To Have and Have Not Review

TJ Fulton

To Have and Have Not Review              

              To Have and Have Not by Ernest Hemingway was published in 1937, and tells the story of a man named Harry Morgan who ends up losing everything in a bad fishing deal and how he ends up smuggling contraband, including people and alcohol from Cuba to Florida. It is told in three parts, which are each short stories about his life and the people around him.

              The story first starts out in Havana, Cuba in a bar with three Cubans talking to Harry Morgan, a local deep sea fishing guide, offering him a thousand dollars a piece to take them to the U.S. But Harry refuses to take them because he is an honest man, making an honest living and his boat is his living. "I make a living with the boat. If I lose her I lose my living." After, refusing their offer he goes to meet a customer, Mr. Johnson, who he had been taking out fishing for three weeks. Then on one day of fishing a huge black marlin is hooked on Mr. Johnson’s line and he wasn’t holding on to the rod and it was pulled off the boat, lost in the sea. After that final expedition, Harry and Mr. Johnson come to an agreement on a price of eight hundred and twenty five dollars and were supposed to meet the next day to pay. That day came Harry learned that Mr. Johnson had skipped town with his money, leaving him completely broke and desperate. Just after that a man named Mr. Sing offers twelve hundred dollars to take twelve china men to Florida, leaving him with a decision whether or not to give in to his desperation and take them. Finally, he decides to take them but when all is said and done he double-crosses them, killing Mr. Sing and dropping off the others just down the beach. This part of the novel basically how the rest of the story continues, with more double crossing with higher-class people.

              The style of writing in this novel was basic Hemingway of writing and it is his own different style. Even though Ernest Hemingway’s style is different, he is considered one of the most accomplished writers of all time. He has published a total of 20 books in his lifetime, including receiving the Nobel Prize for Literature and the Pulitzer Prize for fiction (on different books not To have and Have Not). His writing style is not the most confusing style of writing and it is a flat style of writing that doesn’t have a ton emotion to it. Although it doesn’t have a lot of emotion, there is some descriptive writing through out the novel, it is a very masculine way of writing. Most of the descriptive parts come in the action of the story, which comes from his experience during World War I, where he earned the Bronze Star. Overall, the writing style was pretty good in my opinion because it was easy to understand and read.

              Additional to the descriptive writing there is also a couple of instances of symbolism in the novel. One of the symbols was the boats and had a couple of different meanings, including economic status and stability. Status was shown by the kind of the boat a person had, Harry had a not so nice boat and didn’t have very much money. Then later one there are people with huge yachts and obviously have tons of money. The boats also show how economically stable a person is in life. For instance, Harry gets his boat taken away a lot or getting shot at and he has trouble making money. But on the other hand the bar tender Freddy keeps his boat safe and out of trouble, the same as his living. Another symbol would be guns that appear through out the story, that represents the level of seriousness or violence someone will commit. For example, when Harry takes the first twelve Chinese men, he has a pistol and shotgun on board and only killed Mr. Sing. But, in the beginning those three Cuban’s end up being shot with machine-guns with out any mercy and on the side of the street. Although there isn’t a ton of symbolism in the book but there is still a little that comes into play.

              In the end, I would recommend this book not as something to use on the AP test but, just as a fun read. If you were looking for something new and different to read this would be the novel to choose. But, if you want something with more literary merit, for something like the AP test, this wouldn’t be novel to read. To Have and Have Not is a different kind of read but it wasn’t terrible, just more of a nice, easy story to read.