Elements of Literature in Steinbeck and Hemingway

John Steinbeck and Ernest Hemingway are generally considered to be among the best American writers of historical note. Certainly, in reading and studying their work, one can come to a better understanding of the writing craft as a whole. Here, we will examine how the two writers use such elements of literature as point of view, narration, symbolism and setting in creating their work. Looking at Hemingway's Cat in the Rain, and Steinbeck's Chrysanthemums, it is apparent that the most valuable elements of literary writing are found in the details.

The two stories can be easily compared, in part, because they are so similar. Both Steinbeck's story and Hemingway's are written in a third-person, omniscient narrative voice. While Steinbeck's narration is fairly traditional, however, Hemingway is able to use his narrator to isolate and alienate his audience. Through his refusal to proffer the names of some of the characters in his story specifically the American wife, and American girl, Hemingway at once generalizes them and makes them unrecognizable to his reader; in effect, he is able to strip these characters of any actual humanity, and replace that element with the notion that these women are representative of all women an over-generalized "they".

In contrast, Steinbeck's Elisa is a full, psychologically real character, rather than a generalization or symbol of others. Elisa lives in a masculine world with effeminate qu