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Ernest Hemingway, “Hills Like White Elephants”

Another good example of Hemingway’s style, “Hills Like White Elephants” (1927) is a story that doesn’t have many answers. Hemingway spends a lot of time describing the setting and includes lots of dialogue with little action to break up the talking. As he did with “The Killers,” Hemingway leaves the deeper meaning of the story up to the reader to discover. The two stories were even published together in the 1927 short story anthology Men Without Women.

John Steinbeck, Of Mice and Men

Ole is a giant, gentle man whose life is marred by violence, as is Lennie in Of Mice and Men (1937). Both “The Killers” and Steinbeck’s novella are modernist stories that reveal a lot about human nature, cruelty, and violence. Even though Of Mice and Men was published a full decade later than “The Killers,” they both reveal the effects that violence and difficult circumstances can have on a life, especially the lives of those who are just trying to get by in a cruel world.

F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby

Both “The Killers” (1927) and The Great Gatsby (1925) were published in the same decade by the same publishing house (Scribner’s), yet they focus on different concerns of the decade. Hemingway’s story focuses on the darkness and crime around Chicago. Fitzgerald’s novel focuses on the aspects of the decade that were a reaction to the terrors of World War I, including flappers, automobiles, and extravagant partying in New York City. While on the surface the two may seem dissimilar, there is also a distinct element of the criminal world present in Fitzgerald’s novel, and both present vibrant accounts of the turbulent time in which they were written.

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