Hemingway and the creation of twentieth-century dialogue - American author Ernest Hemingway

Twentieth Century Literature, Winter, 1996 by Robert Paul Lamb

Hemingway, with his deceptively simple dialogue, managed to capture these dynamics of real-life speech. The earliest example can be found in his first story masterpiece, "Indian Camp," written between November 1923 and February 1924. In the deleted opening, young Nick Adams, left alone at night by his father and his Uncle George, succumbs to a vague existential dread and fear of death, and summons the men back from their fishing by firing three shots. So far, the story is about as badly written as a story can be. Nick's feelings have been directly and unsuggestively stated by an awkward psychologizing narrator; the narrative's action sequences are confused and confusing; the characters are stilted; and so many flashbacks have occurred in so brief a span of text that the unities of time, place, and action have been badly compromised.

But the fragment closes with three consecutive passages of dialogue that serve an enabling function in leading the story and its fumbling author into the realm of art. The first passage, a conversation between the two men on the lake after they hear the shots, serves no purpose - it is senselessly repetitive and oddly stagnant; it does not advance the plot; it uses unnecessary identification tags; the two characters talk alike; and the dialogue fails to fit their personalities. The next passage, in which the two men return to the camp, is a huge improvement. Each character has one speech; each speech is in character; and each reveals calculation and involuntary self-revelation as the father demonstrates his concern for his son, Nick wishes to persuade the men that there was good reason to call them back but reveals his embarrassment, and Uncle George expresses contempt and reveals his cruelty. The final passage is almost technically flawless:

In the morning his father found two big basswood trees that leaned across each other so that they rubbed together in the wind.

"Do you think that was what it was, Nick?" his father asked.

"Maybe," Nick said. He didn't want to think about it.

"You don't want to ever be frightened in the woods, Nick. There is nothing that can hurt you."

"Not even lightning?" Nick asked.

"No, not even lightning. If there is a thunder storm get out into the open. Or get under a beech tree. They're never struck."

"Never?" Nick asked.

"I never heard of one," said his father.

"Gee, I'm glad to know that about beech trees," Nick said. ("Three Shots" 15)

Hemingway effectively locates the scene with a precise, concrete sentence. The use of the word found (instead of saw) is suggestive. Dr. Adams has deliberately sought out a forest noise for his son, either to console him by offering a palpable reason for Nick's fear on the previous night, or, equally revealing, because he believes in his son despite the evidence and George's opinions. The ensuing dialogue accords with the speakers' personalities. Dr. Adams both respects and wishes to encourage his child's autonomy. He asks Nick if he thinks it was the trees he heard. The child, still ashamed of his earlier behavior, is warily noncommittal. Sensing his son's reticence, Dr. Adams tactfully directs the conversation away from the particular embarrassing incident onto the general topic of how nothing in the woods "can hurt you." The "you" here refers to Nick, of course, but it also implies the more general sense of "one." The tactic succeeds. Because his father has addressed Nick's fears indirectly, the boy no longer feels ashamed, and his curiosity causes him to engage in conversation. The subsequent dialogue about lightning and beech trees allows the two characters to settle into the security of a father-as-teacher/son-as-learner pattern of behavior. It produces a sort of catharsis, with Nick's final speech coming across almost as a sigh of relief.