Nick Adams's Interior Monologues in Hemingway's "A Way You'll Never Be"

Abstract:As Hemingway wrote to his editor, Maxwell Perkins, he once thought "A Way You'll Never Be" would give his collection, Winner Take Nothing, an action-packed tale. Instead, the story became what Hemingway described as a "hell of a difficult one." At the center of its difficulty and its power are interior monologues from the viewpoint of Nick Adams, who veers between memories of battles on the Italian front, memories of Paris, and dreams centered on a yellow house. In order to understand Nick's monologues, this essay explores four allusions in the story—to an Italian battle cry ("Savoia"), to a "teleferica," to Parisian night scenes, and to a yellow house. Hemingway completed a story whose difficulties are central to its powerful portrait of Nick's struggle for self-command.