Ham and Eggs and Hermeneutics: re-reading Hemingway's 'The Killers'

Harris, OCG

Abstract

Hemingway's short stories have often been read through the aesthetic model of the iceberg, but the practice of omission has proved an obstacle to interpreting one of his most celebrated and supposedly exemplary texts, "The Killers." Circumstantial but compelling archival evidence supports a radical re-reading of Hemingway's classic story based not on things left out but on things cryptically inscribed on the surface of the text in the form of the rebus. When deciphered, the text's secret inscriptions locate the "other" scene of "The Killers" in Hemingway's experience in World War I, and identify the text as a remarkable experiment in modernist form.

Citation

Harris, O. (2017). Ham and Eggs and Hermeneutics: re-reading Hemingway's 'The Killers'. Journal of Modern Literature, 40, 41--59. https://doi.org/10.2979/jmodelite.40.2.03

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Publication Date: 2017
• Deposit Date: May 31, 2023
• Journal: Journal of Modern Literature
• Print ISSN: 0022-281X
• Publisher: Indiana University Press
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 40
• Pages: 41--59
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.2979/jmodelite.40.2.03