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Themes

The popularity of Hemingway's work to a great extent is based on the themes, which according to scholar Frederic Svoboda are love, war, wilderness and loss, all of which are strongly evident in the body of work.^[177] These are recurring themes of American literature, which are clearly evident in Hemingway's work. Critic Leslie Fiedler sees the theme he defines as "The Sacred Land"—the American West—extended in Hemingway's work to include mountains in Spain, Switzerland and Africa, and to the streams of Michigan. The American West is given a symbolic nod with the naming of the "Hotel Montana" in The Sun Also Risesand For Whom the Bell Tolls.^[178] According to Stoltzfus and Fiedler, Hemingway's nature is a place for rebirth, for therapy, and the hunter or fisherman has a moment of transcendence when the prey is killed.^[179]Nature is where men are without women: men fish; men hunt; men find redemption in nature.^[178] Although Hemingway writes about sports, Carlos Baker believes the emphasis is more on the athlete than the sport,^[180] while Beegel sees the essence of Hemingway as an American naturalist, as reflected in such detailed descriptions as can be found in "Big Two-Hearted River".^[8]