The Spoils of War: A Structuralist View to “A Very Short Story” by Ernest Hemingway

📌Category: Hemingway, Literature, Writers
📌Words: 1340
📌Pages: 5
📌Published: 14 February 2022

Love and war - one of the many binary oppositions present in Ernest Hemmingway’s “A Very Short Story.” In order to procure a proper understanding of this, one must first establish a solidified foundation for what the principles of Structuralism are. Founded by Swiss linguist Ferdinand de Saussure in the early twentieth century, Structuralism is a methodology used to define and explain the parallels, semiotics, and binary oppositions present in all works of literature. The interconnecting web which can be formally established underneath a Structuralist system allows for critics to draw connections between any given pieces of literature by relating the signs of a work to common human experiences. In other words, “Structuralism is the belief that ‘things cannot be understood in isolation, they have to be seen in the context of larger structures they are part of’ ” (Mambrol, “Structuralism”). All Structuralists' objectives are to break down these common human experiences and explain them using universally-accepted structures. They use the evidence in the work as a tool to compare it to other types of literature and find parallels between them. Moreover, they realize that they successfully interpreted a text when they can intuitively focus on an objective interpretation without having emotions cloud their judgment. 

According to Saussure, the meaning of words that humans assign to different objects is completely arbitrary as two words can have separate definitions when juxtaposed between various languages. Therefore, the process of language is not merely the association of which things get assigned to a word; it is a linguistic sign which contains the relationship between the signifier (the visual idea of the sign) and the signified (the concept of the sign). For example, the word red, the signifier, can resemble blood, the signified. This introduces the idea of semiotics, the study of signs. It was developed by American philosopher Charles Sanders Peirce which articulates that language must be studied in isolation. Semiology, the science of signs, explains that the context of a term completely depends on “its difference from other words in the sign system of language… All signs are cultural constructs that have taken on their meaning through repeated, learned, collective use” (Mambrol, “Structuralism). He furthered the idea of semiotics by distinguishing three categories of signs: symbolic, iconic, and indexical. Symbolic signs are when the signifier is not connected to the signified; it is arbitrary. Iconic signs are when the signifier mimics the signified. Indexical signs are when the signifier is directly connected to the signified. The contrast of these three signs is imperative to the overall idea of semiotics and the Structuralist theory in the fact that they both examine the relationships between separate pieces of evidence.

When humans attempt to define things, they often begin with what they are not. First introduced by anthropologist Claude Levi-Strauss, binary opposition is the study of contrasts and how they interact in works of literature. He stressed that “every culture, can be understood in terms of the binary oppositions…” (Mambrol, “Structuralism”). In essence, it intently surveys the paired opposites and double entendres in a text and how they are connected to a larger system. The very root of Structuralism is about determining contrasting pairs and using those to identify patterns in underlying structures which is what binary opposition attempts to simplify. An example of a binary opposition is masculinity versus femininity: the two are connected in the fact that they are related to gender; however, they are opposites of each other as “masculinity” relates to male whereas “femininity” relates to female. Binary opposition is crucial to Structuralism in the fact that they both attempt to determine the meaning of two opposite terms. The theory uses the difference to determine the hidden patterns, and binary opposition merely reveals that difference. 

In addition, one of the theory’s most influential contributors is Roland Barthes. He introduced the Five Codes of Structuralism which is pivotal to understanding the inner workings of the literary criticism. In essence, they are the proairetic, hermeneutic, cultural, semic, and symbolic. They ask readers to find meaning in the sequence of events, raise questions to be answered, identify allusions that are assumed to be common knowledge, find themes that are developed around the characters, and analyze the themes of the text, respectively. The Five Codes are essential to Structuralism because it is utilized as a mechanism in order to use the evidence present within literature and apply them to larger structures.

There are multiple counts of evidence within “A Very Short Story” that makes it relevant for Structuralist interpretation. For instance, the two leading terms that drive the narrative are 

love and war. In order to understand this, the binary opposition principle can be used. The main characters, the soldier and Luz, are in love and want to marry each other; however, they become separated due to the ongoing war. After the soldier left the hospital, “Luz wrote him many letters that he never got until after the armistice” and all fifteen of them arrived in the mail simultaneously (Hemingway 41). The letters detail how much she misses him, and they should plan to get married once he finds a job. This form of communication through letters exposes the beginnings of the couple’s separation; the fact that their relationship is being torn apart because of the ongoing conflict reveals to the reader that love is connected to unity whereas war is connected to separation. Structuralist critics utilize this analysis in order to reveal the fragility of love that Hemingway portrays, especially during a conflict.

An obscure set of binary opposition that falls under the previously mentioned pair is love and lust. The injury of the soldier had put a connection between him and Luz which led to them believing their love was beyond a physical one. However, after the soldier goes from Genoa to America, Luz had an affair with the major of the battalion at Pordenone. She felt pitiful and wrote to the soldier that their love “had only been a boy and girl affair” (Hemingway 41). The author utilizes the couple’s love to demonstrate that there are two types of love: physical love, (lust) and emotional love (mature love). Luz believed that, after having the affair, the relationship she had with the soldier was merely physical whereas he felt a strong emotional attachment to her. These conflicting opinions about the love between the couple reveals to the reader that lust is purely a yearning for sex, as is shown through Luz, while love is sentimental. 

Throughout Hemingway’s story, the sign relationship becomes more prominent as the narrative continues; it contains the signifier, war, and the signified, romance. In the narrative, the romance between the soldier and Luz only occurs because of the war. Due to this, the sign becomes a symbolic one; war (the signifier) is completely arbitrary to romance (the signified). This nonliteral relationship can be connected to a certain genre: romantic drama. The story portrays two seemingly ordinary characters in which they begin to develop feelings for each other when, in a twist of events, Luz cheats on the soldier. The narrative becomes dramatic in the end because of its abrupt ending with the demise of the soldier: “A short time after he contracted gonorrhea from a sales girl in a loop department store while riding in a taxicab through Lincoln Park” (Hemingway 41). From this, the reader can infer that the sign (relationship) becomes not only apparent in the text but also within other romantic drama narratives. Both the symbolic sign and the genre reveal that the love between the soldier and Luz would inevitably end abruptly.

In conclusion, Ernest Hemingway’s “A Very Short Story” can be interpreted under a Structuralist perspective. Structuralism, founded by Ferdinand de Saussure, is a literary criticism used to define the elements of a text and connect it to a larger system. Some of the most impactful contributors of the theory are Charles Sanders Peirce, Claude-Levi Strauss, and Roland Barthes. They developed the ideas of semiotics, binary oppositions, and the Five Codes of Structuralism, respectively. The story’s main binary opposition is love and war which reveals the unity the characters had and also the separation that the war caused. A non-obvious binary opposition that is present is love and lust. Love, as shown in the text, is an emotional attachment whereas lust is merely physical. Moreover, both the sign relationship and the romantic drama genre reveal that the love between the two main characters was destined to end. Although skeletal in nature, “A Very Short Story” conveys a narrative that can be analyzed through a Structuralist interpretation by using some of its main principles such as semiotics and binary oppositions. Through the application of these principles, critics can see the fragility of the love between the unnamed soldier and Luz. 

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