Mr Elliot Hemingway Ending

For instance, when Mr. Elliot tells his wife how he learned to kiss he said he “learned that way of kissing from hearing a fellow tell a story once” (Hemingway 86). Just taking a second and logically thinking about what that means, one most likely cannot learn how to kiss through a story, but actual practice. So the assumption can be made that Mr. Elliot learned to kiss through practice with another “fellow,” so other man. Therefore, hinting at possible previous homosexual encounters. Even the ending of the story has an ironic meaning as Hemingway writes about Mr. and Mrs. Elliot and the “girl friend” they were living with, “In the evening they all sat at dinner together and “they were all quite happy” (Hemingway 88). The ending seems uplifting, but this is an example of the paradoxical meaning underneath what is said. There is nothing “happy” that is going on, what is actually going on is the fact that “Mr. Elliot becomes
entirely replaced” (Domotor 4) in his wife’s life by another woman. All that shows is the failure to keep up a heterosexual marriage. Overall, showing how the style of using irony and hidden meanings underneath the words reveals the truth about Mr. Elliot’s homosexuality and the struggle to keep up his masculinity. 2
The style of word choice is another technique to how the message of Mr.
Elliot grappling with his sexuality, so therefore trying, but failing to keep a masculine personality as a disguise. A little background of Hemingway is that word choice was always a key component in making sure what he is trying to say comes through. Hemingway “believed that in order to create realistic dialogue he had to use the words that real people used” (Trogdon 8). This mentality however got him into trouble many times, especially when it came to using sexual and what was considered unconventional language. For instance, a publisher “asked that he remove the phrase "tried to have a baby" and its variations from the 1925 publication of "Mr. and Mrs. Elliot" in In Our Time” (Trogdon 8). In a response to criticism like that Hemingway stated, “I could not avoid using them and still give anything like a complete feeling of what I was trying to convey to the reader” (Trogdon 9). Meaning avoiding these specific words would not allow him to exemplify exactly what he
meant.
Having Hemingway’s background in mind, it is then interesting to look at Hemingway’s word choice and analyze why he chose some specific words in “Mr. and Mrs. Elliot.” For instance, Mr. and Mrs. Elliot could not attempt to conceive on a boat because Mrs. Elliot “was sick and when she was sick she was sick as Southern women were sick” (Hemingway 85). In that short phrase, the word “sick” is repeated four times. The first “sick” was enough to understand the detail that Mrs. Elliot got sick on a boat, yet it is repeated four times. An interpretation of this can be the word choice of “sick” and the repetition of it can cause the phrase to play less of a meaning. First of all, sick is a general word and can apply to anything. Domotor suggest that, “Mrs. Elliot does not want Mr. Elliot's child. The simple thought of conceiving leaves her frail” (Domotor 4), but also she does not have to literally feel sick about conceiving a baby, using the excuse of sick can simply just be an excuse for her to avoid conceiving a baby with Mr. Elliot. That is the effect of the repetition, continuously stating she is sick makes it seem like something about it is untrue.
Certain adjectives also played a role in the specific word choice in this short. Mr. Elliot “was a poet,” so more than once throughout the story his career and work is mentioned. However, specifically Hemingway writes “he wrote very long poems rapidly” (Hemingway 85). Then again, while traveling around Europe, Mr. Elliot was “writing a great number of poems….all very long” (Hemingway 87). The length of the poems was important enough to be included more than once. Multiple interpretations can be made about the poems specifically being “long.” There is a sexual connotation to the fact that Mr. Elliot is sitting alone in his room writing very long poems, so he spends his alone time writing poetry. Also, Mr. Elliot spending so much time writing poems that they are always very long can be seen as another way he is disconnected from his wife. Instead of spending time with his wife and trying harder to have a baby, he is spending his nights in his own bed writing. This can be perceived as another emasculating trait for Mr. Elliot because writing poetry is an author being vulnerable by writing out his emotions, so there is a stereotypically feminine act in Mr. Elliot spending his time writing poems. The word choice of “long” poems helps allude to that conclusion. Additionally, what Hemingway’s word choice also does is that it creates a certain mood that can make readers feel a certain way. One of these moods is creating an uncomfortable feeling and one can sense that anytime Mr. and Mrs. Elliot tried to conceive. For example, Mr. and Mrs. Elliot “tried very hard to have a baby in the big hot bedroom on the big, hard bed” (Hemingway 88). All the descriptive words in this sentence like “hard,” “hot,” “big,” and “hard” again, all create an uncomfortable feeling. If this sentence is looking into the minds of Mr. and Mrs. Elliot, then one can tell the couple is not enjoying conceiving a baby at all. Even for readers it is almost cringe worthy, this is not a couple that wants to have a baby. Once again, Mr. Elliot is trying to prove his masculinity by getting his wife pregnant, but all it is doing is making them and everything around them seem uncomfortable. Lastly, a significant word choice change happens when Mr. and Mrs. Elliot become interchangeable with their first names Hubert and Cornelia. The short story starts off with Mr. and Mrs. Elliot. Then throughout the description of meeting each other and getting married they are called Hubert and Cornelia. However, upon meeting Mrs. Elliot’s girl friend nicknamed “Honey,” Hubert is called only Elliot and Cornelia goes back to Mrs. Elliot. This change can signify the lack of Mr. Elliot being what is considered a man because upon allowing his wife to bring another woman into their marriage and essentially replacing him, the “Mr.” part of his name is completely removed. The title of “Mr.” puts a man in an authoritative position, which is a component of masculinity and Elliot has lost that. Overall, looking at Hemingway’s word choice in the context of “Mr. and Mrs. Elliot,” also helps uncover aspects of Mr. Elliot’s masculinity or the lack of it.