only taught him how to report facts as opposed to creating fictional works of art. During his years in Paris after World War One, Hemingway worked with great literary writers like Gertrude Stein and Ezra Pound in order to develop a style of writing that was more artistic than journalistic. Nevertheless, throughout his career, Hemingway's training in journalism continued to play an important role in his writing style. Thus, his fiction was always infused with journalistic elements such as "sharp compression; a detached, ironic point of view; dialogue that suggested more than it said; spare, exact description" (Weber 21). Hemingway's greatness as a writer can be seen in how he used this journalistic style as well as his personal experiences in order to create memorable works of fiction which have meaning to other people as well as himself.
In his earliest short stories, Hemingway often used members of his own family as a basis for his characterizations. This can be seen, for example, in "The Doctor and the Doctor's Wife" (1924), in which the title characters are strongly reminiscent of Hemingway's own parents. Like Dr. Adams in the story, Hemingway's father was a doctor. One scene in the story is particularly reminiscent of how Hemingway perceived his parents. This occurs when Dr. Adams tells his wife that he is upset with problems he is having with an Indian worker named Dick. Instead of supporting her husband, Mrs. Adams defends Dick. The scene shows Dr. Adams quietly cleaning his shotgun while his wife is talking. Then, he gets up and walks out, letting the door slam behind him. The doctor meekly calls out "Sorry" to his wife, and she responds: "It's all right, dear" (Hemingway "The Doctor... 76). In this way, Hemingway expresses the quiet hostility of a man who feels hen-pecked by his wife but doesn't know what to do about it. This is a portrait of how Hemingway experienced the relationship between his own father an...