The most notable Hemingway hero to put everything as a test to his knowledge and experience is Santiago from "The Old Man and The Sea." Santiago is a prime example of how Old age is a richness of experience and wisdom. Santiago, has fished his whole life and knows from experience almost everything there is to know about fishing. This gives him a sense of self superiority and much heroism, evidenced when he is sitting on the terrace and "fishermenn made fun of him", he was undisturbed by this and was "not angry"(11). At the beginning of the story, he has "gone eighty-four days ... without taking a fish"(9). Yet, He is still "cheerful and undefeated" because in the past he has gone "eighty-seven days without a fish and then caught big ones every day for three weeks". (10) Everything Santiago does in the story is almost ritualistic of his past experience. There is no experience that he enters into that he is not fully aware of the situation, even if it dangerous or risky. Santiago's over confidence in his experience is seen when he takes his boat "further out" then he is supposed to, testing h

In Hemingways, short story "Soldiers Home" our hero is Krebs, a young boy sent off to "war from a Methodist college."(145) The war experience psychologically affected Krebs and when he returned home he didn't know how to relate to his environment anymore. The time he spent at war was his maturation time. He has learned that the world and even people close to you don't really care about you, like when he was telling his mom about the war and "her attention always wandered." (146) Krebs inability to get along with his family indicates that with maturity comes the need for freedom and the need to break certain ties between children and parents. Time and the war have taken Krebs to adulthood and left him mature. It has also taught him to be stoic, a trait that to Hemingway represents strength.

As Amory ages he develops a constant fear of being viewed other then as a pillar of perfection. Amory's fear of responsibility and the reality of his actions begins to become more evident. He will do what it takes to achieve his social appearance and get what he wants, but beyond that he is terrified of what real life gives him in return and will often flee the situation. Clara Page sees this in Amory, she says he is "a slave, a boundless helpless slave to one thing in the world, his imagination."(135) This situation foreshadows the relationship with Eleanor. Amory is willing to reap the benefits of a perfect situation, but when responsibility sets in, such as Eleanor's mental and familial problems, he merely flees in fear.

The relationship with Rosalind further deteriorates our hero. Up until this point, he was able to meander his way through life keeping his general social goals intact. She is his ultimate trophy in his contest for social success. Amory and Rosalind fall in love, and this is when Amory has to reality. No matter how hard he will try in life to measure up to the social aristocracy, he never can, because he is merely "a dreamer" (178) and "a theoretical genius who hasn't a penny to his name"(178). After Rosalind breaks off her engagement to Amory, he is forced to deal with the reality that everything he had spent his youth believing in and trying to achieve was futile. His inability to deal with the reality of this situation causes him to turn to alcohol and spend months in a drunken stupor. Our hero is left as shattered and weak with "regret for his lost youth."(260)

Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 2947
Approximate Pages = 12 (250 words per page double spaced)