The End

Hemingway's A Movable Feast has been my literary study for the past nine weeks, leaving this week's post as the last one. With that knowledge, this post should provide some sort of conclusion to the whole study. I plan on doing this through looking at conclusions in general.

The conclusion paragraph of A Movable Feast summarizes the main themes of the whole memoir. It relates back to the everlasting quality of Paris, the benefits of happiness and health, and the theme of wealth or rather lack of wealth. These points are important because they accomplish what every conclusion is supposed to: summary, analysis, and conclusions from that analysis. It summarizes the book through those main themes. It analyses the whole point of why he was writing with his comment, "Paris was always worth it and you received return for whatever you brought to it" (Hemingway 211).  It then concluded that Paris is Paris.  This may sound like it makes no sense by itself, but when you see it against the book you understand. While Paris is a place to many people, to the people who spent the longest periods of time there, especially during the expatriate time during World War 2, it became something more. It became the cultural hotspot, the fantastic place of learning, the Mecca for writers, poets and thinkers. So while Paris is Paris would mean to a tourist that Paris is French and diffferent and fun, to those thinkers, Paris is Paris means so much more. It embodies everything he experienced there. He may have been poor and struggling but while in Paris, even that couldn't hold him back. He was happy. Paris meant happiness to Hemingway.

Aside from what Hemingway tells us about his time in Paris, we can also see a lesson in his conclusion.  Humdrums to be avoided at all times. Hemingway shows us that a conlcusion can be more than a restatement of the intro paragraph. It can provide insight as well as leave the literary work in your memory. I personally unerstand the ease of switching the wording around of my thesis into the intro sentence of my conclusion. I am a repeat offender. But as of this year, I have tried for more. We learned about the importance of conclusions in Mr. Miller's class. It should actually be interesting. God forbid a piece of writing is actually fun! If you write something more than the boring standard that we have been taught then people will actually care about reading it. We put so much work into the introduction hook and middle supporting paragraphs, why should we just let it die out in the final paragraph? We should keep their interest the whole time and make them remember us. Think about the ending to any great movie, book or play. It always is more interesting than just restating what was already said. The Great Gatsby ends with a great quote about being borne back against the tide. It provides a new metaphor, but also ends the book in a memorable way. Before I ahd even read the Great Gatsby, I had heard that quote before. That's the mark of a good conclusion. It makes people REMEMBER.

So basically, what we just talked about is how Hemingway made a good conclusion. He also provided an example of what we should do, as writers, in our own conclusions. This post was a conclusion of the AMF study as well as being about a conclusion. I enjoyed AMF.

(See? Wasn't that boring? You will probably forget it because it isn't memorable. It just restates.)