"Mr. and Mrs. Elliot" Summary

Hubert Elliot is a young poet at Harvard who has saved himself for marriage. At the age of twenty-five, he meets forty year old Cornelia Calutina, the owner of a tea shop. They get married and travel abroad. At first, they try to have a baby in the various places on their trip through France before settling into a house in Paris. Their sex life drops off quickly and soon they are sleeping in separate bedrooms. Hubert writes poetry and Cornelia sleeps with one of her female friends.

"Mr. and Mrs. Elliot" Analysis

The relationship between men and women is reduced to sexuality as it generally is in the work of Hemingway. However, in this story, there is a twist, in which the man is sexually innocent and defines his relationships by mutual sexual innocence...