Hemingway's Golden Geese Trivia Quiz

Answer: Harry

Harry is a talented writer whose career has gone nowhere. He's allowed it to drift while he got fat on his rich wife's money. In this story he is on safari, with his wife, in Africa. Their truck has broken down and a scratch on Harry's leg, that he'd ignored, has turned gangrenous.

A rescue plane has been summoned and while they wait for it to arrive Harry reflects upon his wasted life, all the while knowing that the plane will arrive too late to save him.

Answer: Margot

Margot and the titular Francis are wife and husband and neither of them loves the other. Margot had married Francis for his money and Harry married Margot for her stunning looks - she was yet another trophy for his shelf. Whilst on safari Francis flees at the sight of his first lion, and this makes him a target for Margot's scorn.

It also gives Margot a measure of control over him. However, when Francis stands firm in the face of a charging water buffalo Margot sees him regaining his manhood. She also sees her control over him (and his money) slipping away. Under pretense of attempting to shoot the buffalo she shoots her husband in the back of the head.

Answer: Paco

Paco leaves his poor village with the bright lights of Madrid in his eyes. He finds work at a hotel called Pension Luarca. He's drawn to this establishment because it is a favoured haunt of his heroes, the matadors. He only sees the romance in the art of bullfighting and, as a consequence, these are the only guests in the hotel that are alive for him.

The protagonist in this tale is Enrique who, with his bitterness and cynicism, is the perfect foil for Paco's wide-eyed optimism. Enrique's torment of Paco leads to a challenge which goes terribly wrong.

Answer: Jig

A man (the American) and a young girl (Jig) are at a station waiting to board the express train to Madrid. Jig is pregnant with the American's child. He is nudging her to have an abortion while endeavouring to make her believe that it is her decision. Jig is fearful of the operation, but she holds greater fears for what it will do to their relationship.

As she engages in a tug-of-war of words with her suitor, the American is also aware that, should Jig choose not to have the procedure, he will be tied to her.

Answer: Ole Andreson

Andreson is an aging boxer who eats at a particular diner every night. Except for this particular evening. It is just as well, for there were two men waiting there to kill him. Why do they wish to kill him? Has he stolen something from them? Has he double crossed someone or did he fail to take a dive? As the killers leave to look elsewhere for Ole a young man is dispatched to warn him.

The boxer, however, ignores the warning and simply turns his back on the young man saying that he's grown tired of running.

Answer: 76 Year Old Man From San Carlos

This character grew from Hemingway's experiences covering the Spanish Civil War. The story's narrator, a war correspondent, is crossing the bridge at the Erbo River and spies an old man sitting at its side. The man has just walked twelve kilometres from his village at San Carlos and is totally exhausted.

He advises that he is the last to have left the village and, as such, it was his responsibility to ensure the welfare of all the animals. It is made clear that he takes this obligation seriously, as he shows more concern for those creatures than his own fate.

This is despite being aware that the enemy approaches and his death is imminent.

Answer: The Major

The simple enquiry of the title, under Hemingway's skilful hand, proves to be anything but simple. The story opens with the Major applying oil to his sunburnt face. This gives us the impression that he is a man of rugged endeavour, however, he is applying it in such a delicate way that you feel that, perhaps, he's not as manly as he makes out to be. With the Major's adjutant in the next room (eavesdropping) a soldier enters the Major's quarters to tend to his fire.

The Major asks the soldier some "innocent" questions though, by the third query, he realizes that he is being propositioned. Embarrassed, he leaves.

While the adjutant smiles knowingly in the next room, the Major is left wondering whether or not the soldier has just lied to him.

Answer: Nick Adams

Nick Adams is the young man in this story who is dispatched to warn the boxer that two men are looking to kill him. More on that later.

Adams appears in a number of Hemingway's short stories and, in many ways, is a reflection of the author. Most scholars see Nick Adams as Hemingway's autobiographical hero. Just like Hemingway, Adams is the son of a doctor (evidenced in "The Indian Camp"), he has a love for fishing and hunting ("Big Two-Hearted River") and he served in the Red Cross and was wounded in the knee ("In Another Country"). In each of the stories where Hemingway involves Adams he is placed in some form of traumatic event and then Hemingway explores how Nick deals with it, physically and emotionally. In "The Killers", for example, Nick is shocked to see a fighter lose the will to fight, even if it means his (the fighter's) certain death. Nick finds that he can no longer abide to live in a town that would sit back and watch this man die.

Answer: Schatz

Schatz is the nine year old son of Nick Adams and, in this tale, he has come down with a dose of the "flu". Schatz overhears the doctor informing his father that he's running a temperature of 102 degrees. This frightens Schatz because he'd overheard a story in his French class that the human body cannot tolerate a temperature any more than forty degrees.

He fears that his death is inevitable. As a consequence, he becomes detached from his father and any attempts that Nick may make to comfort him.

He also sets about making his passing as less of a burden on his father as he possibly can. This miscommunication between the pair continues until Schatz asks his stunned father when he should expect to die and it is revealed to Schatz that there is more than one temperature scale.

Answer: Liz Coates

Jim Gilmore arrives in Horton Bay. Liz Coates, a naïve young girl, falls for him. Jim barely knows that she exists. Jim goes out hunting with the boys and, in that short period, Liz finds herself missing him. Jim returns from the hunt and gets "on the turps" with the boys.

Inebriated, he notices Liz and takes her for a walk to the end of the docks. Here, Liz loses her virginity to him and Jim passes out on top of her. Liz crawls out from underneath him and walks home, crying. This is a very simple, almost plotless tale where Hemingway doesn't try to get into the heads of the characters, deliberately leaving the reader stunned and unfulfilled at the end, in much the same way as the sudden and brutal conclusion of Liz's virginity.