"The Killers" is short story by Ernest Hemingway. It first appeared to the public in 1927 in Scribner's Magazine. The amount that Hemingway received for the literary piece is unknown, but some sources state it was $200.00 Historians have some documents showing that the working title of the piece was "The Matadors". After its appearance in Scribner's, the story was published in Men Without Women and The Nick Adams Stories. The story has survived the passage of time through the writer's depiction of the human experience, his infamous use of satire, and the everlasting themes of death, friendship, and the purpose of life.
The story features Nick Adams, a famous Hemingway character from his novels. In this story, Hemingway shows Adams crossing over from teenager to adult. The basic plot of the story is that a pair of criminals go on a journey to kill a boxer.
Hemingway drew heavily on his experiences as an avid fisherman, hunter, and bullfighting enthusiast in much of his writing.
Hemingway's second important novel, A Farewell to Arms (1929), is the story of a love affair in wartime Italy between an American officer in the Italian ambulance service and a British nurse.
Hemingway's economical writing style often seems simple and almost childlike, but his method is calculated and used to complex effect.
A prodigious reader and a diligent writer, Ernest Hemingway would have felt comfortable eschewing one night of carousing to lock himself away to pore over words and sculpt sentences, and he was always ready to discuss the art of writing and the craft of rewriting.
Hemingway's themes of war and outdoor sports such as hunting and indoor sports such as drinking seem to appeal to men more than women.
In the years Hemingway wrote, and even today, a boy coming of age is met on all sides with issues of courage, whether it's the courage to stand up for himself and his beliefs or the physical courage required to push himself to the limits of pain and endurance in competition.
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