Hemingway's Book: In our time

The primary theme of “My Old Man” is Joe's youthful disillusionment with the values and behavior of his “old man.” Young Joe must come to grips with the conflict between his love and respect for his father and the disappointment he feels about his father's connivance with a corrupt racing system. The boy's ambivalence, which has been of central concern to Ernest Hemingway's critics, sets up the problematic ending that has received much of their attention.

One of Hemingway's biographers, Michael Reynolds, identified “My Old Man” as the first story the writer began after leaving Chicago and as ...