Criticism

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Translation Quality Assessment

A case study of Ernest Hemingway’s ‘the Killers’

Translated by

Najaf Daryabandari

According to Newmark’s translation criticism

Marjan Tavakoli

Kerman Institute of Higher Education

May 2014

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Introduction

"The Killers," Ernest Hemingway's story about two hit men who come to a small town to kill a former prizefighter, was first published in the March 1927 issue of
Scribner's Magazine. Hemingway was paid two hundred dollars for the story, which was the first of his mature stories to appear in an American periodical. His original title for the story was "The Matadors." Hemingway included the story in his 1927 collection Men Without Women, and it also appears in The Nick Adams
Stories (1972). "The Killers" remains one of Hemingway's most anthologized stories because it is representative of Hemingway's style and the subjects that would occupy his work throughout his career. These subjects include the meaninglessness of human life, male camaraderie, and the inevitability of death, and Hemingway explores them using his signature short sentences, slang, and understatement. Hemingway claims to have written the story in a frenzy of inspiration on May 16,
1926, before lunch. Like many of his short stories, "The Killers" features Nick
Adams, a typical Hemingway hero, one in a long line of Hemingway's fictional selves. Hemingway introduced Nick Adams in his first collection of stories, In Our
Time (1925). Nick is an adolescent in "The Killers," and critics have argued that
Nick's experience with the hit men marks his initiation into adulthood and his introduction to evil and violence.

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Introducing the author and text analysis

About The Author Ernest Hemingway is one of the most influential American writers of the twentieth century. His influence extends not only to novelists and short story writers but also to journalists, playwrights, critics, and filmmakers. Four decades after his death, biographies about him continue to appear. Born July 21, 1899, in Oak Park,
Illinois, Ernest Miller Hemingway was the second child of Clarence Hemingway, a doctor, and Grace (Hall) Hemingway.
Literary Career of the author cited by Wikipedia Online Encyclopedia In 1925, Liveright released Hemingway's first widely distributed book, In Our
Time, a collection of short stories featuring Nick Adams, an autobiographical character who would also appear in future Hemingway stories. His second collection, Men Without Women (1927), contained many of what would become
Hemingway's most popular and anthologized stories, including "The Killers" and
"Hills Like White Elephants." In these stories, Hemingway perfected his spare, elliptical style, using dialogue almost exclusively to develop characters and drive his plot. His early novels, however, cemented his popularity and established
Hemingway as the leading voice of his generation. The Sun Also Rises (1926) and
A Farewell to Arms (1929) both address the emotionally debilitating effects of
World War I on characters that were fictional projections of Hemingway.

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The quality of Hemingway's work diminished after he had established an international reputation, though he did produce two critical and popular successes with his novels For Whom the Bell Tolls (1940) and The Old Man and the Sea
(1952), the latter of which helped Hemingway win the Nobel Prize in literature in
1954. While alive, Hemingway was a popular and much-admired celebrity, a man's man, who cultivated a brawling, hard-drinking, hard-loving image. In 1961, his emotional and physical health deteriorating, "Papa" Hemingway, as he had become known, committed suicide by shooting himself at his home in Ketchum, Idaho.
Hemingway's father had also committed suicide. Posthumous works include A
Moveable Feast (1964), which recounts Hemingway's years in Paris in the 1920s and a number of reissued story collections and novels pieced together by editors, including Islands in the Stream (1970), The Nick Adams Stories (1972), and The
Garden of Eden (1986).
Influence and legacy Hemingway's legacy to American literature is his style: writers who came after him emulated it or avoided it. After his reputation was established with the publication of The Sun Also Rises, he became the spokesperson for the post–World
War I generation, having established a style to follow. His books were burned in
Berlin in 1933, "as being a monument of modern decadence". His parents disavowed his literature as "filth". Reynolds asserts the legacy is that "he left stories and novels so starkly moving that some have become part of our cultural heritage". In a 2004 speech at the John F. Kennedy Library, Russell Banks
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declared that he, like many male writers of his generation, was influenced by
Hemingway's writing philosophy, style, and public image. Müller argues that
Hemingway "has the highest recognition value of all writers worldwide". On the other hand, in 2012, novelist John Irving rejected most of Hemingway's work
"except for a few short stories", saying that the "write-what-you-know dictum has no place in imaginative literature". Irving also objected to the "offensive tough-guy posturing—all those stiff-upper-lip, don't-say-much men" and contrasted
Hemingway's approach to that of Herman Melville, citing the latter's advice: "Woe to him who seeks to please rather than appall."
Statue of Hemingway by José Villa Soberón, El Floridita bar in Havana. On the wall is a photo of Hemingway awarding Fidel Castro the winning prize for the largest fish caught in the "Hemingway Fishing Contest" of May 1960. However two months later Hemingway would leave Cuba and never return.
Benson believes the details of Hemingway's life have become a "prime vehicle for exploitation", resulting in a Hemingway industry. Hemingway scholar Hallengren believes the "hard boiled style" and the machismo must be separated from the author himself. Benson agrees, describing him as introverted and private as J. D. Salinger, although Hemingway masked his nature with braggadocio. In fact, during World War II, Salinger met and corresponded with Hemingway, whom he acknowledged as an influence. In a letter to Hemingway, Salinger claimed their talks "had given him his only hopeful minutes of the entire war" and jokingly

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"named himself national chairman of the Hemingway Fan Clubs".
The International Imitation Hemingway Competition was created in 1977 to publicly acknowledge his influence and the comically misplaced efforts of lesser authors to imitate his style. Entrants are encouraged to submit one "really good page of really bad Hemingway" and winners are flown to Italy to Harry's Bar.
The minor planet 3656 Hemingway, discovered in 1978 by Soviet astronomer
Nikolai Stepanovich Chernykh, was named after Hemingway. The influence is evident with the many restaurants named "Hemingway"; and the proliferation of bars called "Harry's" (a nod to the bar in Across the River and Into the Trees). A line of Hemingway furniture, promoted by Hemingway's son Jack (Bumby), has pieces such as the "Kilimanjaro" bedside table, and a "Catherine" slip-covered sofa. Montblanc offers a Hemingway fountain pen, and a line of Hemingway safari clothes has been created. In 1965 Mary Hemingway established the Hemingway
Foundation and in the 1970s she donated her husband's papers to the John F.
Kennedy Library. In 1980 a group of Hemingway scholars gathered to assess the donated papers, subsequently forming the Hemingway Society, "committed to supporting and fostering Hemingway scholarship".
Ray Bradbury wrote The Kilimanjaro Device, in which Hemingway is transported to the top of Mount Kilimanjaro. The 1993 film Wrestling Ernest Hemingway, about the friendship of two retired men in a seaside town in Florida, is named after a story one of the characters (played by Richard Harris) tells about having wrestled Hemingway in the 1930s.

Hemingway’s effect on the welfare of the United States of America
Political Views
Religious Views

Plot Summary
Section 1
"The Killers" begins with two men walking into Henry's lunchroom and discussing what they want to eat. Max and Al bicker over what menu items are available with
George, the counterman who had been talking with Nick Adams, the only other customer. Some confusion occurs over the correct time. The clock says 5:20, but
George tells the men it is twenty minutes fast. The men finally order eggs with ham and bacon and then taunt Nick and George, sarcastically calling them "bright boys" and making fun of their small town, Summit. Al and Max order George to tell the cook, Sam, to come out of the kitchen, and then Al takes Nick and Sam back into the kitchen. They call Sam "nigger," a much-used epithet for African
Americans in 1920s' America.
Max announces that they are at the lunchroom to kill Ole Andreson, a Swede who usually eats dinner there at six o'clock. It is obvious the men have been hired, as
Max says they have never seen Ole before. "We're killing him for a friend. Just to oblige a friend," Max says. Al and Max continue with their banter, taunting Nick and Sam. At one point, Al says, "The nigger [Sam] and my bright boy [Nick] are amused by themselves. I got them tied up like a couple of girl friends in the convent." Referring to the two as "girl friends" is tough talk and meant to belittle the men's masculinity.
A customer comes in at a quarter past six, but George tells him that the cook is not there, and the man leaves. A few other customers come in. George makes one of them a sandwich and tells the other one that the cook is sick. At five minutes past seven, the two men leave, shotguns bulging from their overcoats.
Section 2
George watches the men leave. Nick and Sam come out from the kitchen, and Nick removes the towel that had been stuffed in his mouth. George tells Nick that he better go tell Ole Andreson that the two men are looking for him, but Sam warns him to "stay out of it." After Nick says he is going to tell Ole, Sam remarks, "Little boys always know what they want to do." This remark underscores Nick's youth and his innocence. In this section, it becomes clear that Nick has become the protagonist of the story.
Section 3
In this section, Nick visits Hirsch's rooming house, where Ole lives. Mrs. Bell, the rooming house manager, lets Nick in. Ole is lying on the bed, dressed, staring at the wall. Nick tells Ole about the two men, but Ole says, "There isn't anything I can do about it." He refuses Nick's offer to tell the police, remarking, "I'm through with all that running around." Ole speaks with a "flat" voice, meaning that he shows no emotion. Ole thanks Nick for coming.
Section 4
In this last section, Nick walks back to Henry's and tells George about Ole: "He's in his room and he won't go out." Sam opens the kitchen door, says, "I don't even listen to it," and shuts it again. Henry says that Ole "must have got mixed up in something in Chicago." Chicago was a hotbed of crime and gangster activity in the
1920s, so it is conceivable that, as George tells Nick, Ole "double-crossed somebody. That's what they kill them for." Nick is shocked at what happens and says he can't bear to think of Ole waiting in his room to get killed. He vows to "get out of this town." George's response to Nick is not to think about it, underscoring
George's own ambivalent attitude towards the situation.
Characters
The characters of the story are Nick Adams, Al, Max, Sam, Ole Anderson, George, and Mrs. Bell
Major Characters Analysis
Nick Adams
Nick Adams is sitting at the lunch counter at Henry's talking to George when Al and Max walk in. Nick is a teenager, whom Al and Max refer to as "bright boy."
Hemingway readers know Nick from Hemingway's short story collection In Our
Time, which introduces Nick as a vulnerable teenager thrust into a world of violence and meanness. Nick is a typical Hemingway hero who is learning "the code." Hemingway's "code hero" is someone who is honorable, courageous, and adventurous and who exhibits grace under pressure. He distinguishes himself from others by his ability to endure and to face death with dignity. Such traits define the code hero's manhood. In short, Nick is learning the code of how to be a man, according to Hemingway's idea of what constitutes manhood. In their essay on
Hemingway's story, Cleanth Brooks, Jr. and Robert Penn Warren argue, "it is the tough man … the disciplined man, who actually is aware of pathos or tragedy."
Such a man, the two argue, "has learned that the only way to hold on to 'honor,' to individuality, to, even, the human order … is to live by his code." Nick is still developing the code. His experience with the killers marks his initiation into a world of brutality and random events. Critics often argue over the real protagonist of "The Killers." In his book Hemingway's Nick Adams, Joseph Flora claims,
"Hemingway indicates that Nick is to be the central character of the story by making him the only character in the opening scene to be given a whole name."
Flora also observes that this story is the last of Hemingway's stories in which Nick appears as an adolescent, and it is the only one not set in Michigan.
By the end of the story, Nick is a changed person. His discovery of the evil in human beings shocks him, and he announces that he is going to leave town after he returns from seeing Ole. Flora writes, "Even though the world is a darker place than Nick had before guessed, he is not in Andreson's frame of mind—merely waiting for the end."
Al
Al is one of the two hit men who come to Henry's to kill Ole Andreson. His face is
"small and white and he had tight lips," and like Max, he wears a derby hat and a black overcoat. The narrator describes the two as "a vaudeville team." And, indeed, they often act like comics performing a routine rather than behaving as hit men. Al forces Sam and Nick to the kitchen where he binds and gags them, holding a shotgun on George. He appears as the leader of the two, telling Max at one point to
"Shut up" when Max tells George they are going to kill Ole "Just to oblige a friend." The narrator describes both Al and Max as "little."
Max
Max is Al's partner and is dressed identically to him. He waits at the counter for two hours while Al guards Sam and Nick in the kitchen, taunting George, calling him "bright boy," and saying he "would make some girl a nice wife." Many critics claim Al and Max perform a kind of vaudeville routine and are little more than caricatures of gangsters. A typical exchange between the two occurs after Max tells
George they are killing Ole for a friend in Chicago:
'You talk too damn much,' Al said.
'The nigger and my bright boy are amused by themselves. I got them tied up like a couple of girl friends in a convent.'
'I suppose you were in a convent?'
'You never know.'
'You were in a kosher convent. That's where you were.'
Sam
Sam is the black cook at Henry's and, along with Nick, is tied up and gagged by
Al, one of the hit men. Al and Max refer to him as "the nigger." Sam is obedient, never responding to Max or Al except in the affirmative. He also wants nothing to do with warning Ole. When Nick says he is going to warn the boxer, Sam replies,
"Little boys always know what they want to do," underscoring the fact that he,
Sam, sees himself as a man who has learned through experience not to become involved in other people's business, especially if it is dangerous.
Ole Anderson
Ole Anderson is a Swede and a former heavyweight boxer who lives in Hirsch's rooming house. He usually eats at Henry's lunchroom around six in the evening but does not show up the day Al and Max come to kill him. When Nick visits him to warn him about the men, Ole is lying on his bed facing the wall. Ole thanks Nick for telling him but is resigned to his fate. He tells Nick that he has not been able to get out of bed and go outside and that he is "through with all that running around."
Mrs. Bell, the house manager, calls him "a very nice man." Nick and George speculate that Ole "got mixed up with something in Chicago" and that Al and Max had come to settle a score. Martin sees an irony in Ole's largeness, when compared to Al and Max's small stature. Martin writes that Ole, unlike Nick, knows that telling the police about the men will do no good. Martin argues, "Ole knows better; he knows that his mass is relative to other things such as guns and the mob."
George
George is the counter man at Henry's lunchroom, who waits on customers. It is unclear whether or not he is also the owner. Max keeps an eye on him as Al ties up
Nick and Sam in the kitchen. George is matter-of-fact in his responses to the men and does not appear cowed by their machismo. When Max tells him they are there to kill Ole, George asks, "What are you going to kill Ole Andreson for? What did he ever do to you?" As Al and Max leave the restaurant, readers see them "pass under the arc light and cross the street" through George's eyes. George convinces
Nick to warn Ole, and when Nick returns and reports that his visit was useless,
George speculates that Ole is probably a target of Chicago mobsters. Nick wonders what Ole did to deserve being killed, and George answers, "Double-crossed somebody. That's what they kill them for." When Nick says, "I can't stand to think about him waiting in the room and knowing he's going to get it. It's too damned awful," George responds, saying, "you better not think of it."
Mrs. Bell
Mrs. Bell runs Hirsch's rooming-house and takes Nick to Ole Anderson’s room.
Nick mistakes her for Mrs. Hirsch when he leaves, and she corrects him, saying that she just "looks after" the place for her. She tells Nick that Ole is "a very nice man." Themes
Ernest Hemingway's themes include fatalistic heroism, ambivalence, nature and masculinity. The theme of The Killers by Ernest Hemingway is innocence. Others are criminality, passivity and appearances.
Themes within the "The Killers" Failure of the parents of the. Lost Generation. to provide their children with the means to handle with the cruelness and meaninglessness Masculinity
Hemingway, known for his representations of manly men who live by a code of honor, parodies his own image of masculinity by making the hit men, Al and Max, clownish figures. The men look the part of stereotypical gangsters, wearing derby hats and tight overcoats and keeping their gloves on when they eat. They also talk tough, announcing their plans to kill Ole, using slang, answering questions with questions, and mocking the masculinity of George, Sam, and Nick. For example,
Max comments about George: "Bright boy can do anything… He can cook and everything. You'd make some girl a nice wife, bright boy." Al describes Sam and
Nick, gagged and bound in the kitchen, as "a couple of girl friends in the convent."
Al and Max are counterpoints to Nick Adams, an innocent, who believes he can do something to change the situation by telling Ole about the men. This story marks
Nick's initiation into the world of men and its attendant violence, chaos, and strategies for survival.
Crime
Societies have laws to ensure a safe environment for their citizens, to maintain order, and to instill a sense of justice in the populace. The blatant flouting of laws, as in Hemingway's story, suggests not only that society has deteriorated but also that there is nothing to be done about it. Al and Max do not fear being caught and, indeed, claim to have no stake in killing Andreson, saying they are doing it "to oblige a friend." Sam's response to the events, to have nothing to do with any of it, underscores the sense of resignation informing the story. George's response is that addressing crime is someone else's responsibility and tells Nick to visit Ole. Nick's response is one of disillusionment and shock and a desire to run away from the town rather than accept its random dangers. These reactions represent a range of responses that Chicagoans had towards criminal activities in the 1920s. The sense of resignation, in large part, stems not only from Hemingway's own dark view of human nature but from the knowledge that many of the Chicago crime bosses had bought off the police, ensuring that law and order became a privilege for the few rather than a right of the many.

Chaos
Hemingway's plot is full of irony and with characters misreading one another, suggesting that the world is not as it seems. For example, although Max and Al come to town to kill Ole Andreson and know that he eats at Henry's at six o'clock, they ask George the name of the town, and then when George tells them, Max says he never heard of it. Henry's, though referred to as a "lunchroom," is actually a made-over saloon. A similar confusion of identity occurs when Nick addresses
Mrs. Bell as Mrs. Hirsch because he assumes that she is the owner of the rooming house. The men come to a town called "Summit" to kill on a "nice fall day," compounding the irony. These glaring differences between the world as it is and the world as it seems affect Nick the most, whose own world up until that point more or less conformed to his expectations as an orderly place.
Ernest Hemingway’s writing is among the most recognizable and influential prose of the twentieth century. Many critics believe his style was influenced by his days as a cub reporter for the Kansas City Star, where he had to rely on short sentences and energetic English.
Hemingway’s technique is uncomplicated, with plain grammar and easily accessible language. His hallmark is a clean style that avoids adjectives and uses short, rhythmic sentences that concentrate on action rather than reflection. Though his writing is often thought of as “simple,” this generalization could not be further from the truth.
He was an obsessive reviser. His work is the result of a careful process of selecting only those elements essential to the story and pruning everything else away. He kept his prose direct and unadorned, employing a technique he termed the “iceberg principle.” In Death in the Afternoon he wrote, “If a writer of prose knows enough about what he is writing about he may omit things that he knows and the reader, if the writer is writing truly enough, will have a feeling of those things as strongly as though the writer had stated them. The dignity of movement of the iceberg is due to only one-eighth of it being above water.”
Hemingway is also considered a master of dialogue. The conversations between his characters demonstrate not only communication but also its limits. The way
Hemingway’s characters speak is sometimes more important than what they say, because what they choose to say (or leave unsaid) illuminates sources of inner conflict. Sometimes characters say only what they think another character will want to hear. In short, Hemingway captures the complexity of human interaction through subtlety and implication as well as direct discourse.
The writers of Hemingway’s generation are often termed “Modernists.”
Disillusioned by the large number of casualties in World War I, they turned away from the nineteenth-century, Victorian notions of morality and propriety and toward a more existential worldview. Many of the era’s most talented writers congregated in Paris. Ezra Pound, considered one of the most significant poets of the Modernist movement, promoted Hemingway’s early work, as did F. Scott
Fitzgerald, who wrote to his editor, Maxwell Perkins, on Hemingway’s behalf.
The powerful impact of Hemingway’s writing on other authors continues to this day. Writers as diverse as Bret Easton Ellis, Chuck Palahniuk, Elmore Leonard, and Hunter S. Thompson have credited him with contributing to their styles.
Direct, personal writing full of rich imagery was Hemingway’s goal. Nearly fifty years after his death, his distinctive prose is still recognizable by its economy and controlled understatement.
Dialogue
Dialogue, the conversation between two or more characters, is a primary tool of characterization. Writers create characters through shaping their speech in ways that reflect their desires and motivations. In addition to physically describing Max and Al as stereotypical gangsters, Hemingway has them talk like gangsters as well.
Their speech is peppered with insults, wisecracks, and slang, and they never answer a question directly. They speak like characters out of a Dashiell Hammett novel, in terse bursts. Hammett was popular for his detective stories and his character, Sam Spade, a wisecracking antihero. Dialogue also characterizes the other players in the story as well. For example, when Sam speaks, he makes it clear that he does not want to be involved in any way, and when Nick speaks, he expresses his youth and innocence through his incredulity.
Language
The language of the text has two different aspects. One is the language used by the writer to narrate the events which is standard language full of adjectives and scenes. The other aspect of the text’s language is the language used among the characters of the story. Here the language of these people is quite informal, or even slang, showing their social class and their educational level. Almost, all the main characters make a crack about each other.
Major Thematic
Crime, Chaos, Masculinity
Topics Major Symbols
Motifs:
Genres:
The Translator’s Purpose

Comparing the translation with the original

In this section, the translation would be compared with the source text. Here, some examples of

problems are shown along with their source texts. Plus, the advantages of the translation will also

be discussed in the next part.

There are so many aspects in translation quality assessment, but due to the spatial limitations, the most obvious parts containing problems in the TT are discussed.
Disadvantages
Naturalness
Naturalness, as Newmark states, is “most frequently used structures and words" or "the common grammar, idioms and words that meet that kind of situation.”(Newmark, 1988). It is one of the most important touchstones in a translated text. Here in “ killers’’ the translator has committed blatant mistakes in translating parts of the sentences according to naturalness of translation and the collocations used by the translator seem unnatural in the target text. For instance, the following translations are quite unnatural in the TT:
1- “
Meaning

As defined in Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English, meaning is “the thing or idea that a word, expression, or sign represents”.

In the following examples, the exact meaning of the ST sentences has not been conveyed

Lexis
Culture-bound Expressions
Similes
Idiolect

Writer’s style of writing

Euphemisms for vulgar expressions
Advantages
Tone
Idiomatic Translation
Evaluation of the translation