked across a courtyard
and out a gate on the other side. There were usually funerals starting from the
courtyard. Beyond the old hospital were the new brick pavilions, and there
we met every afternoon and were all very polite and interested in what was
the matter, and sat in the machines that were to make so much difference.
The doctor came up to the machine where I was sitting and said: “What
did you like best to do before the war? Did you practice a sport?”
I said: “Yes, football.”
“Good,” he said. “You will be able to play football again better than
ever.”
My knee did not bend and the leg dropped straight from the knee to the
ankle without a calf, and the machine was to bend the knee and make it
move as in riding a tricycle. But it did not bend yet, and instead the machine
lurched when it came to the bending part. The doctor said: “That will all
pass. You are a fortunate young man. You will play football again like a
champion.”
In the next machine was a major who had a little hand like a baby’s. He
winked at me when the doctor examined his hand, which was between two
leather straps that bounced up and down and flapped the stiff fingers, and
said: “And will I too play football, captain-doctor?” He had been a very great
fencer, and before the war the greatest fencer in Italy.
The doctor went to his office in a back room and brought a photograph
which showed a hand that had been withered almost as small as the major’s,
before it had taken a machine course, and after was a little larger. The major
held the photograph with his good hand and looked at it very carefully. “A
wound?” he asked.
“An industrial accident,” the doctor said.
“Very interesting, very interesting,” the major said, and handed it back to
the doctor.
“You have confidence?”
“No,” said the major.
There were three boys who came each day who were about the same age
I was. They were all three from Milan, and one of them was to be a lawyer,
and one was to be a painter, and one had intended to be a soldier, and after
pavilions:
annexes or
outbuildings

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23
In Another Country
2 Scala: La Scala, a famous opera house in Milan
3 “A basso gli ufficiali!”: Italian for “Down with the officers!”
4 Arditi: heavily armed and highly trained soldiers who were given the most dangerous combat assignments
we were finished with the machines, sometimes we walked back together to
the Café Cova, which was next door to the Scala.
2
We walked the short way
through the communist quarter because we were four together. The people
hated us because we were officers, and from a wine-shop someone would call
out, “A basso gli ufficiali!”
3
as we passed. Another boy who walked with us
sometimes and made us five wore a black
silk handkerchief across his face because he
had no nose then and his face was to be
rebuilt. He had gone out to the front from
the military academy and been wounded
within an hour after he had gone into the
front line for the first time. They rebuilt his
face, but he came from a very old family
and they could never get the nose exactly
right. He went to South America and
worked in a bank. But this was a long time
ago, and then we did not any of us know
how it was going to be afterward. We only
knew then that there was always the war,
but that we were not going to it any more.
We all had the same medals, except the
boy with the black silk bandage across his
face, and he had not been at the front long
enough to get any medals. The tall boy with
the very pale face who was to be a lawyer
had been lieutenant of Arditi
4
and had three
medals of the sort we each had only one of.
He had lived a very long time with death
and was a little detached. We were all a lit-
tle detached, and there was nothing that
held us together except that we met every
afternoon at the hospital. Although, as we walked to the Cova through the
tough part of town, walking in the dark, with light and singing coming out
of the wine-shops, and sometimes having to walk into the street when the
ERNEST HEMINGWAY RECOVERING FROM WWI WOUNDS,
ITALY, 1919

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24 Ernest Hemingway
5 fratellanza: brotherhood
6 abnegazione: sacrifice
7 hunting-hawks: Literally, hunting hawks are birds trained to hunt and kill prey; with reference to war, “hawks” are
people who are pro-military.
men and women would crowd together on the
sidewalk so that we would have had to jostle
them to get by, we felt held together by there
being something that had happened that they,
the people who disliked us, did not under-
stand.
We ourselves all understood the Cova,
where it was rich and warm and not too brightly
lighted, and noisy and smoky at certain hours,
and there were always girls at the tables and the illustrated papers on a rack
on the wall. The girls at the Cova were very patriotic, and I found that the
most patriotic people in Italy were the café girls—and I believe they are still
patriotic.
The boys at first were very polite about my medals and asked me what I
had done to get them. I showed them the papers, which were written in very
beautiful language and full of fratellanza
5
and abnegazione,
6
but which really
said, with the adjectives removed, that I had been given the medals because
I was an American. After that their manner changed a little toward me,
although I was their friend against outsiders. I was a friend, but I was never
really one of them after they had read the citations, because it had been dif-
ferent with them and they had done very different things to get their medals.
I had been wounded, it was true; but we all knew that being wounded, after
all, was really an accident. I was never ashamed of the ribbons, though, and
sometimes, after the cocktail hour, I would imagine myself having done all
the things they had done to get their medals; but walking home at night
through the empty streets with the cold wind and all the shops closed, trying
to keep near the street lights, I knew that I would never have done such
things, and I was very much afraid to die, and often lay in bed at night by
myself, afraid to die and wondering how I would be when I went back to the
front again.
The three with the medals were like hunting-hawks;
7
and I was not a
hawk, although I might seem a hawk to those who had never hunted; they,
the three, knew better and so we drifted apart. But I stayed good friends with
The boys at first were very
polite about my medals
and asked me what I had
done to get them.

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25
In Another Country
the boy who had been wounded his first day at the front, because he would
never know now how he would have turned out; so he could never be accepted
either, and I liked him because I thought perhaps he would not have turned
out to be a hawk either.
The major, who had been the great fencer, did not believe in bravery, and
spent much time while we sat in the machines correcting my grammar. He
had complimented me on how I spoke Italian, and we talked together very
easily. One day I had said that Italian seemed such an easy language to me
that I could not take a great interest in it; everything was so easy to say. “Ah,
yes,” the major said. “Why, then, do you not take up the use of grammar?”
So we took up the use of grammar, and soon Italian was such a difficult lan-
guage that I was afraid to talk to him until I had the grammar straight in my
mind.
The major came very regularly to the hospital. I do not think he ever
missed a day, although I am sure he did not believe in the machines. There
was a time when none of us believed in the machines, and one day the major
said it was all nonsense. The machines were new then and it was we who
were to prove them. It was an idiotic idea, he said, “a theory, like another.” I
had not learned my grammar, and he said I was a stupid impossible disgrace,
and he was a fool to have bothered with me. He was a small man and he sat
straight up in his chair with his right hand thrust into the machine and
looked straight ahead at the wall while the straps thumped up and down
with his fingers in them.
“What will you do when the war is over if it is over?” he asked me. “Speak
grammatically!”
“I will go to the States.”
“Are you married?”
“No, but I hope to be.”
“The more of a fool you are,” he said. He seemed very angry. “A man
must not marry.”
“Why, Signor Maggiore?”
“Don’t call me ‘Signor Maggiore.’”
“Why must not a man marry?”
“He cannot marry. He cannot marry,” he said angrily. “If he is to lose
everything, he should not place himself in a position to lose that. He should
not place himself in a position to lose. He should find things he cannot
lose.”

8 invalided out of the war: meaning that the major was injured and could no longer fight in the war
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26 Ernest Hemingway
He spoke very angrily and bitterly, and looked straight ahead while he
talked.
“But why should he necessarily lose it?”
“He’ll lose it,” the major said. He was looking at the wall. Then he looked
down at the machine and jerked his little hand out from between the straps
and slapped it hard against his thigh. “He’ll lose it,” he almost shouted.
“Don’t argue with me!” Then he called to the attendant who ran the
machines. “Come and turn this damned thing off.”
He went back into the other room for the light treatment and the mas-
sage. Then I heard him ask the doctor if he might use his telephone and he
shut the door. When he came back into the room, I was sitting in another
machine. He was wearing his cape and had his cap on, and he came directly
toward my machine and put his arm on my shoulder.
“I am sorry,” he said, and patted me on the shoulder with his good hand.
“I would not be rude. My wife has just died. You must forgive me.”
“Oh—” I said, feeling sick for him. “I am so sorry.”
He stood there biting his lower lip. “It is very difficult,” he said. “I can-
not resign myself.”
He looked straight past me and out through the window. Then he began
to cry. “I am utterly unable to resign myself,” he said and choked. And then
crying, his head up looking at nothing, carrying himself straight and soldierly,
with tears on both cheeks and biting his lips, he walked past the machines
and out the door.
The doctor told me that the major’s wife, who was very young and whom
he had not married until he was definitely invalided out of the war,
8
had died
of pneumonia. She had been sick only a few days. No one expected her to die.
The major did not come to the hospital for three days. Then he came at the
usual hour, wearing a black band on the sleeve of his uniform. When he came
back, there were large framed photographs around the wall, of all sorts of
wounds before and after they had been cured by the machines. In front of the
machine the major used were three photographs of hands like his that were
completely restored. I do not know where the doctor got them. I always under-
stood we were the first to use the machines. The photographs did not make
much difference to the major because he only looked out of the window.

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Responding to the Story
1. LITERARY LENS What other ‘countries’ did you discover in this story?
2. Hemingway once defined courage as “grace under pressure.” How do
you think the narrator and the major in this story might define or
describe courage?
3. Hemingway is known as an “existentialist” writer. Existentialism is the
belief that humans exist in a universe that is impossible to understand.
Nonetheless, we must still assume responsibility for our actions with-
out knowing for certain what is right or wrong. In what ways does “In
Another Country” reflect the idea of existentialism?
4. What do you think the view of the narrator is toward war and the mil-
itary establishment? Support your answer with evidence from the text.
5. THE AUTHOR’S STYLE Read the passage below. Locate passages in
the story that reflect Hemingway’s interest in the “true simple declara-
tive sentence.” Then attempt to emulate Hemingway’s method and
style. For example, you might look for the first declarative sentence in
a piece of your own writing.Then cut the “scrollwork or ornament”
and “go from there.”
27
1. LITERARY LENS Mood is conveyed through descriptions of the
setting, the author’s (or narrator’s) attitude toward the story, and
through imagery. Select one of the images in the story and describe
how it influences the mood of the story.
2. Hemingway once defined courage as “grace under pressure.” In what
way, if at all, is this idea demonstrated in “In Another Country”?
3. Hemingway is known as an “existentialist” writer. Existentialism is the
belief that humans exist in an empty universe that does not care
about human existence. In the face of this nothingness and loneliness,
humans must create their own meaning and purpose. In what ways
does “In Another Country” reflect the idea of existentialism?
4. What do you think the view of the narrator is toward war and the
military establishment? Support your answer with evidence from
the text.
5. THE AUTHOR’S STYLE After reading the quotation below, locate
two sentences in the story that seem to fit his description of the
“true simple declarative sentence.”
One True Sentence
Sometimes when I was starting a new story and I could not get it
going . . . I would stand and look out over the roofs of Paris and think,
“Do not worry.You have always written before and you will write
now. All you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest
sentence that you know.” So finally I would write one true sentence, and
then go on from there . . . If I started to write elaborately, or like some-
one introducing or presenting something, I found that I could cut that
scrollwork or ornament out and throw it away and start with the
first true simple declarative sentence I had written.
—Ernest Hemingway, A Moveable Feast

Watch for internal as well as external conflicts in this family drama.
Katherine Anne Porter
1890–1980
About the Author
Born in Indian Creek, Texas, Katherine Anne
Porter led a long and full life. The glamorous
blonde author married for the first of four times
at 16.A world traveler, she acted in two movies
and moved frequently, both within the States and
overseas. She also enjoyed a long writing career,
living to the age of 90 and thus outlasting most
of her contemporaries.
Because her mother died when Porter was
two, the author was reared afterward by her
beloved grandmother. It amused Porter that
although she was to teach at many prestigious
universities, she never went to college herself.
She began her career as a the-
atre and music critic, publishing
her first story in 1922.
Porter was known mostly
for her short stories and was
awarded the National Book Award and the
Pulitzer Prize for Collected Short Stories, published
in 1965.While travelling to Germany in 1931 for
a fellowship, Porter was horrified by the rise of
the Nazis to power.This trip provided her with
the background for her only novel, Ship of Fools,
which was published 31 years later and made
into a popular film.
Katherine Anne Porter’s stories always convey a
strong sense of place,revealing her understanding
of the practical impact of social and economic
conditions on people’s lives. Her primary focus,
however, is on the hidden motives and emotions
of her characters.
Porter understood that everyday people and
uncomplicated events can still provide powerful
stories of individual personality, character, and
moral choice. Her often simple characters are
typified by conflicted feelings and unexpressed
tensions. She brings their perspectives out by
clarifying and respecting their points of view.
Many of Porter’s most memorable characters are
women.
Known as a careful planner of her novel and
stories, the author revised each one many times
in order to produce precise phrasing, concen-
trated action, and emotional focus. Her stories
also reflect her careful attention to the idioms
and dialects of particular times and places, mak-
ing her writing representative of what came to
be known as “the local color movement.” A
native Texan, Porter eventually lived and worked
in Dallas,Denver,Chicago,and NewYork,and she
traveled and lived for extended periods in
Mexico and in Europe, including several years in
Paris.
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LITERARY LENS

1 flannels: underwear made of soft cloth
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ife was very hard for the Whipples. It was hard
to feed all the hungry mouths, it was hard to
keep the children in flannels
1
during the win-
ter, short as it was: “God knows what would
become of us if we lived north,” they would
say: keeping them decently clean was hard. “It
looks like our luck won’t never let up on us,”
said Mr. Whipple, but Mrs. Whipple was all for taking what was sent
and calling it good, anyhow when the neighbors were in earshot.
“Don’t ever let a soul hear us complain,” she kept saying to her hus-
band. She couldn’t stand to be pitied. “No, not if it comes to it that
KATHERINE ANNE PORTER
29
HE
HE

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30 Katherine Anne Porter
we have to live in a wagon and pick cotton around the country,” she said,
“nobody’s going to get a chance to look down on us.”
Mrs. Whipple loved her second son, the simple-minded one, better than
she loved the other two children put together. She was forever saying so, and
when she talked with certain of her neighbors, she would even throw in her
husband and her mother for good measure.
“You needn’t keep on saying it
around,” said Mr. Whipple, “you’ll make
people think nobody else has any feel-
ings about Him but you.”
“It’s natural for a mother,” Mrs.
Whipple would remind him. “You know
yourself it’s more natural for a mother to
be that way. People don’t expect so
much of fathers, some way.”
This didn’t keep the neighbors from
talking plainly among themselves. “A
Lord’s pure mercy if He should die,” they
said. “It’s the sins of the fathers,” they
agreed among themselves. “There’s bad
blood and bad doings somewhere, you
can bet on that.” This behind the
Whipples’ backs. To their faces every-
body said, “He’s not so bad off. He’ll be
all right yet. Look how He grows!”
Mrs. Whipple hated to talk about it,
she tried to keep her mind off it, but
every time anybody set foot in the
house, the subject always came up, and
she had to talk about Him first, before
she could get on to anything else. It
seemed to ease her mind. “I wouldn’t have anything happen to Him for all
the world, but it just looks like I can’t keep Him out of mischief. He’s so
strong and active, He’s always into everything; He was like that since He
could walk. It’s actually funny sometimes, the way He can do anything; it’s
laughable to see Him up to His tricks. Emly has more accidents; I’m forever
tying up her bruises, and Adna can’t fall a foot without cracking a bone. But
FARMER’S WIFE, Horace Bristol, 1939THE CATHEDRALS OF

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31
He
mortally:
intensely;
unremittingly
He can do anything and not get a scratch. The
preacher said such a nice thing once when he
was here. He said, and I’ll remember it to my
dying day, ‘The innocent walk with God—
that’s why He don’t get hurt.’” Whenever Mrs.
Whipple repeated these words, she always felt a
warm pool spread in her breast, and the tears
would fill her eyes, and then she could talk
about something else.
He did grow and He never got hurt. A
plank blew off the chicken house and struck
Him on the head and He never seemed to know it. He had learned a few
words, and after this He forgot them. He didn’t whine for food as the other
children did, but waited until it was given Him. He ate squatting in the cor-
ner, smacking and mumbling. Rolls of fat covered Him like an overcoat, and
He could carry twice as much wood and water as Adna. Emly had a cold in
the head most of the time—”she takes that after me,” said Mrs. Whipple—so
in bad weather they gave her the extra blanket off His cot. He never seemed
to mind the cold.
Just the same, Mrs. Whipple’s life was a torment for fear something might
happen to Him. He climbed the peach trees much better than Adna and went
skittering along the branches like a monkey, just a regular monkey. “Oh, Mrs.
Whipple, you hadn’t ought to let Him do that. He’ll lose His balance some-
time. He can’t rightly know what He’s doing.”
Mrs. Whipple almost screamed out at the neighbor. “He does know what
He’s doing! He’s as able as any other child! Come down out of there, you!”
When He finally reached the ground she could hardly keep her hands off
Him for acting like that before people, a grin all over His face and her wor-
ried sick about Him all the time.
“It’s the neighbors,” said Mrs. Whipple to her husband. “Oh, I do
mortally wish they would keep out of our business. I can’t afford to let
Him do anything for fear they’ll come nosing around about it. Look at the
bees, now. Adna can’t handle them, they sting him up so; I haven’t got
time to do everything, and now I don’t dare let Him. But if He gets a sting
He don’t really mind.”
“It’s just because He ain’t got sense enough to be scared of anything,”
said Mr. Whipple.
It’s the neighbors,” said
Mrs. Whipple to her husband.
“Oh, I do mortally wish
they would keep out
of our business.”

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vittles:
food
2 Sunday week: the Sunday of the following week
“You ought to be ashamed of yourself,” said Mrs. Whipple, “talking that
way about your own child. Who’s to take up for Him if we don’t, I’d like to
know? He sees a lot that goes on, He listens to things all the time. And any-
thing I tell Him to do He does it. Don’t never let anybody hear you say such
things. They’d think you favored the other children over Him.”
“Well, now I don’t, and you know it, and what’s the use of getting all
worked up about it? You always think the worst
of everything. Just let Him alone, He’ll get along
somehow. He gets plenty to eat and wear, don’t
He?” Mr. Whipple suddenly felt tired out.
“Anyhow, it can’t be helped now.”
Mrs. Whipple felt tired too, she complained
in a tired voice. “What’s done can’t never be
undone, I know that good as anybody; but He’s
my child, and I’m not going to have people say
anything. I get sick of people coming around say-
ing things all the time.”
In the early fall Mrs. Whipple got a letter
from her brother saying he and his wife and two children were coming over
for a little visit next Sunday week.
2
“Put the big pot in the little one,” he wrote
at the end. Mrs. Whipple read this part out loud twice, she was so pleased.
Her brother was a great one for saying funny things. “We’ll just show him
that’s no joke,” she said, “we’ll just butcher one of the sucking pigs.”
“It’s a waste and I don’t hold with waste the way we are now,” said Mr.
Whipple. “That pig’ll be worth money by Christmas.”
“It’s a shame and a pity we can’t have a decent meal’s vittles once in a
while when my own family comes to see us,” said Mrs. Whipple. “I’d hate for
his wife to go back and say there wasn’t a thing in the house to eat. My God,
it’s better than buying up a great chance of meat in town. There’s where you’d
spend the money!”
“All right, do it yourself then,” said Mr. Whipple. “Christamighty, no
wonder we can’t get ahead!”
The question was how to get the little pig away from his ma, a great fighter,
worse than a Jersey cow. Adna wouldn’t try it: “That sow’d rip my insides out
all over the pen.” “All right, old fraidy,” said Mrs. Whipple, “He’s not scared.
Watch Him do it.” And she laughed as though it was all a good joke and gave
It’s a waste and I don’t
hold with waste the way we
are now,” said Mr. Whipple.
“That pig’ll be worth
money by Christmas.”

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33
He
Him a little push towards the pen. He sneaked
up and snatched the pig right away from the teat
and galloped back and was over the fence with
the sow raging at His heels. The little black
squirming thing was screeching like a baby in a
tantrum, stiffening its back and stretching its
mouth to the ears. Mrs. Whipple took the pig
with her face stiff and sliced its throat with one
stroke. When He saw the blood He gave a great
jolting breath and ran away. “But He’ll forget
and eat plenty, just the same,” thought Mrs.
Whipple. Whenever she was thinking, her lips moved making words. “He’d
eat it all if I didn’t stop Him. He’d eat up every mouthful from the other two
if I’d let Him.”
She felt badly about it. He was ten years old now and a third again as
large as Adna, who was going on fourteen. “It’s a shame, a shame,” she kept
saying under her breath, “and Adna with so much brains!”
She kept on feeling badly about all sorts of things. In the first place it was
the man’s work to butcher; the sight of the pig scraped pink and naked made
her sick. He was too fat and soft and pitiful-looking. It was simply a shame
the way things had to happen. By the time she had finished it up, she almost
wished her brother would stay at home.
Early Sunday morning Mrs. Whipple dropped everything to get Him all
cleaned up. In an hour He was dirty again, with crawling under fences after
a possum, and straddling along the rafters of the barn looking for eggs in the
hayloft. “My Lord, look at you now after all my trying! And here’s Adna and
Emly staying so quiet. I get tired trying to keep you decent. Get off that shirt
and put on another, people will say I don’t half dress you!” And she boxed
Him on the ears, hard. He blinked and blinked and rubbed His head, and
His face hurt Mrs. Whipple’s feelings. Her knees began to tremble, she had to
sit down while she buttoned His shirt. “I’m just all gone before the day
starts.”
The brother came with his plump healthy wife and two great roaring
hungry boys. They had a grand dinner, with the pig roasted to a crackling in
the middle of the table, full of dressing, a pickled peach in his mouth and
plenty of gravy for the sweet potatoes.
“This looks like prosperity all right,” said the brother; “you’re going to
have to roll me home like I was a barrel when I’m done.”
And she boxed Him
on the ears, hard. He blinked
and blinked and rubbed
His head, and His face hurt
Mrs. Whipple’s feelings.

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Everybody laughed out loud; it was fine to
hear them laughing all at once around the
table. Mrs. Whipple felt warm and good about
it. “Oh, we’ve got six more of these; I say it’s as
little as we can do when you come to see us so
seldom.” He wouldn’t come into the dining
room, and Mrs. Whipple passed it off very
well. “He’s timider than my other two,” she
said, “He’ll just have to get used to you. There
isn’t everybody He’ll make up with, you know
how it is with some children, even cousins.”
Nobody said anything out of the way.
“Just like my Alfy here,” said the brother’s
wife. “I sometimes got to lick him to make
him shake hands with his own grand-mammy.”
So that was over, and Mrs. Whipple loaded up a big plate for Him first,
before everybody. “I always say He ain’t to be slighted, no matter who else
goes without,” she said, and carried it to Him herself.
“He can chin Himself on the top of the door,” said Emly, helping along.
“That’s fine, He’s getting along fine,” said the brother.
They went away after supper. Mrs. Whipple rounded up the dishes, and
sent the children to bed and sat down and unlaced her shoes. “You see?” she
said to Mr. Whipple. “That’s the way my whole family is. Nice and consider-
ate about everything. No out-of-the-way remarks—they have got refinement.
I get awfully sick of people’s remarks. Wasn’t that pig good?”
Mr. Whipple said, “Yes, we’re out three hundred pounds of pork, that’s
all. It’s easy to be polite when you come to eat. Who knows what they had in
their minds all along?”
“Yes, that’s like you,” said Mrs. Whipple. “I don’t expect anything else
from you. You’ll be telling me next that my own brother will be saying
around that we made Him eat in the kitchen! Oh, my God!” She rocked her
head in her hands, a hard pain started in the very middle of her forehead.
“Now it’s all spoiled, and everything was so nice and easy. All right, you don’t
like them and you never did—all right, they’ll not come here again soon,
never you mind! But they can’t say He wasn’t dressed every lick as good as
Adna—oh, honest, sometimes I wish I was dead!”
“I wish you’d let up,” said Mr. Whipple. “It’s bad enough as it is.”
So that was over, and Mrs.
Whipple loaded up a big plate
for Him first, before every-
body. “I always say He ain’t
to be slighted, no matter who
else goes without,” she said,
and carried it to Him herself.

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35
He
t was a hard winter. It seemed to Mrs. Whipple that they hadn’t ever
known anything but hard times, and now to cap it all a winter like this.
The crops were about half of what they had a right to expect; after the cot-
ton was in it didn’t do much more than cover the grocery bill. They swapped
off one of the plow horses, and got cheated, for the new one died of the
heaves.
3
Mrs. Whipple kept thinking all the time it was terrible to have a man
you couldn’t depend on not to get cheated. They cut down on everything, but
Mrs. Whipple kept saying there are things you can’t cut down on, and they
cost money. It took a lot of warm clothes for Adna and Emly, who walked
four miles to school during the three-months session. “He sets around the
fire a lot, He won’t need so much,” said Mr. Whipple. “That’s so,” said Mrs.
Whipple, “and when He does the outdoor chores He can wear your
tarpaullion
4
coat. I can’t do no better, that’s all.”
In February He was taken sick, and lay curled up under His blanket look-
ing very blue in the face and acting as if He would choke. Mr. and Mrs.
Whipple did everything they could for Him for two days, and then they were
scared and sent for the doctor. The doctor told them they must keep Him
warm and give Him plenty of milk and eggs. “He isn’t as stout as He looks,
I’m afraid,” said the doctor. “You’ve got to watch them when they’re like that.
You must put more cover onto Him, too.”
“I just took off His big blanket to wash,” said Mrs. Whipple, ashamed. “I
can’t stand dirt.”
“Well, you’d better put it back on the minute it’s dry,” said the doctor, “or
He’ll have pneumonia.”
Mr. and Mrs. Whipple took a blanket off their own bed and put His cot
in by the fire. “They can’t say we didn’t do everything for Him,” she said,
“even to sleeping cold ourselves on His account.”
When the winter broke He seemed to be well again, but He walked as if
His feet hurt Him. He was able to run a cotton planter during the season.
“I got it all fixed up with Jim Ferguson about breeding the cow next time,”
said Mr. Whipple. “I’ll pasture the bull this summer and give Jim some fodder
in the fall. That’s better than paying out money when you haven’t got it.”
“I hope you didn’t say such a thing before Jim Ferguson,” said Mrs.
Whipple. “You oughtn’t to let him know we’re so down as all that.”
3 heaves: a type of emphysema that causes difficulty breathing and a persistent cough
4 tarpaullion: a durable, heavy material

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“Godamighty, that ain’t saying we’re down. A man is got to look ahead
sometimes. He can lead the bull over today. I need Adna on the place.”
At first Mrs. Whipple felt easy in her mind about sending Him for the
bull. Adna was too jumpy and couldn’t be trusted. You’ve got to be steady
around animals. After He was gone she started thinking, and after a while she
could hardly bear it any longer. She stood in the lane and watched for Him.
It was nearly three miles to go and a hot day, but He oughtn’t to be so long
about it. She shaded her eyes and stared until colored bubbles floated in her
eyeballs. It was just like everything else in life, she must always worry and
never know a moment’s peace about anything. After a long time she saw Him
turn into the side lane, limping. He came on very slowly, leading the big hulk
of an animal by a ring in the nose, twirling a little stick in His hand, never
looking back or sideways, but coming on like a
sleepwalker with His eyes half shut.
Mrs. Whipple was scared sick of bulls; she
had heard awful stories about how they fol-
lowed on quietly enough, and then suddenly
pitched on with a bellow and pawed and gored
a body to pieces. Any second now that black
monster would come down on Him, my God,
He’d never have sense enough to run.
She mustn’t make a sound nor a move; she
mustn’t get the bull started. The bull heaved his
head aside and horned the air at a fly. Her voice
burst out of her in a shriek, and she screamed at
Him to come on, for God’s sake. He didn’t
seem to hear her clamor, but kept on twirling His switch and limping on, and
the bull lumbered along behind him as gently as a calf. Mrs. Whipple
stopped calling and ran towards the house, praying under her breath: “Lord,
don’t let anything happen to Him. Lord, you know people will say we oughtn’t
to have sent Him. You know they’ll say we didn’t take care of Him. Oh, get
Him home, safe home, safe home, and I’ll look out for Him better! Amen.”
She watched from the window while He led the beast in, and tied him
up in the barn. It was no use trying to keep up, Mrs. Whipple couldn’t bear
another thing. She sat down and rocked and cried with her apron over her
head.
It was no use trying to
keep up, Mrs. Whipple
couldn’t bear another thing.
She sat down and rocked
and cried with her apron
over her head.

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37
He
From year to year the Whipples were growing poorer and poorer. The
place just seemed to run down of itself, no matter how hard they worked.
“We’re losing our hold,” said Mrs. Whipple. “Why can’t we do like other peo-
ple and watch for our best chances? They’ll be calling us poor white trash
next.”
“When I get to be sixteen I’m going to leave,” said Adna. “I’m going to
get a job in Powell’s grocery store. There’s money in that. No more farm for
me.”
“I’m going to be a schoolteacher,” said Emly. “But I’ve got to finish the
eighth grade, anyhow. Then I can live in town. I don’t see any chances here.”
“Emly takes after my family,” said Mrs. Whipple. “Ambitious every last
one of them, and they don’t take second place
for anybody.”
When fall came Emly got a chance to wait
on table in the railroad eating-house in the
town near by, and it seemed such a shame not
to take it when the wages were good and she
could get her food too, that Mrs. Whipple
decided to let her take it, and not bother with
school until the next session. “You’ve got plen-
ty of time,” she said. “You’re young and smart
as a whip.”
With Adna gone too, Mr. Whipple tried to
run the farm with just Him to help. He seemed
to get along fine, doing His work and part of
Adna’s without noticing it. They did well
enough until Christmas time, when one morn-
ing He slipped on the ice coming up from the
barn. Instead of getting up He thrashed round
and round, and when Mr. Whipple got to Him,
He was having some sort of fit.
They brought Him inside and tried to make Him sit up, but He blub-
bered and rolled, so they put Him to bed and Mr. Whipple rode to town for
the doctor. All the way there and back he worried about where the money
was to come from: it sure did look like he had about all the troubles he could
carry.
They did well enough until
Christmas time, when one
morning He slipped on the
ice coming up from the barn.
Instead of getting up He
thrashed round and round,
and when Mr. Whipple got
to Him, He was having
some sort of fit.

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From then on He stayed in bed. His legs swelled up double their size, and
the fits kept coming back. After four months, the doctor said, “It’s no use, I
think you’d better put Him in the County Home for treatment right away. I’ll
see about it for you. He’ll have good care there and be off your hands.”
“We don’t begrudge Him any care, and I won’t let Him out of my sight,”
said Mrs. Whipple. “I won’t have it said I sent my sick child off among
strangers.”
“I know how you feel,” said the doctor. “You can’t tell me anything about
that, Mrs. Whipple. I’ve got a boy of my own. But you’d better listen to me. I
can’t do anything more for Him, that’s the truth.”
Mr. and Mrs. Whipple talked it over a long time that night after they went
to bed. “It’s just charity,” said Mrs. Whipple, “that’s what we’ve come to, char-
ity! I certainly never looked for this.”
“We pay taxes to help support the place just like everybody else,” said Mr.
Whipple, “and I don’t call that taking charity. I think it would be fine to have
Him where He’d get the best of everything . . . and besides, I can’t keep up
with these doctor bills any longer.”
“Maybe that’s why the doctor wants us to send Him—he’s scared he
won’t get his money,” said Mrs. Whipple.
PUBLIC SALE
1943
Andrew Wyeth
The Philadelphia Museum of Art

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39
He
“Don’t talk like that,” said Mr. Whipple, feeling pretty sick, “or we won’t
be able to send Him.”
“Oh, but we won’t keep Him there long,” said Mrs. Whipple. “Soon’s
He’s better, we’ll bring Him right back home.”
“The doctor has told you and told you time and again He can’t ever get
better, and you might as well stop talking,” said Mr. Whipple.
“Doctors don’t know everything,” said Mrs. Whipple, feeling almost
happy. “But anyhow, in the summer Emly can come home for a vacation, and
Adna can get down for Sundays: we’ll all work together and get on our feet
again, and the children will feel they’ve got a place to come to.”
All at once she saw it full summer again, with the garden going fine, and
new white roller shades up all over the house, and Adna and Emly home, so
full of life, all of them happy together. Oh, it could happen, things would
ease up on them.
They didn’t talk before Him much, but they never knew just how much
He understood. Finally the doctor set the day and a neighbor who owned a
double-seated carryall
5
offered to drive them over. The hospital would have
5 carryall: a covered carriage for four people

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sent an ambulance, but Mrs. Whipple couldn’t stand to see Him going away
looking so sick as all that. They wrapped Him in blankets, and the neighbor
and Mr. Whipple lifted Him into the back seat of the carryall beside Mrs.
Whipple, who had on her black shirtwaist.
6
She couldn’t stand to go looking
like charity.
“You’ll be all right, I guess I’ll stay behind,” said Mr. Whipple. “It don’t
look like everybody ought to leave the place at once.”
“Besides, it ain’t as if He was going to stay forever,” said Mrs. Whipple to
the neighbor. “This is only for a little while.”
They started away, Mrs. Whipple holding to the edges of the blankets to
keep Him from sagging sideways. He sat there blinking and blinking. He
worked His hands out and began rubbing His nose with His knuckles, and
then with the end of the blanket. Mrs. Whipple couldn’t believe what she
saw; He was scrubbing away big tears that rolled out of the corners of His
eyes. He sniveled and made a gulping noise. Mrs. Whipple kept saying, “Oh,
honey, you don’t feel so bad, do you? You don’t feel so bad, do you?” for He
seemed to be accusing her of something. Maybe He remembered that time
she boxed His ears, maybe He had been scared that day with the bull, maybe
He had slept cold and couldn’t tell her about it; maybe He knew they were
sending Him away for good and all because they were too poor to keep Him.
Whatever it was, Mrs. Whipple couldn’t bear to think of it. She began to cry,
frightfully, and wrapped her arms tight around Him. His head rolled on her
shoulder: she had loved Him as much as she possibly could, there were Adna
and Emly who had to be thought of too, there was nothing she could do to
make up to Him for His life. Oh, what a mortal pity He was ever born.
They came in sight of the hospital, with the neighbor driving very fast,
not daring to look behind him.
6 shirtwaist: a tailored blouse or dress

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41
1. LITERARY LENS Define what you think the major conflict is in this
short story.
2. Why do you think the other members of the family in this story refer
to the mentally disabled boy as “He”?
3. Do you think Mrs.Whipple failed her son in any way? If so, what
could she have done differently?
4. Do you think that attitudes toward mentally disabled people have
changed very much since this story was written? Explain.
5. THE AUTHOR’S STYLE Porter is known for her ability to bring
complex characters to life. Select a passage that you think
demonstrates Porter’s skill at characterization. Be prepared to
explain your choice.
Hemingway on Hemingway
“Sometimes when I was starting a new story and I could not get it
going. . . . I would stand and look out over the roofs of Paris and think,
‘Do not worry.You have always written before and you will write now.
All you have to do is write one true sentence.Write the truest
sentence that you know.’ So finally I would write one true sentence,
and then go on from there. . . . If I started to write elaborately, or like
someone introducing or presenting something, I found that I could cut
that scrollwork or ornament out and throw it away and start with the
first true simple declarative sentence that I had written.”
—Ernest Hemingway,A Movable Feast (1964)

1896–1940
About the Author
One of the most important writers of his gener-
ation, F. Scott Fitzgerald coined the termThe Jazz
Age for the prosperous twenties. He was born in
St. Paul, Minnesota, to an established family, and
named for Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald, author of
“The Star-Spangled Banner” and an ancestor of
his father. In 1913, he went east to prestigious
Princeton University, later dropping out of col-
lege to join the army. He never saw combat, and
instead spent most of his army time writing a
spectacularly successful first novel, This Side of
Paradise, published in 1920.
That same year Fitzgerald married a tem-
peramental Southern belle, Zelda Sayre.The cou-
ple’s sophisticated, globetrotting
life became the backdrop for his
work as the Fitzgeralds flitted
from the Riviera to Paris and
NewYork. By 1930, however, too
much of everything took its toll; Fitzgerald had
become an alcoholic and his wife was mentally ill.
Afterward, when Fitzgerald was struggling to
recover, he became known as the spokesman for
“The Lost Generation.” This was a group of
artists who rode the roller coaster of the times
and reflected on its aftermath in their work. One
of his best-known works is his novel The Great
Gatsby.
F. Scott Fitzgerald
F. Scott Fitzgerald’s fiction conveys the contrasts
and extremes of The JazzAge of the twenties.He
was equally adept at chronicling the period of
deflation and regret that followed it after the
stock market crash of 1929. Fitzgerald, like many
of his protagonists, was a participant in a wild
culture that led to excesses of many kinds. His
prose is both subtle and richly descriptive.
Through the precise rendering of dialogue, ges-
ture, metaphor, and crucial detail, his style cap-
tures the subtle distinctions of setting, character,
and tone. Fitzgerald was particularly good at ren-
dering the glossy social lives of the affluent. He
also revealed how the close attention rich peo-
ple pay to manners and customs can mask their
moral inadequacies. Often his characters are
both shaped by wealth and injured by its loss.
The mood of many Fitzgerald stories is one
of tragic regret—not only for fortunes squan-
dered, but for bad behavior, opportunities lost,
and nagging reminders of past mistakes that fol-
low people into the future.
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Watch for Fitzgerald’s use of in medias res in this story. Literally
meaning “in the midst of things,” in medias res refers to the technique of opening a story in
the middle of the action, without letting the reader know who the main character is
or where and when the story is taking place.
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LITERARY LENS

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nd where’s Mr. Campbell?”Charlie asked.
“Gone to Switzerland. Mr. Campbell’s a pretty sick
man, Mr. Wales.”
“I’m sorry to hear that. And George Hardt?” Charlie
inquired.
“Back in America, gone to work.”
“And where is the Snow Bird?”
“He was in here last week. Anyway, his friend, Mr. Schaeffer, is
in Paris.”
Two familiar names from the long list of a year and a half ago.
Charlie scribbled an address in his notebook and tore out the page.
“If you see Mr. Schaeffer, give him this,” he said. “It’s my brother-
in-law’s address. I haven’t settled on a hotel yet.”
F. SCOTT FITZGERALD
43
BABYLON
REVISITED
BABYLON
REVISITED
I

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44 F. Scott Fitzgerald
portentous:
ominous; full of
meaning
nicety:
correctness;
propriety
strident:
commanding
attention
1 chasseur: French for “messenger boy”
2 bull market: a period when the stock market is rising
He was not really disappointed to find Paris was so empty. But the still-
ness in the Ritz bar was strange and portentous. It was not an American bar
any more—he felt polite in it, and not as if he owned it. It had gone back
into France. He felt the stillness from the moment he got out of the taxi and
saw the doorman, usually in a frenzy of activity at this hour, gossiping with
a chasseur
1
by the servants’ entrance.
Passing through the corridor, he heard only a single, bored voice in the
once-clamorous women’s room. When he turned into the bar he traveled the
twenty feet of green carpet with his eyes fixed straight ahead by old habit; and
then, with his foot firmly on the rail, he turned and surveyed the room,
encountering only a single pair of eyes that fluttered up from a newspaper in
the corner. Charlie asked for the head barman, Paul, who in the latter days
of the bull market
2
had come to work in his own custom-built car—disem-
barking, however, with due nicety at the nearest corner. But Paul was at his
country house today and Alix giving him information.
“No, no more,” Charlie said. “I’m going slow these days.”
Alix congratulated him: “You were going pretty strong a couple of years ago.”
“I’ll stick to it all right,” Charlie assured him. “I’ve stuck to it for over a
year and a half now.”
“How do you find conditions in America?”
“I haven’t been to America for months. I’m in business in Prague, repre-
senting a couple of concerns there. They don’t know about me down there.”
Alix smiled.
“Remember the night of George Hardt’s bachelor dinner here?” said
Charlie. “By the way, what’s become of Claude Fessenden?”
Alix lowered his voice confidentially: “He’s in Paris, but he doesn’t come
here any more. Paul doesn’t allow it. He ran up a bill of thirty thousand
francs, charging all his drinks and his lunches, and usually his dinner, for
more than a year. And when Paul finally told him he had to pay, he gave him
a bad check.”
Alix shook his head sadly.
“I don’t understand it, such a dandy fellow. Now he’s all bloated up—”
he made a plump apple of his hands.
Charlie watched a group of strident queens installing themselves in a
corner.

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45
Babylon Revisited
bourgeois:
middle-class;
conventional
3 bistros: French for “taverns”
4 Seine: a river in France
5 provincial: regional; in this case, rural or small-town
6 Left Bank: the southern shore of the Seine in Paris, less stylish than the Right Bank
7 Le Plus que Lente: a waltz by Claude Debussy
8 Second Empire: refers to the reign of Napoleon III from 1852 until 1871
“Nothing affects them,” he thought.
“Stocks rise and fall, people loaf or work, but
they go on forever.” The place oppressed him.
He called for the dice and shook with Alix for
the drink.
“Here for long, Mr. Wales?”
“I’m here for four or five days to see my lit-
tle girl.”
“Oh-h! You have a little girl?”
Outside, the fire-red, gas-blue, ghost-green
signs shone smokily through the tranquil rain.
It was late afternoon and the streets were in
movement; the bistros
3
gleamed. At the corner
of the Boulevard des Capucines he took a taxi. The Place de la Concorde
moved by in pink majesty; they crossed the logical Seine,
4
and Charlie felt the
sudden provincial
5
quality of the Left Bank.
6
Charlie directed his taxi to the Avenue de l’Opéra, which was out of his
way. But he wanted to see the blue hour spread over the magnificent façade,
and imagine that the cab horns, playing endlessly the first few bars of Le Plus
que Lente,
7
were the trumpets of the Second Empire.
8
They were closing the
iron grill in front of Brentano’s Bookstore, and people were already at dinner
behind the trim little bourgeois hedge of Duval’s. He had never eaten at a
really cheap restaurant in Paris. Five-course dinner, four francs fifty, eighteen
cents, wine included. For some odd reason he wished that he had.
As they rolled on to the Left Bank and he felt its sudden provincialism,
he thought, “I spoiled this city for myself. I didn’t realize it, but the days
came along one after another, and then two years were gone, and everything
was gone, and I was gone.”
He was thirty-five, and good to look at. The Irish mobility of his face was
sobered by a deep wrinkle between his eyes. As he rang his brother-in-law’s
bell in the Rue Palatine, the wrinkle deepened till it pulled down his brows;
They were closing the iron
grill in front of Brentano’s
Bookstore, and people were
already at dinner behind
the trim little bourgeois hedge
of Duval’s.

antipathy:
intense dislike
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restiveness:
uneasiness
feigned:
pretended
tepid:
lukewarm;
unenthusiastic
he felt a cramping sensation in his belly. From behind the maid who opened
the door darted a lovely little girl of nine, who shrieked “Daddy!” and flew
up, struggling like a fish, into his arms. She pulled his head around by one
ear and set her cheek against his.
“My old pie,” he said.
“Oh, daddy, daddy, daddy, daddy, dads, dads, dads!”
She drew him into the salon, where the family waited, a boy and girl his
daughter’s age, his sister-in-law and her husband. He greeted Marion with his
voice pitched carefully to avoid either feigned enthusiasm or dislike, but her
response was more frankly tepid, though she minimized her expression of
unalterable distrust by directing her regard toward his child. The two men
clasped hands in a friendly way and Lincoln Peters rested his for a moment
on Charlie’s shoulder.
The room was warm and comfortably American. The three children
moved intimately about, playing through the yellow oblongs that led to
other rooms; the cheer of six o’clock spoke in the eager smacks of the fire and
the sounds of French activity in the kitchen. But Charlie did not relax; his
heart sat up rigidly in his body and he drew confidence from his daughter,
who from time to time came close to him, holding in her arms the doll he
had brought.
“Really extremely well,” he declared in answer to Lincoln’s question.
“There’s a lot of business there that isn’t moving at all, but we’re doing even
better than ever. In fact, damn well. I’m bringing my sister over from America
next month to keep house for me. My income last year was bigger than it was
when I had money. You see, the Czechs—”
His boasting was for a specific purpose; but after a moment, seeing a
faint restiveness in Lincoln’s eye, he changed the subject:
“Those are fine children of yours, well brought up, good manners.”
“We think Honoria’s a great little girl too.”
Marion Peters came back from the kitchen. She was a tall woman with
worried eyes, who had once possessed a fresh American loveliness. Charlie
had never been sensitive to it and was always surprised when people spoke
of how pretty she had been. From the first there had been an instinctive
antipathy between them.
“Well, how do you find Honoria?” she asked.
“Wonderful. I was astonished how much she’s grown in ten months. All
the children are looking well.”

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47
Babylon Revisited
THE CATHEDRALS OF BROADWAY, Florine Stettheimer, 1929, The Metropolitan Museum of Art

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9 strapontin: French for “cheap seat”
10 Josephine Baker: popular African American dancer in Paris in the 1920s
11 arabesques: ballet moves
12 Montmartre: a hill in northern Paris known for its artists and breathtaking view of the city
13 Rue Pigalle: French for “Pigalle Street”
14 Place Blanche: French for “White Square”
“We haven’t had a doctor for a year. How do you like being back in
Paris?”
“It seems very funny to see so few Americans around.”
“I’m delighted,” Marion said vehemently. “Now at least you can go into
a store without their assuming you’re a millionaire. We’ve suffered like every-
body, but on the whole it’s a good deal pleasanter.”
“But it was nice while it lasted,” said Charlie. “We were a sort of royalty,
almost infallible, with a sort of magic around us. In the bar this afternoon”—
he stumbled, seeing his mistake—”there wasn’t a man I knew.”
She looked at him keenly. “I should think you’d have had enough of
bars.”
“I only stayed a minute. I take one drink every afternoon, and no more.”
“Don’t you want a cocktail before dinner?” Lincoln asked.
“I take only one drink every afternoon, and I’ve had that.”
“I hope you keep to it,” said Marion.
Her dislike was evident in the coldness with which she spoke, but Charlie
only smiled; he had larger plans. Her very aggressiveness gave him an advan-
tage, and he knew enough to wait. He wanted them to initiate the discussion
of what they knew had brought him to Paris.
At dinner he couldn’t decide whether Honoria was most like him or her
mother. Fortunate if she didn’t combine the traits of both that had brought
them to disaster. A great wave of protectiveness went over him. He thought
he knew what to do for her. He believed in character; he wanted to jump
back a whole generation and trust in character again as the eternally valuable
element. Everything else wore out.
He left soon after dinner, but not to go home. He was curious to see Paris
by night with clearer and more judicious eyes than those of other days. He
bought a strapontin
9
for the Casino and watched Josephine Baker
10
go through
her chocolate arabesques.
11
After an hour he left and strolled toward Montmartre,
12
up the Rue Pigalle
13
into the Place Blanche.
14
The rain had stopped and there were a few people in
vehemently:
forcefully; with
conviction

AMERICAN SHORT STORIES 1920 PRESENT Lite (2)

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