Alienation and Resistance in Hemingway's "After the Storm": The Other Side of "Big Two-Hearted River"

Abstract: This essay argues that Hemingway's short story "After the Storm" (1932) maps out the dehumanizing landscape shaped by modern capitalism, contrasting sharply with the utopian resistances of Hemingway's earlier story, "Big Two-Hearted River." Utilizing Georg Lukács's concept of "reification," the analysis highlights the destructiveness of a generalized commodification and its impact on social relations. While critics tend to focus on the sponger as an individual (embodying the 'hero code,' or exemplifying depravity), the essay shifts the focus to the structuring forces of the social world, analyzing the sponger as a contradictory site of the social matrix. Finally, "After the Storm," while bleak, nevertheless depicts important moments of resistance.