Hemingway's "Out of Season": The Importance of Close Reading

A close reading of "Out of Season," the first story Hemingway wrote after the loss of his early manuscripts, makes clear his basic talent as it reveals essential aspects of his artistry. The problems of gender relationships, the theory of omission, the incommunicability at the heart of human interaction, the use of symbolic landscape, the choice of just the right word — these and other elements of Hemingway's craft manifest themselves clearly if we look line by line at this remarkable story.