Hemingway’s Aging Heroes and the Concept of Phronesis

Abstract

This article explores the concept of phronesis (“practical wisdom”) in four aging protagonists in Ernest Hemingway's works ranging from the short story “A Clean Well-Lighted Place” to the novella The Old Man and the Sea. Phronesis represents an understanding of the “ways of the world, an acute sensitivity to a critical logic of human existence that can be attained only through extensive experience and suffering.” The four aging protagonists are examples of Hemingway's definition of aging “productively and profitably by purchasing an inner peace that consists of an intuitive system of continuous adjustment to the exigencies of daily living.”