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  • 30-NOV-2025 | Excerpt from “The Battler” by Ernest Hemingway

30-NOV-2025 | Excerpt from “The Battler” by Ernest Hemingway

Author

Dan Bogachek
November 30, 2025

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Excerpt from “The Battler” by Ernest Hemingway

They shot the six cabinet ministers at half-past six in the morning against the wall of a hospital. There were pools of water in the courtyard. There were wet dead leaves on the paving of the courtyard. It rained hard. All the shutters of the hospital were nailed shut. One of the minis­ters was sick with typhoid. Two soldiers carried him downstairs and out into the rain. They tried to hold him up against the wall but he sat down in a puddle of water. The other five stood very quietly against the wall. Finally the officer told the soldiers it was no good trying to make him stand up. When they fired the first volley he was sitting down in the water with his head on his knees. 🏁

Hemingway turns this scene up to 11 by allowing us to infer the emotional content of the scene instead of explaining it himself. A great showcase of iceberg theory — only showing what’s on the surface to create emotional depth through imagination.