“THE KILLERS” BY ERNEST HEMINGWAY

The author:

A reporter for Canadian and American newspapers and was soon sent back to Europe to cover

such events as the Greek Revolution. During the twenties, Hemingway became a member of

the group of expatriate Americans in Paris/Lost Generation.

“The Killers” is a short story by Ernest Hemingway. It first appeared to the public in 1927

in Scribner’s Magazine: a monthly periodical.

“The Killers” was written in the 1920s, when organized crime was at its prime

during Prohibition. Chicago was the home of Al Capone (organized crime leader prohibition

era), and Hemingway himself spent time in Chicago as a young man. When things became too

dangerous for the mob (gang), they retreated to the suburb of Summit, where “The Killers”

takes place. Not long before the story was written, the Chicago mob had killed a popular

boxer of the time, Andre Anderson. It was alleged that Anderson would take dives for

organized crime gamblers, which led to his shooting death, reportedly after refusing to partake

in further bribes.

The story features Nick Adams, a famous Hemingway character from his short stories.

Iceberg Theory:

Hemingway summarizes his theory as follows:

“If a writer of prose knows enough of 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 an ice-berg is

due to only one-eighth of it being above water. A writer who omits things because he does not

know them only makes hollow places in his writing”

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Ernest Hemingway in Death in the Afternoon.

Essentially, the author gives the reader the facts—those hard facts are the tip of the iceberg
floating above water. Everything else—the supporting structure—floats beneath the water, out
of sight from the reader. The way Hemingway describes it, there’s almost a sense of ESP
between writer and reader. If the writer does his job, the reader almost innately gets a sense of
the underlying story, even without all the details.

Biographer Carlos Baker said that since Hemingway began his career writing short stories, he
learned how to “get the most from the least, how to prune language how to multiply
intensities, and how to tell nothing but the truth in a way that allowed for telling more than the
truth.”

Hemingway had a style of writing he referred to as the “iceberg theory” in which written
words in a story focus on surface facts, those easily seen. But beneath and behind the words is
a more complete structure supporting the story. Others refer to this as the “theory of
omission”.

Ernest Hemingway was known for his lean, concise prose that relied primarily on dialogue
and action to tell a story. It was Hemingway’s stated belief that a writer should not write
about everything he or she knows, but should keep superfluous information hidden as a way
of strengthening the tension in the story. This style of writing came to be known as the
iceberg theory of prose. Also known as the theory of omission, its characteristic use of short
sentences and minimal description became a style that, although uniquely identifiable with
Hemingway, also influenced other writers who followed.

Origins of the Iceberg Theory

Hemingway began his writing career as a journalist, which is where he learned to write in a
brief, straightforward style, objectively dealing with facts and omitting any information was
not directly involved in the events he reported. When he began writing fiction, he found that
many of the elements of journalistic writing lent themselves well to fiction. He set out to
create a new theory of writing, one that differed greatly from the verbose literary forms of the

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19th century. He called this new style of writing the iceberg theory, likening the story to an
iceberg in which only the tip is visible, but under the surface there is an unseen mass.

Minimalist Style:

Minimalist works often include ordinary subject matters, have straightforward narratives,
focus on single moods or emotions, no characters thinking loud They hesitate to use
adjectives and adverbs, and would not even think about droning on and on about seemingly
meaningless details. Such authors force readers to take an active role in the creative process;
instead of providing every minute detail, the author provides a general context and then
allows the reader’s imagination to shape the story. This type of work also suggests that
contemporary life is both too plain and too consistent to allow for overly spectacular and
dramatic creative works. Lastly, minimalism indicates the post-modern thought that stories
cannot exist without readers.

Covert/effaced narrator:

Effaced narrator (3rd person point of view): no evident figure is speaking, and consequently
does not comment in his or her own voice and doesn’t enter the minds of the characters (may
make the story seem “cold,” “scientific,” or “reportorial.”) (Barnet WAL 129).
This is sometimes called the “camera eye”. The text is narrated in the third person, but the
narrator only has the information that is available from what you can “see”. This is as opposed
to the omniscient narrator who hears and sees all, including the thoughts of the characters.

So, this is a narrator that “knows what is available”. Neutral camera is a good way to think of
it. Lots of external description, action description, etc, from the narrator. The narrator knows
what any casual observer knows, but no more.

In other words, the narrator is not a character in the story, and has limited access to the
consciousness of the characters. He rarely tells us what a character is thinking; instead he
reveals character mostly through action and dialogue.

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THE KILLERS ANALYSIS

1. SETTING :

We are looking at the mid-west in 1927, which means two big things: Prohibition and
organized crime in Chicago. They’re related. When alcohol was illegal, the mafia made a lot
of money supplying it. Prohibition is definitely in effect at the time “The Killers” takes place;
see the line where the killers pointedly ask George if he has “anything to drink.” They’re
asking for alcohol, but he responds only with non-alcoholic options. In the 1920s, Al Capone
was running the mafia show in Chicago, so he would have been in the front of reader’s mind
at the story’s mention of this city and of mob activities.

What mob activities? Max says that they’ve never met Ole but are killing him “for a friend.”
Later on, it is said that Ole “must have got mixed up in something in Chicago,” so we’re
thinking that, as a prize-fighter, he didn’t go along with fixing a fight and pissed off some
important Mafiosi. Hence the hitmen.

One last thing: vaudeville! Al and Max are said to act as a sort of vaudeville duo. Again, this
makes a lot more sense if you’re thinking about it from a 1927 mindset. By the 1920s,
vaudeville had been popular for around forty years – readers would have known the form
well.

Also, the lunchroom and the boarding house. Take a look at the names. We find out in the
first line that the diner in question is called “Henry’s lunchroom.” Except George is the guy
running the place. Who is Henry? We don’t know. Then you take a look at the boarding
house, which is owned by Mrs. Hirsch. But the landlady we meet is Mrs. Bell. Where’s Mrs.
Hirsch? We don’t know. This looks like another case of things not being what they seem, and
further, of uncertainty. In this way, the setting compliments the themes, which is always nice.

2. CHARACTERS

1) Nick Adams: He’s featured in 24 of Hemingway’s stories and some think he’s really a
“youthful alter ego” for Hemingway himself.
Nick was talking to George before the killers come in, so he’s probably a local. (This is
confirmed later, because he knows who Ole Andreson is.) He sounds amicable, because he
answers without hassle when the killers start giving him a hard time. We gather that he’s
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young, probably a teenager, because of lines like Sam’s: “Little boys always know what they
want to do.” He’s earnest and helpful – just look at his conversation with Ole – but he never
veers into what might be considered feminine compassion. When Ole says he’s not going to
run, Nick doesn’t push the issue past a reasonable objection. He simply says OK and leaves.

Of course, the most important dialogue for Nick – and maybe for "The Killers," if you agree
with the argument that the story indeed belongs to Adams – is his second-to-last line of the
story: "I’m going to get out of this town."

Whoa there. For a guy who just left Ole Andreson with a casual, "I better go back and see
George," this is big stuff. Fortunately, Nick explains it a bit with his last line: "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."

Notice what Nick is upset about. He’s not disturbed by his getting tied up and gagged in the
kitchen – he tried to "swagger [that] off" back in the first scene. He’s not upset at the
impending murder – he reported that to Ole and thought that it "sounded silly" afterwards.
Nothing reallyperturbs Nick until he gets a look at "the big man lying on the
bed."That’s when he’s ready to get out of there. So what is it about an ex-prizefighter lying on
the bed in a rooming-house that is somehow more disturbing than an up close and personal
encounter with two killers?

There’s any number of answers to this question. And that’s in part why everyone is still
talking about this story: there is no clear right answer. But that’s good news for you, because
you could argue that Nick’s ideal of masculinity – a heavyweight prizefighter who ought to be
tough and invincible – has just been completely destroyed. You could also argue that Nick
sees in Andreson’s impending death a vision of his own mortality. Then again, maybe the
killers’ intentions weren’t real for Nick – didn’t leave the realm of the movies and enter
into his world – until he saw their intended victim lying helpless on the bed. Your theories are
as good as ours – and author Robert Penn Warren’s, if you defend them well.

2) Ole Andreson: Ole Andreson is a bit of a let down. Seeing as two hitmen have come to
town for the sole purposes of gunning him down, we sort of expected someone tough,
intimidating, and dynamic. And instead, we get a big man lying down on a bed, face turned to
the wall, ready to die.

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For Nick, too, this is a jarring vision. So much so, in fact, that some scholars argue it is the
sight of Ole – not his exposure to the killers – that really affects him. But we’re not talking
about Nick here, we’re talking about Andreson. What could have driven this man to lie
helpless on a bed and wait for death?

Since Hemingway isn’t explicit about the backstory, we have to fill in the details ourselves to
figure out how Andreson got where he is in "The Killers." We know he used to be an ex-
prizefighter, and a seasoned one at that, as Mrs. Bell indicates his scarred face. George offers
that he "must have got mixed up in something in Chicago," and when we combine that with
Max’s declaration that they’ve never met Ole and are in fact "killing him for a friend," we
realize that the Chicago mob has sent two hitmen to gun him down. As far as the reasoning
behind this, it’s safe to assume that Andreson either didn’t go along with fixing a fight or
promised to fix a fight and then didn’t, à la Bruce Willis in Pulp Fiction. (Along with illegal
booze, gambling was a central mafia racket.) Either way, he pissed off someone important and
now he’s on the kill list.

Now to talk any more about Andreson we have to get into the so-called "Hemingway hero’s
code," which basically says that in order to be a real man you have to be stoic and strong man
of action who accepts the difficulties of the world. Nick is a Hemingway hero. Andreson is
not. Wait a minute, you say, "accepts the difficulties of the world" – isn’t that what Andreson
is doing? Yes, sure, accepting the fact of his death would be a stoic and manly act, but look at
what Andreson is doing: lying in his bed and staring at the wall. He’s not going out to meet
death with a courageous air, he’s lying helpless in the boarding house and can’t even bring
himself to look Nick in the eye. "I just can’t make up my mind to go out," he says. "I been
here all day." And that’s where Ole goes wrong.

OR, maybe it’s that Ole knows something we don’t. Jump back to the first scene for a minute
and look at this dialogue:

"What’s it all about?"

"Hey, Al," Max called, "bright boy wants to know what it’s all about."

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[…]

"What do you think it’s all about?"

[…]

"Hey, Al, bright boy says he wouldn’t say what he thinks it’s all about."

And now look at what Nick reports when he comes back to the diner:

"Did you tell him about it?" George asked.

"Sure. I told him but he knows what it’s all about."

Apparently, Ole is the only guy in "The Killers" who knows what it’s all about. And short of
the hokey-pokey, we’re thinking it might have something to do with the futility of action.
Andreson is an ex-prizefighter, after all – if anyone knows about fighting, it’s this guy. And
yet he’s concluded, presumably from years of fighting and of "running around," that "there
ain’t anything to do." Fighting is useless, running is useless, so it’s all about giving in and
accepting the way things are.

3). Max and Al: Max and Al are hardened criminals. They’re members of organized crime
who have come to Summit solely for the purposes of tracking down and shooting in cold
blood an ex-prizefighter they’ve never met. They’re carrying guns, they tie up and gag our
most likeable character, and they’re all around complete jerks. That being said, they’re also
comedians.

WHAT? Yes, that’s right, comedians. Read any criticism of "The Killers" and you’ll find
some mention of Al and Max as the classic vaudeville duo. A lot of this stems from a single
line in the story ("In their tight overcoats and derby hats they looked like a vaudeville team"),
which just goes to show you how powerful a single word can be for a terse writer like
Hemingway. But if the vaudeville argument is sparked by this statement, it’s certainly
justified by the rest of the killers’ behavior.

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First, you’ve got to know a little bit about vaudeville, which was comedic, stage-show-type
performances made up of multiple, unrelated acts. It was basically SNL, but hokier and with a
bit more dancing about, so throw a little Three Stooges into the mix. Or, just watch a bit of
thisvaudeville video.

The argument that the killers are a comedic duo goes a little something like this: Al and Max
interact primarily with each other, not the other three men – so it’s almost as though they’re
performing for them. In fact, their little "show" lasts just about an hour, just like a real
vaudeville act. They also pull off the classic "two-man act" thing, a back-and-forth routine
between "the straight man" and the "silly comic" who was often Jewish. It’s been pointed out
that Al is Jewish, because Max makes that joke about the "kosher convent." And just think
about the way they’re dressed: gloves, mufflers, overcoats, derby hats – they sort of fit the
bill. PLUS, think about the opening line of "The Killers"; it’s basically the start of a "So, two
guys walk into a bar…" joke.

Needless to say, this is a bit contradictory. How can they be killers and comedians? Well,
much the same way that a cheesy, mob-movie-style scenario can go down in a very realistic
small-town setting. The killers’ duality represents the story’s duality, the theatrical-silliness-
meets-stark-realism thing that we talk about in our discussion of genre.

Since you probably want some evidence by now, check out these two key lines. In the first
scene, Max asks, "Do we look silly?" He means it sarcastically, but it gets new meaning in the
second half of the story when Nick tells Ole about the killers and we hear that "it sounded
silly when he said it." On top of that, Al straight up accuses Max of talking "silly." Now if
you’ve heard anything any one has ever said about Hemingway, you’ll know that the man
doesn’t use the same key word three times in a row by accident. He wasn’t short a thesaurus,
he was making a point. This stuff is silly. It is theatrical. And it’s totally messed up to have
dramatic, clichéd mobsters step out of a movie set and into the real world of Nick Adams and
Co. If it’s jarring or confusing or contradictory for us, that’s because it’s also all of those
things for Nick.

The differences between Max and Al help to highlight this duality further. Al is the clear
tough guy. He’s more aggressive in his taunting, he’s the one with the gun, he’s the one who
ties up Nick and Sam in the kitchen, and he even the delivers the oh-so-clichéd phrase about

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"blow[ing] [George’s] head off." He’s also the more professional criminal: he chastises Max
for talking too much and is nervous about leaving behind three witnesses. "It’s sloppy," he
says.

Max, on the other hand, is Mr. Nice Guy, or at least as nice as you can get when attempting a
professional hired hit. He repeatedly tries to make conversation with George while they’re
waiting. "Why don’t you say something?" he asks; "Talk to me," he demands, and then, "Talk
about something else." He also mentions "keeping amused" both "bright boy" and himself. He
even says of George, straight up, "Bright boy is nice. He’s a nice boy. I like him." Of course
you could argue that he’s being sarcastic here, but that’s a tough sell. Everything we see
indicates that he’s being genuine, most importantly the fact that, when it’s time to leave, Max
is the one to make sure the three men stay alive. "They’re all right," he says. So if "The
Killers" is a case of theatrical drama meeting bare realism, then we know which killer is
which. (Um, that would be Al = theatrical.)

What’s so fascinating about this duality is the way it complicates our understanding of the
killers (and, consequently, of "The Killers"). Just how serious are these guys? Just how savvy
are they? Are they foppish fools, or are they competent assassins? There are definitely signs
that point to the men being foppish fools – the question is just whether they’re faking it or not.
Max asks the name of the town, and Al comments afterwards that he’s never heard of it.
OK…but if they tracked Ole here to kill him, wouldn’t they know where they were? Indeed,
Al later insists: "We know damn well where we are." OK, so that’s Faking: 1 Foppish: 0.
Now look at the passage where George brings out the meals – Max takes the wrong dish, and
Al doesn’t say anything. We can’t think of a reason to pretend here, so that’s 1 point for
"Foppish." Of course, you could go on and on in this vein. When Al asks the second time for
Nick’s name, is he pretending to have forgotten it from a mere few moments before? It’s hard
to say.

So the bad news is, it’s ambiguous. But the good news is, it’s ambiguous, so your options for
arguments are pretty limitless here. One scholar eve

4). George: Poor George; he really gets the brunt of the killers’ abuse. They taunt him, harass
about the dinner menu, call him a "boy," and of course, the eventual icing on the cake,
threaten to blow his brains out. And yet, George remains unfazed. He’s calm. He’s pulled

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together. He’s the kind of guy you’d love to have around during a fire, earthquake, flash
flood, or Lost season finale. He’s just that cool in a crisis.

At what point, though, do we stop congratulating him on being the Fonz and start berating
him for being callous? When he finally unties Sam and Nick, he’s not exactly freaking out
about the fact that a local guy – a guy he knows reasonably well, for that matter – is about to
get whacked. He suggests that Nick go talk to him, but adds that he shouldn’t go if doesn’t
want. He makes no offer to go himself if need be, and there’s no panicked phone call to the
police or wringing of the hands. And look what happens when Nick comes back from his visit
with Andreson. George makes casual conversation speculating about why Andreson is going
to die, and he wipes the counter with a towel (the same kind of towel, we imagine, that was
just used to gag poor Nick) as though nothing major has happened. Does he just not care?

As far as we can tell…yes, but only in the sense that he’s older, more experienced, and
recognizes the futility of fighting against an act that’s bound to happen no matter what.
George is basically the middle ground between an innocent Nick Adams and a removed Sam.
The last few lines of dialogue reveal that, indeed, George is bothered by what’s happened, but
that he knows there’s nothing to be done. That’s why it’s best "not [to] think about it."

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5). Sam: Of the three men in the diner, Sam is the least disturbed by the encounter with the
killers and the fact that Andreson will very soon be fighting in that big heavyweight ring in
the sky. Fittingly, he is physically removed for much of the action as well. He’s out of sight in
the kitchen for the first big chunk of dialogue, and he’s brought out for only a moment before
he’s sent back out of the reader’s view again. When Nick returns from the boarding house,
Sam pokes his head out just long enough to declare that he’s not even listening before
shutting the door. (The 1927 adult male version of, "I’m ignoring you! Do you see? Do you
see that I’m ignoring you?!") Sam is at the extreme opposite from Nick in terms of getting
involved. He doesn’t want to be involved, he doesn’t even want to know, and he doesn’t think
anyone else should, either.

But before we write Sam off as callous, we have to think about the fact that Sam is black in
1927. That he is repeatedly called "the nigger" is a clear indication of how society views him.
Based on what we guess about his life experiences, it’s not too surprising that Sam can’t bring
himself to be as proactive as the other characters. This goes a long way in explaining his
propensity to just stay out of it – not because he doesn’t care, but because it’s been proven to
him that you just can’t change certain things about society – even if those things are illogical
and downright awful (like racism).

Symbolism & imagery:

1). The clock:

At the start of the story, George tells the killers that dinner won’t be available until six. He
then looks at the clock and declares that it’s five. Max makes a point of saying, actually, it’s
5:20, and George has to explain that the clock is fast.

FIRST of all, if he knows the clock is fast, why hasn’t he changed it? Second of all, 5:00 or
5:20, who really cares if dinner isn’t ready either way? We’re pretty much with Al when he
says, "to hell with the clock."

But, unfortunately, that is not it for the clock. It makes several more appearances during the
rest of the tension-filled wait for Ole, and every time we’re told what time it is we have to
wonder whether we’re talking about real time or the fast time that’s read off the clock. We
just don’t know. Ole usually comes in at six – according to which clock? The men leave at

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7:00 – but it’s not really 7:00 if they’re going by the lunchroom time. The phrase "George
looked at the clock" is repeated three times in the story, at 6:15, 6:20, 6:55, and we never
know what time it really is.

It could be that we’re made to feel the same frustrating uncertainty as the characters and that’s
that. It could be, as one daring scholar, Quentin E. Martin, suggested, "The Killers" is a
dramatic representation of Einstein’s theory of relativity. It could also just be more of the
"appearances aren’t what they seem" motif. But before you move on from the clock, think
about this slightly weird passage:

At six-fifty-five George said: "He’s not coming."

Two other people had been in the lunchroom. Once George had gone out to the kitchen and
made a ham-and-egg sandwich "to go" that a man wanted to take with him. Inside the kitchen
he saw Al, his derby hat tipped back, sitting on a stool beside the wicket with the muzzle of a
sawed-off shotgun resting on the ledge. Nick and the cook were back to back in the corner, a
towel tied in each of their mouths. George had cooked the sandwich, wrapped it up in oiled
paper, put it in a bag, brought it in, and the man had paid for it and gone out.

What the heck is up with that? At 6:55, our hearts should be in our throats. If Andreson isn’t
coming, then the killers are going to check out, and if the killers are going to check out, they
might not want to leave three witnesses behind. Something big is about to happen. And
then… …. we get a flashback. A flashback! When we’re dying to know what happens next,
Hemingway make us go back in time. What for?? And what does this have to do with the
clock?

2). The Landlady:

We list Mrs. Bell as a symbol and not a character because we don’t really know anything
about her. And we don’t need to. She serves her purpose just fine by 1) giving the reader more
information about Andreson, and 2) having a name that isn’t Mrs. Hirsch.

It’s this second one we want to talk about here. We’ve already talked about how appearances
are deceiving in "The Killers," so at first it looks like this is simply another example. Nick
thinks the landlady is Mrs. Hirsch, since the place is called Hirsch’s boarding house, and she

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ends up being Mrs. Bell. OK. Confusion, uncertainty – same old same old.

But Hemingway drops a hint that there’s more going on. Check it out in context:

"Well, good night, Mrs. Hirsch," Nick said.

"I’m not Mrs. Hirsch," the woman said. "She owns the place. I just look after it for her. I’m
Mrs. Bell."

"Well, good night, Mrs. Bell," Nick said.

"Good night," the woman said.

Nick walked up the dark street to the corner under the arc-light, and then along the car-tracks
to Henry’s eating-house. George was inside, back of the counter.

In case we forgot that the lunchroom was called "Henry’s," we get a little reminder. Mrs. Bell
is running Hirsch’s boarding-house, and George is running Henry’s lunch-counter. On top of
that, the killers haven’t met Ole, they just want to kill him. Everyone’s a hired hand. Everyone
is acting on behalf of someone else. In a way, this Bell/Hirsch, George/Henry stuff gets the
killers off the hook, as far as the reader’s judgment is concerned. It reminds us that they’re not
calling the shots here; they’re just doing their job. And that, too, makes it easier for us to
smile a bit at their antics instead of disliking them for being murderers.

3). The Movies:

We think we’ve talked enough in the rest of our analyses about the cool "movies meets
reality" thing going on in "The Killers." So we think we’ll just point out to you the fact that
Max asks George if he goes to the movies and tells him he should go more often, which isn’t
that interesting until you realize that George is the one who’s really operating on the
principles of theatrical drama. Just look at the end of the text: "They’ll kill him," he explains,
adding, "He must’ve got mixed up in something in Chicago." He goes on to speculate that
Andreson "double-crossed somebody," since "that’s what they kill them for." Thanks, Mr.
Mob Expert. If we didn’t know better, we’d think George was calling all these shots based on
romantic notions of how the mob operates in classic film. Oh, wait…

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 (Of course, the irony in our even poking a little fun of George is that, in fact, that IS how the
mob is operating in "The Killers." That’s the point: it’s a little ridiculous when a lunch
counter employee whose only seen mobsters in movies or comic books can accurately explain
the goings-on of real live Mafiosi.)

THEMES :

Passivity Passivity is condemned in "The Killers." The story’s arguable hero is a man of
action who attempts to save a defeated man of inaction. The notion of passivity is largely
contrasted with masculinity; real men should be decisive and resolved, the story seems to
argue.

1. After the killers leave the diner, Sam believes that Nick should leave himself out of it. When
Nick comes back, Sam shuts the door to the kitchen and doesn’t want to listen to it. How does
Sam’s passivity in response to the killers differ from that of Ole, whom we see lying on his
bed with his face to the wall?
2. What is the difference in "The Killers" between heroically accepting fate and cowardly
running from it?
3. What is the relationship between innocence and action, between age/experience and
passivity?

In "The Killers," Ole Andreson is emasculated by his refusal to fight against his impending

death. In "The Killers," Ole Andreson is emasculated not by his acceptance of his death, but

by his refusal to leave the boarding-house.

Appearances Nothing is what it seems in "The Killers." The story is pervaded with feelings of

confusion, unease, and uncertainty. From people to buildings to names, we just can’t trust

what we see. Part of this has to do with irony: killers are comic, fighters are weak and

defeated. The story’s loss-of-innocence theme is related to the realization that the world is

filled with this sort of sad, illogical irony.

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1. OK, OK, we get it, "nothing is what it seems." But so what? What does this have to with the
way we read the story? How does it effect what we take away from "The Killers"? What does
it have to do, for instance, with the loss of innocence, or evil in the world, or masculinity?
2. What do the killers "appear" to be – killers, or vaudeville comedians? And which are they?

The killers are the only characters in "The Killers" who appear as who they are. The killers
are the characters most at odds with their own appearances; in this way, the story’s title is
meant to be ironic.

Criminality/Chaos The criminality we see in "The Killers" is that of the 1920s Chicago
mafia. The two characters in question – the killers themselves – are attributed every mob
cliché known to man: big black overcoats, "tight lips," gloves, and major attitudes. At the
same time, they manage to operate with Vaudevillian undertones: the two-man-act, constant
bickering, sarcastic exchanges. It is this odd duality that renders "The Killers" and its
portrayal of criminality a strange mix of fantastic and the real, a snapshot of a feasible-if-
atypical scenario injected with a healthy dose of theatrical drama.

1. Do the killers portray typical notions of organized crime, or do they satirically mock them?
2. How can the killers possibly be criminals and comedians at the same time? Isn’t this a
contradiction in terms? (Have you seen Pulp Fiction?)

"The Killers" is an exploration of what happens when movie clichés meet reality. It concludes
that these two worlds are incompatible.

Men and Masculinity In "The Killers," masculinity has a lot to do with action. The killers

themselves are decisive and resolved, sure of themselves, and unapologetic. As a result, they

are undeniably male. Ironically, the man who should be the most masculine – an ex-

heavyweight prizefighter, is passive and weak. For the young Nick Adams, coming of age as

a man means learning to take action. Because masculinity is so highly valued in the world of

"The Killers," any and all joking insults revolve around insinuated femininity on the part of

the men.

1. Who is the most masculine character in "The Killers?"

2. How is Max’s masculinity different from that of Al’s?

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3. What defines masculinity in "The Killers"? How is that accomplished in the text?

For Nick Adams, the events in "The Killers" are more about understanding masculinity than
about losing innocence. The killers are the least masculine character in "The Killers."

Summary

One winter evening, around dusk, while he is sitting at the end of a counter and talking to
George, the manager of a diner in Summit, Illinois, a small town south of Chicago, Nick
Adams watches two over-dressed strangers in black (Al and Max) enter the diner. After
complaining about the serving schedule, the two men order dinner, joking sarcastically about
George and Nick being a couple of dumb country boys.

Finishing his meal, Al orders Nick and Sam, the Black cook, to the kitchen, where he ties
them up. Meanwhile, Max boasts to George that he and Al have been hired to kill Ole
Andreson, an aging boxer, who, they've heard, eats dinner there every night.

When the boxer fails to show up in the diner, Al and Max leave, and George hurries to untie
Nick and Sam. He then suggests that Nick warn Andreson, who lives in a nearby boarding
house.

When the boxer hears about Al and Max's plan to kill him, he's unconcerned; he's tired, he
says, of running. Nick leaves and returns to the diner, where he tells George and Sam that he's
leaving Summit because he can't bear to think about a man waiting, passively, to be killed by
a couple of hired killers.

Analysis

In the 1940s, when Hemingway's stories were beginning to be anthologized, "Indian Camp"
and "The Killers" were the two stories most often published in textbooks and literary
anthologies.

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Pervading this short story is an overwhelming mood of bleakness. The setting is a lunch
counter diner, located in a small town, ironically called Summit, some miles from Chicago,
Illinois. After Andreson's usual eating time has passed, the killers leave, and George tells
Nick that he should warn Andreson. In Ole's rented room, Ole seems undisturbed by the
news; in fact, he seems as though he almost expected to hear about the plan to kill him. He
tells Nick that he can't run any longer and that nothing can be done about his situation. He
sends Nick away.

Interestingly, Ole is lying in his bed turned toward the wall in his room as he waits for his
death; in "Indian Camp," the young American Indian husband slits his throat while he is
turned toward the wall lying in his bunk.

Returning back to the diner, Nick begins telling George and the cook (who goes into the
kitchen so he won't have to hear anything more about the murder that's being planned) what
happened in Ole's apartment. Nick says that he's going to leave town because being in a town
where a man passively awaits being gunned down is too terrible.

Nick "can't stand . . . it." In "Indian Camp," Nick's father made a grave distinction between
men who succumbed to fear and couldn't face dire adversity. They became suicidal
weaklings: the ones who "couldn't stand things." As a small boy, Nick vowed never to be one
of these men.

Ironically, Hemingway's story is not about "the killers," nor is it about Ole Andreson, the
prizefighter who it is assumed is killed. Rather, the story is about Nick Adams' confrontation
with unmitigated evil, represented by the two gangsters, Al and Max.

Note that we don't even know why the killers are murdering Andreson; George thinks that the
prizefighter must have betrayed or double-crossed some gamblers. Ole simply says to Nick
that he "got in wrong." The main concern, however, has little to do with Andreson or the
killers. Readers are far more concerned with Nick Adams' initiation, or exposure, to evil and
how he reacts to it.

Hemingway uses no subtlety in characterizing Al and Max. They clearly represent the
epitome of evil, almost as though they stepped out of a medieval morality play. Their faces
are not alike, yet they are dressed in identical black overcoats, and black gloves — black, of
course, being the most common and perhaps oldest symbol of evil.

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Seemingly, this episode in the diner is Nick Adams' first encounter with evil — killing done
simply for the sake of killing by men hired to kill, who have no family, business, or emotional
ties to their victim. Neither Al nor Max has even met Andreson, yet they plan to kill him
coldly and impersonally. Nick's deep sense of responsibility is evident in his need to warn
Andreson of the impending danger, and he is confused by Andreson's passive attitude.

Considering the different kinds of reactions to evil, first there is the cook's reaction, who
wants to close his eyes to the existence of evil, to close his ears to it, and to pretend that it isn't
there, hearing no more about it. Then there is George, who recognizes that evil exists but yet
sends someone else (Nick, in this case) to deal with it. Also, there is Andreson; he succumbs
to the inevitable that is his fate. Finally, Nick Adams recognizes the horror of evil and
attempts to do something about it, but when he cannot, he yearns to run away. Although he
responds to evil and wants to do something about it, upon witnessing Ole doing absolutely
nothing about it himself, Nick decides to leave town and ultimately surrenders to the threat of
evil himself.

Like the American Indian husband in "Indian Camp, a man who "couldn't stand" his wife's
suffering, so Nick "can't stand" Ole Andreson's waiting in his room and "knowing that he is
going to get it."

Additionally, Nick also learns that the world is not always what it seems. For instance, the
diner was built as a bar (and still has some of the acoutrements); the clock and the menu don't
reflect what time it is and what is being served; the killers look a little like Laurel and Hardy,
although they are dressed in black; the boarding house owner is absent.

Nick is also exposed to the heavyweight fighter who once fought for money but now refuses
to fight — even for his life. Andreson clearly knows that the hired killers are going to murder
him, but he has lost the will to fight. Ole, a prizefighter, isn't a fighter; and Nick isn't able to
confront the evil as he thought he could. This attitude is, of course, antithetical to the values
of what would develop as Hemingway's standard code hero; a man who must recognize death
as the end of everything and must therefore struggle against this final nothingness.

Fleeing evil is not an option for the typical code hero of Hemingway's later fiction. A man
must confront evil — or, in this case, Andreson's inevitable death — and he must try to
understand it. Running from evil is as much a violation of the code hero's persona as suicide
is. How one reacts to evil is ultimately more important than the evil itself.

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Glossary

wicket here, a small gate separating the kitchen from the dining room of the diner.
kosher convent To most people, a convent is associated with Catholicism; here, Max jokes
that Al, probably Jewish, would have to be in a "kosher" convent; kosher is Yiddish for food
that is ritually clean, according to dietary laws.
muzzle of a sawed-off shotgun the firing end of the gun.
the car-tracks The reference is to electric streetcar tracks.

Map

Summit, Illinois, is the setting for Hemingway's "The Killers." Nick Adams is living in
Summit, leading what seems to be an uneventful life, when he is suddenly confronted by two
hired killers, probably from Chicago, who intend to murder a professional boxer, Ole
Andreson. Nick rushes to Andreson's boarding house and tells him that he is marked as a
target by the killers and Andreson says that he's tired of running, that he'll wait for the killers;
Nick leaves Summit, sickened in disbelief that a man can passively await his own, certain
death.

"The Killers"

Two men, Al and Max, come into Henry’s lunch-room where the manager, George, is talking
to Nick Adams, one of the diners. They sit down at the counter and debate about what to
order. Their first choices are to be served only after 6 o’clock, and since it’s 5 o’clock, the
pork tenderloin and chicken croquettes are not available. George lists the available choices
and the men order ham, eggs, bacon, and eggs, respectively. They are dressed alike with tight
overcoats, mufflers, and derby hats. While they eat they comment sarcastically on the
liveliness of the town, Summit, and how “bright” George and Nick are.

Suddenly, Al and Max order Nick around the other side of the counter with George and
inquire if anyone else is in in the diner. George tells them Sam, the cook, is in the kitchen, and
he is told to call Sam out to the counter. Amid mild protests from Nick and George, Al takes
Nick and Sam back into the kitchen while Max sits at the counter and George remains behind
it.

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When George asks Max what it’s all about, Max reveals he and Al are there to ambush and
kill a Swede named Ole Andreson, a resident of Summit, when he comes in to dinner at
Henry’s at 6 o’clock. It becomes known that they are hit men hired to kill Andreson in the
manner, it is implied, of gangsters in the movies. Al announces he has tied Sam and Nick up
in the kitchen

Max orders George to tell any customers that the cook is out and if that doesn’t put them off,
to cook for them himself but to get rid of them quickly. When he goes into the kitchen to
make a sandwich for a customer, he sees Al with a sawed-off shotgun sitting by the wicket
and Sam and Nick tied up in the corner.

Finally, when Andreson has failed to show up by his usual hour of 6 o’clock, Al and Max
prepare to leave. Al is reluctant to go, grumbling that Max has talked too much about why
they’re in Summit, but eventually they leave and George unties Sam and Nick. George urges
Nick to warn Andreson but Sam urges him to stay out of it.

Nick, having decided to go, walks to Hirsch’s rooming-house where Andreson lives and is let
in by Mrs. Bell, the caretaker of the establishment. Andreson, a former heavyweight boxer, is
lying on his bed in a depressed fashion and expresses no surprise when Nick tells him about
Al, Max, and their mission. Andreson appears resigned to his fate, and negates all of Nick’s
suggestions that he should go to the police, skip town, or patch up whatever matter led to the
contract on him in the first place. He says he is through running and that eventually he’ll leave
his room.

Nick leaves him and speaks briefly with Mrs. Bell, who says Andreson has been depressed all
day and that it’s a shame because he’s a nice man. Upon returning to Henry’s, Nick reports to
George that Andreson was not surprised by the news and doesn’t plan to take any action to
protect himself, and they conclude that he probably double-crossed someone in Chicago;
that’s the cause of the contract on him. Nick is quite depressed by the contemplation of
Andreson’s fate and resolves to leave town.

ANALYSIS

“The Killers” is a story that deals with the familiar Hemingway themes of courage,
disillusionment, death, and futility. Nick Adams, Hemingway’s semi-autobiographical
narrator in a whole series of short stories, performs a clear act of heroism but is disappointed
by the result of it. Two killers invade the small town of Summit and hold Nick and others

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hostage in a diner while they wait to kill Ole Andreson, a former boxer from Chicago with a
murky past. Once the killers leave without their quarry, Nick volunteers, at the risk of his own
life, to go to Andreson’s boarding-house and warn him of the killers’ presence. Andreson is
unsurprised and resigned to his fate, and Nick returns to the diner depressed at the
contemplation of Andreson’s impending death.

“The Killers” is the story of Nick Adams’s coming-of-age through a showing of heroism and
his ultimate disillusionment as his courage fails to make a difference. Throughout the story,
and according to Hemingway critics, it is clear that Nick is an adolescent. Indeed, the killers
make persistent references to Nick as a “bright boy,” and the implication that Nick has not yet
crossed into manhood is unmistakable. When the killers leave, George urges Nick to warn
Andreson and Sam warns him not to; apparently both men are too afraid to go themselves,
and the fact that Nick knows the risks but goes anyway is a testament to his courage and an
indication of the fact that he came of age in that moment.

None of this is diminished by the fact that, at the very moment when Nick decides to warn
Andreson, Sam ironically says “Little boys always know what they want to do.” Given that
Sam’s perspective on the matter is that Nick should stay out of the Andreson dilemma for his
own safety, he likely means that Nick’s decision is like that of a little boy because it is
foolish, not because it is not courageous. What Sam views as foolishness Hemingway views
as strength.

The apparent tragedy of this story is that Andreson expresses no alarm at his killers’ presence
and will probably be gunned down without a struggle, but the true tragedy is that Nick’s
selfless act of heroism produced no positive result and was therefore futile. Faced with
Andreson’s unwillingness to do anything to prevent his own death, Nick returns to the diner
and expresses his disappointment to George, who tells him not to think about it. Nick clearly
feels the most strongly of the three men in the diner that Andreson’s dilemma is unjust;
George doesn’t think about it and Sam doesn’t want to hear about it. Only Nick is left with a
“damned awful” feeling not only about Andreson’s fate, but also about the fact that he risked
his life for nothing. This, Hemingway implies, is the moment of disillusionment where a
young man who has finally proved his courage in the face of danger is confronted with the
fact that his sacrifice was in vain. The world is unjust, Nick has discovered, and this fact
depresses him, as it depresses all of Hemingway’s other protagonists.

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Nick is not the only courageous character in the story; indeed, the more obvious hero is Ole
Andreson himself, who determines to face his killers stoically and without panic. According
to Hemingway scholars, this attitude is known as heroic fatalism of fatalistic heroism. It is a
testament to Hemingway’s skill at manipulating his readers’ emotions that Andreson is seen
in a positive light. For all readers know, Andreson may be a killer himself or have other
highly disreputable crimes on his conscience. It is through the portrayal of the killers as so
evil and through Nick’s vouching for him that Andreson’s image is positive and even heroic
rather than passive and weak.

The language in “The Killers” is simple and repetitive, emphasizing both the intellectual
simplicity of the characters and the suspense of the situation. The exchange of short, sharp
phrases between the killers and the three occupants of Henry’s diner has been likened to the
exchange of machine-gun fire, and the atmosphere of the story is much akin to that of the
hard-boiled genre that was popularized both in print and in film during the 1940s.

The Killers Plot Analysis

Most good stories start with a fundamental list of ingredients: the initial situation, conflict,
complication, climax, suspense, denouement, and conclusion. Great writers sometimes shake
up the recipe and add some spice.

Initial Situation: Two guys walk into a bar…

OK, so it’s not a bar so much as a lunchroom, but you get the point. Because of the title of the
story, there’s a fair bit of conflict implied (we sense that these creepy men in overcoats and
wearing gloves are in all likelihood the killers in question), but for main character Nick
Adams, this is still unknown.

Conflict: The two guys act like jerks.

OK, so this isn’t the world’s most outrageous conflict. And it doesn’t come in any one
instance; it sort of gradually builds as Max and Al become more and more antagonistic. Look
at how they harass George about the menu and taunt him with the "bright boy" nickname.
Sounds like conflict to us.

Complication: The two guys make some unreasonable demands.

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It’s clear that something is up once Al and Max tie up Nick and Sam in the kitchen. This is no
longer about some unfriendly strangers; there’s something seriously sinister (and illegal)
going down.

Climax: The killers reveal that they’re going to kill Ole Andreson.

Well! Impending murder sounds like a great climax. Also, we’ve been building towards this
moment since the story began. We got hints as to the men’s motives (the gloves, the
overcoats) as well as an indication of their malevolence (they generally acted like
antagonists). So this is the climactic moment we’ve all been waiting for.

Suspense: Everyone waits for seven o’clock to roll around.

This is some nail-biting action. When the door to the lunchroom opens, we have to worry that
there’s going to be shooting. When Ole doesn’t show up, we have to worry that the killers will
kill the three spectators.

Denouement: Ole Andreson

No, that title wasn’t a typo; Ole Andreson is "denouement" personified. There’s no
excitement here, no fireworks – it’s clear from the moment we see the guy "lying on the bed
with all his clothes on" that the big action of the story has passed.

Conclusion: "I’m going to get out of this town."

The conclusion to "The Killers" definitely belongs to Nick Adams. We see that the series of
events which just transpired have had a HUGE effect on him. Exactly what he’s concluded is,
as usual, subject to debate: the world is evil? Death is inevitable? He won’t accept his own
death?

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