Hemingway's In Our Time is a collection of stories that are continuously relevant. There are occasional references to things that are solely in the past like the maid in Italy or the steamship doing logging. Additionally when Nick's dad goes to perform a c-section and sews it up with gut, Hemingway reveals the time period. Despite these slips, In Our Time could mean our time, not his time.
Hemingway eludes the passing of time by focusing on the conversations between characters. It seems a strange thing to say that he focuses on when he devotes so little description to it. Hemingway is known for his bare bones style of conversation. The dialogue seems snippy more often than not.Yet, as we've discussed in class, the conversations hold a lot of meaning and tell us a lot about the characters and their views.
Additionally, the situations that the characters are in are all plausibly modern. The very first short story is a great example. On the Quai at Symrna reads like a modern Naval operation in a third world country. Sarcasm and cynicism are abundant throughout the story. As we become more cynical, we relate to the narrator more and more. The degree of separation from emotion also reminds us of atrocities that are found in any number of wars even today. Another story that should be familiar is A Soldiers Home. While it mentions the date of when Krebs gets home, just replace it with a more recent date and and the story nearly becomes something out of Fire and Forget.
It is interesting and rather consistent that Hemingway avoids the passage of time in his stories, but I'm not sure I see how it connects to the time period in which the story should take place, as time passes in any setting, past, present or future. However, I do agree that the settings and events of Hemingway's stories are not very particular to any specific time period, except perhaps in the "Chapters" which allude to war time. Also, in the first paragraph, it's interesting that you make it seem like Hemingway didn't want to put anything that would pin the story to a specific time period. I wonder if he did intend to do this, and why he did or didn't.
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