A Natural History of the Dead

Genre: fiction, short story

Key words: death and dying, medical ethics, physician-patient relationship, war

Summary:

Natural Hx of the Dead is a story in The Complete Short Stories of Ernest Hemingway. It is divided, by subject and style, into two parts, the first part of which reads like non-fiction and the second a short story, or the nidus of one.

The first section (4.5 pages) is a fairly grisly accounting of the title and describes different modes of dying and the dead, especially in war time, especially regarding WWI.

The second section (2 pages) involves a medical unit with a field physician and several soldiers, none of them officers as high as the physician. They are discussing a terminally injured soldier who is dying of a devastating injury to the head. The physician does not want to waste any effort or, worse, his limited supply of morphine on a lost cause. Eventually there is verbal and even physical violence over this dispute.

Commentary:

This short story is unusual for Hemingway (“EH” hereafter) for several reasons. First it is quite discursive and not at all in his signature style of economy and parsimonious diction and syntax. (Remember, it was EH who famously said he could write a novel in 6 words and then did: For sale, baby shoes. Never worn.) If a freshman handed this essay in for a freshman English assignment, he or she receive it back with the comment “Not so many commas!!!!” Next, it is nowhere as smooth as EH’s best efforts, like Indian Camp or Short Happy Life. The jarring transition from the first to second part is strikingly inharmonious.

The latter half of the story is a narrative set piece for the medical ethics of triage and its capacity to foment disagreement amongst family, friends and providers. Calabresi’s book Tragic Choices has rarely been represented in such a short space.

This story offers an excellent opportunity for students of lit & med, medical ethics in literature, especially during wartime, and also an unusual EH story to use as comparison with other EH stories in lit & med.

Publisher: Scribner

Edition: The Complete Short Stories of Ernest Hemingway. Paperback 1987: pages 335-341

Place published: NY, NY

Miscellaneous:

Annotated by: Richard M. Ratzan

Date of post: August 14, 2011

Date of latest revision: