Innocence and Experience
In “The Killers,” Max and Al—a pair of hitmen—travel to a small town to kill one of its residents, the former prizefighter Ole Andreson. At the diner where the murder will take place, Max and Al take three hostages: Nick Adams (a young man who is eating there), George (the manager), and Sam (the cook). When Ole Andreson doesn’t show up, however, Max and Al leave, and the hostages grapple with their experience…
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Expectations vs. Reality
Throughout “The Killers,” Hemingway depicts the fallout of dashed expectations. Whether the characters are merely disconcerted by their banal assumptions proving faulty (Max and Al when the diner won’t serve them dinner yet), or thrust into a moral and emotional crisis by the world not conforming to deeply-held beliefs (as Nick is when Ole Andreson contradicts his ideas about mortality), the story shows profound consequences for those who believe too much in their own…
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Heroism and Masculinity
Hemingway’s short stories and novels famously feature what is called a “code hero.” The “code hero” is a paragon of masculine virtue, boasting honor, endurance, unwavering courage in the face of adversity, and a refusal to show fear, even when facing death. In “The Killers,” however, there is no code hero: all of the story’s men fail to live up to Hemingway’s masculine ideal, albeit in different ways. Since all of these men fail to…
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