Interrogating the mirror : double-crossings in Hemingway's "The killers"

Abstract

Among the early critics who commented on the discrepancies between what "is" and what "seems" in "The Killers" was Edward C. Sampson, who pointed out in 1952 that very little in the story is what it appears to be: Henry's, which serves no alcoholic beverages, is a converted tavern run by George; AI and Max order breakfast at a lunch counter whose menu features dinner; the orders are mixed up; the time on the clock is wrong; Mrs. Hirsch runs Mrs. Bell's rooming house; and so on (item 2). Here Sampson let the matter rest, and most subsequent commentators have been content to see these discrepancies as "framing" the portrait of the disillusioned Nick Adams, who by story's end finds that the world of appearances conceals a terrifying reality beyond his imagination. There is, however, more to the narrative poetics of "The Killers" than a handful of discrepancies, which - significant as they are - do not explain the mechanics or, for that matter, the presence of complementarity throughout the story.