Ernest Hemingway: A Simple Enquiry

[Kyobancha]

I am an independent scholar based in Japan. I am posting this message in the hope that you might be able to help me to interpret a line of Hemingway's "A Simple Enquiry."

The story is about three soldiers who are snowbound in Italy. "Major," the senior soldier, returns to the hut, where Tonani, his adjutant, and Pinin, a 19-year old orderly, are working for him. The Major enters his room, which is adjacent to the office where the adjutant is working. The wall that separates the Major's room and the office is so thin that it is easy to hear what is said in the other room.

The Major summons Pinin into his room. The Major asks him private questions, with an apparent intention of sexual advance. When he does so, he tries to assure Pinin that their conversation will not be heard by Tonani, who is in the next room. The passage goes as follows:

-----
“Tonani,” the major said in the same tone of voice, “can you hear me talking?”
There was no answer from the next room.
“He can not hear,” the major said. “And you are quite sure that you love a girl?”
-----

I have a problem with the interpretation of "He can not hear."

What separates the two rooms is so thin that anything that is spoken in one room is heard in the other. This fact is explained by the author repeatedly in the previous part of the story.

It seems to me that two readings are possible.

(1) Tonani cannot hear us. (=It is impossible for Tonani to hear us.)
(2) Tonani can pretend that he has not heard anything.

Which interpretation do you think is appropriate?

Hemingway uses "cannot" 29 times in his short stories. Interestingly he uses "can not," too, though only twice. The instance above is an example. The other use of "can not" appears in "A Train Trip". It seems to me that the reason that Hemingway used "can not" rather than "cannot" here was that his intended interpretation was (2) above. Yet I am not confident enough. I would appreciate if you could enlighten me about this point. Thank you.

 

[tiganeasca]

I am hardly an expert in this kind of analysis but two things seem clear to me: first, I think Hemingway's use of "cannot" and "can not" means little, if anything, other than his own personal inconsistency. I do not believe that it reflects different meanings. (Keep in mind that one danger of literary analysis--or, indeed, any analysis--is that it is possible to overanalyze things. Just because you see something or can quantify something doesn't mean that it has a substantive "meaning.") Second, I think the ambiguity you identify is intentional: can Tonani genuinely not hear or is Tonani's simply pretending that he cannot hear? There is no way for us to know and there is no way for Pinin to know. And Hemingway introduced that ambiguity on purpose.

 

[Kyobancha]

Thank you, tiganeasca, for your prompt reply to my query. English is not my language, and whenever I read novels in English, I always wonder if I am interpreting them correctly.

I was impressed with your idea that the semantic ambiguity of the text might have been something that was intended by the author.

In connection with this, let me give one other example of the use of "can not" rather than "cannot" in Hemingway's short stories. This instance appears in "A Train Trip."

A boy leaves his home in Michigan and travels on a train for Chicago with his father. As he travels on the train and watches the scenery, he sees farmhouses, rivers, hills roll by outside. The scenery sometimes seems the same as he saw before. Yet something is always different. Hemingway describes this part in detail.

The following is a quotation from this story. Hemingway uses "can not" here and "not" is italicized. Why did the author use "can _not_" rather than "cannot"? Why did he italicize "not"? Does this create any literary effect?

-----
Perhaps all the hills in Michigan look the same but up in the car I looked out of the window and I would see woods and swamps and we would cross a stream and it was very interesting and then we would pass hills with a farmhouse and the woods behind them and they were the same hills but they were different and everything was a little different. I suppose, of course, that hills that a railroad runs by can _not_ be the same.
-----

It seems to me the last sentence above allows two possible readings:

(1) It is impossible that hills that a railroad runs by are the same.
(2) It is possible that hills that a railroad runs by are different.

The readings (1) and (2) might be interpreted in the same way, but the semantic emphasis is completely opposite. It seems to me that there was a clear intention on the author when he used "can _not_" in this context.

I would appreciate if you could share your ideas.

 

[tiganeasca]

First, please let me congratulate you on your English. It may not be "your" language but your use of it is extremely fluent. Having spent a number of years teaching graduate-level students whose first language was not English, I am attuned to small errors in usage or syntax but your English is exceptional. I don't know when or how you learned, but you learned extremely well.

To your question(s): I would still suggest that the difference is one with no significance. I imagine that there are literary studies in existence that parse Hemingway's use of language. I simply do not know. I do know that many other authors, however, especially in the early 20th century (and before) were far less precise in their usage. Or perhaps simply less concerned with rules. And so their manuscripts reflect that carelessness. In the end, "can not" and "cannot" mean the same thing. To infer a distinction, in my opinion, is to force a difference that simply does not exist. "He cannot do it" and "he can not do it" means exactly the same thing. There is a lot of garbage on the internet, but I would recommend this site for a thorough explanation of the issue.

I appreciate your close and careful reading of the text but I think, as I suggested in my first post, that you are overanalyzing the text. Close reading is often a wonderful tool to help understand an author. However, it is possible to delve too deeply, to scrutinize a text too closely. I think you are just over the line here. I don't see a difference and, more to the point, I do not believe Hemingway intended one.

Last point: I would invite others to chime in. Maybe someone agrees with me (or, more important, disagrees with me!).

 

[Leseratte]

Interesting question, @Kyobancha. I don´t feel in a position to discuss the difference between the uses of cannot or can not as I have never thought about it.
But I would choose your second option (2) Tonani can pretend that he has not heard anything.) This seems to be a scene deliberately created to give the young and probably ingenuous soldier the false assurance that the conversation is totally private. Evidently Tonani would never admit that he can overhear everything, that would create a very embarrassing situation. And the Major of course relies on Tonani´s silence.

The other two possible possibilities I can envisage:
1-Tonani can´t really hear anything, because he is hard of hearing(but that would have to be suggested somewhere in the story).
The Major himself is ingenuous enough to believe that Tonani doesn´t hear anything, but again there would have to be evidence of that in the story.

So the scene looks like a trap for young Pining. It might be a trap for the Major itself too, who is putting also himself in the hands of his adjutant.

 

[Leseratte]

First, please let me congratulate you on your English. It may not be "your" language but your use of it is extremely fluent. Having spent a number of years teaching graduate-level students whose first language was not English, I am attuned to small errors in usage or syntax but your English is exceptional. I don't know when or how you learned, but you learned extremely well.

To your question(s): I would still suggest that the difference is one with no significance. I imagine that there are literary studies in existence that parse Hemingway's use of language. I simply do not know. I do know that many other authors, however, especially in the early 20th century (and before) were far less precise in their usage. Or perhaps simply less concerned with rules. And so their manuscripts reflect that carelessness. In the end, "can not" and "cannot" mean the same thing. To infer a distinction, in my opinion, is to force a difference that simply does not exist. "He cannot do it" and "he can not do it" means exactly the same thing. There is a lot of garbage on the internet, but I would recommend this site for a thorough explanation of the issue.

I appreciate your close and careful reading of the text but I think, as I suggested in my first post, that you are overanalyzing the text. Close reading is often a wonderful tool to help understand an author. However, it is possible to delve too deeply, to scrutinize a text too closely. I think you are just over the line here. I don't see a difference and, more to the point, I do not believe Hemingway intended one.

Last point: I would invite others to chime in. Maybe someone agrees with me (or, more important, disagrees with me!).

Relieved to know that cannot and can not are equal in meaning.

 

[Liam]

In the first story, I think the "can not" is a direct response to the Major's own question: "can you hear me talking?" -- "he can not hear". As Dave said, cannot and can not basically mean the same thing, but grammatically the latter is preferable in response to a question. If you're simply making a statement, such as "I cannot sing" or "I cannot dance" you might opt for cannot, but in response to a question, "Can you help me?" -- "I can not..." the separation between the verb and the negation (not) is used grammatically as a direct reply to the original question.

The same is true with other auxiliary verbs in English: statement: "I wouldn't put it past you..." vs. question/response: "Would you care for more tea?"--"I would not."

I hope this was of help.

But Hemingway is definitely a very shrewd writer, I think you are right about the inherent ambiguity of the language (that goes for all of his fiction, not just this short story).

 

[Kyobancha]

Thank you, tiganeasca, Leseratte, and Liam, for sharing your thoughts with me. I wish you to know how I appreciate your help you offered here. Now I I can read the two stories more comfortably.

The danger of overanalysis, which tiganeasca pointed out, is something that I never thought about. That was a new insight for me.

Some years ago I had a chance to read a book about Hemingway, where I saw a photo of his handwritten manuscript, which was full of deletions, revisions and additions. I also learned that Hemingway wrote the ending of _A Farewell to Arms_ thirty nine times. I was impressed with the rigor which which he wrote his stories, and I hoped I would read his stories with the same vigor and rigor with which Hemingway wrote his stories.

I wish to thank you all again for your thoughts you shared with me here. Thank you.