The Battler
"The Battler" is a short story written by Ernest Hemingway, published in the 1925 New York edition of In Our Time, by Boni & Liveright.[1] The story is the fifth in the collection to feature Nick Adams, Hemingway's autobiographical alter ego.[2]
Plot
"The Battler" begins as Nick Adams is thrown off a train, caught as a stowaway. Nick stumbles into the forest, to make his way to the next town, where he sees a fire in the darkness. A man next to the fire greets him, asking how he got the black eye. Nick answers that he was punched off a train that he got on from Walton Junction. The man says should hit the man on the train with a rock the next time he passes. Nick replies, "I’ll get him".
When the man compliments Nick on his toughness, he replies that "You got to be tough." After this, Nick realizes that the man's face is misshapen with a smashed nose, permanently swollen lips, and one missing ear. The man then asks Nick whether he has ever been crazy and admits that "I’m not quite right" followed by "I’m crazy".
Nick starts to feel uncomfortable and considers leaving until the man reveals himself to be Ad Francis, a former boxing champion. Later, Ad's African-American friend Bugs comes back to the camp with their dinner. While preparing dinner, Ad asks Nick for a knife, and Bugs tells Nick to not hand it to Ad. Ad is greatly offended and becomes very aggressive, saying, "You come in here where nobody asks you and eat a man’s food and when he asks to borrow a knife you get snotty." He threatens to hit Nick, but Bugs knocks him out with a blackjack.
Nick asks how Ad became so crazy, and Bugs explains that Ad took too many beatings in the ring and that his wife–who the media falsely claimed to be his sister–abandoned him. Shortly after, Ad became depressed and could no longer financially support himself.
After this revelation, Nick leaves the camp and heads towards Mancelona.
Characterization of African American character
Bugs, the black character, is referred to throughout the story as a negro and also by the pejorative term "nigger". This racist terminology is used casually in a third-person limited narration, which seems to reflect the perspective of Nick Adams. At the same time, Bugs' actions and speech indirectly reveal that he is generous, intelligent, and the character most in control of the situation at hand.
References
Sources
- Oliver, Charles. (1999). Ernest Hemingway A to Z: The Essential Reference to the Life and Work. New York: Checkmark Publishing. ISBN 978-0-8160-3467-3
- Tetlow, Wendolyn E. (1992). Hemingway's "In Our Time": Lyrical Dimensions. Cranbury NJ: Associated University Presses. ISBN 978-0-8387-5219-7
External links
- Ernest Hemingway Collection, JFK Library
- v
- t
- e
- The Torrents of Spring (1926)
- The Sun Also Rises (1926)
- A Farewell to Arms (1929)
- To Have and Have Not (1937)
- For Whom the Bell Tolls (1940)
- Across the River and into the Trees (1950)
- The Old Man and the Sea (1952)
- Death in the Afternoon (1932)
- Green Hills of Africa (1935)
- A Moveable Feast (1964)
- Islands in the Stream (1970)
- The Dangerous Summer (1985)
- The Garden of Eden (1986)
- True at First Light (1999)
- Under Kilimanjaro (2005)
- "Up In Michigan" (1921)
- "Indian Camp" (1924)
- "The Doctor and the Doctor's Wife" (1925)
- "The End of Something" (1925)
- "The Three-Day Blow" (1925)
- "The Battler" (1925)
- "A Very Short Story" (1925)
- "Soldier's Home" (1925)
- "The Revolutionist" (1925)
- "Mr. and Mrs. Elliot" (1925)
- "Cat in the Rain" (1925)
- "Out of Season" (1925)
- "Cross Country Snow" (1925)
- "My Old Man" (1925)
- "Big Two-Hearted River" (1925)
- "Banal Story" (1926)
- "Today is Friday" (1926)
- "A Canary for One" (1927)
- "Fifty Grand" (1927)
- "Hills Like White Elephants" (1927)
- "The Killers" (1927)
- "The Undefeated" (1927)
- "Che Ti Dice La Patria?" (1927)
- "In Another Country" (1927)
- "Now I Lay Me" (1927)
- "A Simple Enquiry" (1927)
- "Ten Indians" (1927)
- "An Alpine Idyll" (1927)
- "A Pursuit Race" (1927)
- "On the Quai at Smyrna" (1930)
- "Fathers and Sons" (1932)
- "A Natural History of the Dead" (1932)
- "A Clean, Well-Lighted Place" (1933)
- "A Day's Wait" (1933)
- "The Gambler, the Nun, and the Radio" (1933)
- "A Way You'll Never Be" (1933)
- "The Snows of Kilimanjaro" (1936)
- "The Capital of the World" (1936)
- "The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber" (1936)
- "Old Man at the Bridge" (1938)
collections
- Three Stories and Ten Poems (1923)
- In Our Time (1925)
- Men Without Women (1927)
- Winner Take Nothing (1933)
- The Fifth Column and the First Forty-Nine Stories (1938)
- The Snows of Kilimanjaro (1961)
- The Fifth Column and Four Stories of the Spanish Civil War (1969)
- The Nick Adams Stories (1972)
- The Complete Short Stories of Ernest Hemingway (1987)
- Ernest Hemingway: The Collected Stories (1995)
- "On Writing"
- 88 Poems (1979)
- Complete Poems
- Today is Friday (1926)
- The Fifth Column (1938)
- The Spanish Earth (1937 film)
journalism
- By-Line: Ernest Hemingway (1967)
- Ernest Hemingway: Selected Letters, 1917–1961 (1981)
- Dateline: Toronto (1985)
- The Cambridge Edition of the Letters of Ernest Hemingway (2011)
The Sun Also Rises |
|
---|---|
"The Killers" |
|
A Farewell to Arms |
|
To Have and Have Not |
|
For Whom the Bell Tolls |
|
The Old Man and the Sea |
|
Other film adaptations |
|
- Birthplace and boyhood home
- Michigan cottage
- Hemingway-Pfeiffer House
- Key West home
- Hotel Ambos Mundos, Havana home
- Finca Vigía, Cuba home
- Idaho home
- Bacall to Arms (1946 cartoon)
- Hemingway: On the Edge (1987 play)
- In Love and War (1996 film)
- Midnight in Paris (2011 film)
- Hemingway & Gellhorn (2012 film)
- Cooper & Hemingway: The True Gen (2013 documentary)
- Papa: Hemingway in Cuba (2015 film)
- Genius (2016 film)
- Hemingway (2021 documentary series)
- Nick Adams
- Floridita
- Pilar (boat)
- Iceberg theory
- Ernest Hemingway International Billfishing Tournament
- International Imitation Hemingway Competition
- Maxwell Perkins
- Adriana Ivancich
- Hemingway Foundation/PEN Award
- Premio Hemingway
- Hello Hemingway (1990 film)
- Hemingway: A Portrait (1999 documentary)
- Michael Palin's Hemingway Adventure (1999 documentary)
- Hemingway crater
- Kennedy Library Hemingway collection
- Elizabeth Hadley Richardson (first wife)
- Jack Hemingway (son)
- Pauline Pfeiffer (second wife)
- Patrick Hemingway (son)
- Gloria Hemingway (daughter)
- Martha Gellhorn (third wife)
- Mary Welsh Hemingway (fourth wife)
- Lorian Hemingway (granddaughter)
- Margaux Hemingway (granddaughter)
- John Hemingway (grandson)
- Mariel Hemingway (granddaughter)
- Grace Hall Hemingway (mother)
- Leicester Hemingway (brother)
This article about a short story (or stories) published in the 1920s is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. |
- v
- t
- e