A Summary and Analysis of Ernest Hemingway’s ‘A Canary for One’

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)

‘A Canary for One’ is a short story by Ernest Hemingway (1899-1961). He began writing ‘A Canary for One’ in 1926 and it was first published the following year. It contains a number of the most characteristic features of Hemingway’s writing: clear, unadorned prose, and a focus on ordinary, unremarkable ‘events’ whose symbolism is allowed to come quietly and unobtrusively to the surface.

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A Summary and Analysis of Ernest Hemingway’s ‘The Sea Change’

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)

‘The Sea Change’ is a 1931 short story by the American writer Ernest Hemingway (1899-1961). Like a number of Hemingway’s other short stories, ‘The Sea Change’ deals elliptically with a taboo topic – here, bisexuality – through presenting (without fully explaining the back story) a conversation between a young couple in a café.

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‘Cat in the Rain’: Symbolism

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)

Ernest Hemingway’s 1925 short story ‘Cat in the Rain’ is a short vignette about an American husband and wife staying in Italy. The wife notices a cat outside their hotel, in the pouring rain, and wants to bring it inside. As with much of Hemingway’s fiction, he leaves out more than he includes on the page, leaving us to draw conclusions about the meaning of the story.

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‘Cat in the Rain’: Themes

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)

Ernest Hemingway’s 1925 short story ‘Cat in the Rain’ touches upon a number of themes, but it touches upon them lightly, for the most part. As is often the case in his fiction, Hemingway lets a few spare details suggest the inner lives of his characters, with these mostly external details hinting at much larger themes and ideas.

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‘Cat in the Rain’: Characters

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)

Like many short stories, Ernest Hemingway’s ‘Cat in the Rain’ contains a very small cast of characters. All of the characters in the story can be defined by their relationship to the story’s protagonist and central character, the American wife, who is staying at a hotel in Italy with her husband, George. Let’s take a closer look at the characters in Hemingway’s very short story, which was first published in 1925.

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