Hunting, Fishing, and the Cramp of Ethics in Ernest Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea, Green Hills of Africa , and Under Kilimanjaro

Abstract

Ernest Hemingway's attitude toward hunting is often understood as having become gentler in later life, though in complex ways that are difficult to sort out. For instance, should we call his approach ethical when he generally stops killing animals for trophies but continues to kill them for meat? And how do these changes reflect upon Hemingway's broader ethical orientation? This essay approaches this problem by revising what we mean by "ethics." Rather than taking ethics simply as established law, I rely on recent ethical theory to present an account of Hemingway's ethics as centered on openness to experience and to aesthetics, driven by cognizance of mortality, and intensified in confrontations with animals.