Ernest Hemingway’s essay Camping Out starts with Hemingway describing
with how going camping can be either a relaxing vacation or a terrible
experience based on your knowledge on the subject. He outlines points
that can make a camping trip horrible to a novice, leading the reader to
believe that he has done this many times himself and he truly is an expert.
Hemingway’s protagonist in this story seems to be Wilson, the hunter who lives
and breathes the great outdoors. The story to juxtaposes another character Macomber
to Wilson, and obviously, Wilson is the favored in that comparison due to his
outdoorsiness. However, at the end of the story Wilson breaks the code to which
he lives by as he hunts down buffalo in a car, a cowardly, and indisputably
illegal act. Wilson is by no means perfect.
Two literary techniques are in play
throughout the story that enliven the action and embellish Hemingway’s
otherwise minimal descriptive passages. The first is onomatopoeia, and is best
exemplified by “whunk,” the noise Macomber’s bullet makes as it hits the lion
(p. 22, 33), and “carawong,” the noise Wilson’s high-velocity “big gun” makes
as it fires at game (p. 26, 34). Hemingway’s usage of these terms helps the
reader imagine the noises and brutality of the hunt. The second technique
Hemingway employs is simile and metaphor. The most notable example occurs in
Wilson’s thoughts when Macomber asks if they should leave the wounded lion, “Robert
Wilson, whose entire occupation had been with the lion and the problem he
presented, and who had not been thinking about Macomber except to note that he
was rather windy, suddenly felt as though he had opened the wrong door in a
hotel and seen something shameful” (p. 24). This simile demonstrates Wilson’s
shock at hearing Macomber voice such cowardly ideas. Macomber would rather
leave the lion to suffer or risk someone else running into the lion and
possibly being killed than face up to hunting it down and finishing what he
started.
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