A Natural History of the Dead

Annotates and comments, often line by line, on familiar and obscure details and allusions to the people, places, things, events, and other references found in the story. Opens with a discussion of the story\u27s composition history, genre-defying characteristics, and relation to posthumanism before moving into an explication beginning with the satiric first lines echoing the style of naturalist writing. Topics include Hemingway\u27s use of understatement and dramatic contrast and parody of natural history conventions