"A" Project | American Literature Portfolio

Project Overview

Creative Project Short Fiction Hemingway Style

For my "A" Project, I wrote a short fiction piece inspired by Ernest Hemingway's minimalist prose style and his exploration of the Lost Generation in 1920s Paris. The piece captures a chance encounter between two American expatriates at a café along the Seine, exploring themes of displacement, trauma, and the search for meaning.

I sought to emulate Hemingway's iceberg theory showing only the surface while suggesting deeper currents beneath. The sparse dialogue and simple declarative sentences mask the characters' inner turmoil, particularly Tom's unspoken war memories and the woman's restless need to escape the hollow expatriate life.

The Seine

The Seine kept moving, gray under a gray sky, as if motion were a duty. Tom sat outside the café where the air was cold enough to keep him awake. Inside was warmth and laughter that felt borrowed. A man at the next table read about repairs and treaties, then folded the paper like a bandage. Tom drank black coffee and watched the waiters weave between chairs.

"Got a light?" a woman asked. She had a bob and a coat too light for March. Tom struck a match. The flame trembled, her face came forward, bright, then slipped back into shade.

"Thanks," she said, and sat without asking. Her hands were steady, but her eyes kept counting doors. "You're American," she said. "So are you." She smiled. "I used to be." Tom let that sit. Behind them the city broke into pieces: a bell, a bus grinding, a laugh cut short. Tom felt a seam open in his head. Mud, wire, a name called once, then silence. He blinked and the river was there again, for now.

"What do you do here?" she asked, tapping ash into a saucer. "Write," Tom said. "Little things." "Little things are safer," she said. "Do you ever feel like the city is made of scraps?" she went on. "Like somebody tore up a whole life and tossed the pieces in the street." Tom shrugged. "It's a city." She laughed once, sharp. "That's a very male answer." Tom stared at the table where the coffee ring dried into a hard circle.

"I'm leaving," she said. "South. Marseille first." "Why?" Tom asked. She looked past him to the water. "Because if I stay, I'll start believing this is all there is. The cafés. The clever talk. The pretending we're fine." The waiter brought another coffee without being asked. Tom paid. She didn't thank him.

Wind pushed a loose page under Tom's chair. He picked it up: three lines, broken and unfinished.

In the afternoon the light turns thin.
The river keeps taking things away.
Even the names we swore would last.

"You want it?" he asked. She shook her head. "No. Let it go." He set it down. The wind took it again, running it toward the river like it knew where it belonged. She stood, nodded once, and disappeared into the street. Tom opened his notebook, wrote one clean line, crossed it out, and wrote another.

Project Analysis & Reflection

Connections to Course Themes

This project draws from Hemingway's portrayal of the Lost Generation, Americans abroad in post-WWI Europe, searching for meaning in a broken world. Tom's flashback to "mud, wire, a name called once" follows the iceberg theory: the unsaid carries more weight than the said. The piece also explores identity and belonging—she says "I used to be" American, suggesting identity can be lost or abandoned.

Creative Process

I re-read Hemingway's short stories, studying his sparse sentences and concrete imagery. The biggest challenge was restraint—trusting readers to feel what wasn't said rather than explaining it. The poem fragment came late, representing both Tom's writing and the ephemeral nature of their connection.

What I Learned

Writing in this style taught me that simplicity isn't shallowness but every word matters more when you use fewer of them. I learned to trust subtext and let objects carry emotional weight. This experience changed how I read, paying closer attention to what authors leave out.