"The Killers"–React personally to the story

The story “The Killers” is written by Ernest Hemingway in the style he is famous for: long dialogues, repeated words and subjects like “clock” or “bright boy” or “nigger”, and short answers to questions, for example “No”,  “That’s right’, “Sure”, “Yes”, or “Nothing”. As usual, he doesn’t describe the setting explicitly but let the reader find out by listening to the dialogues what is going on. I very late detected that Al and Max are gangsters who also have a gun! I overlooked the fact that Al is wearing gloves and the presence of the gun I could have noticed, if I had paid more attention to the behavior of the threatened people in the restaurant.

New for me was the fact that Hemingway can write in a humorous manner. For example, when George brings the two plates and asks Al “Which is yours? Al answered: “Don’t you remember?” Also the stupid behavior of the two killers, who are supposed to be scary and determined, is kind of funny. When their victim does not appear they go without any harm to the staff in the restaurant, unbelievable!

I thought about the title of Hemingway’s short story. The Killers are not only represented by the two criminals who in fact at least at this scene don’t kill anybody, which is also amusing, but also by all the time that is been killed. Everything takes so long and everybody is waiting so long, even Ole. If there should be two killers in form of human beings, as for me, I would consider Sam and George. Knowing that Al and Max want to kill Ole Anderson they are cowardly persons and therefore don’t want to warn him.