Response to Hemingway Profile

After reading the essay about Lillian Ross' "Portrait of Hemingway," I better understand what goes into creating a character profile. Ross, as the essay states, utilizes a "fly on the wall" technique to paint a picture of the writer. While she does incorporate some biographical facts here and there, she mainly chooses to focus on a few motifs that are expressed throughout the article. Hemingway's alcoholism is described matter of factly, and personality traits are formulated not by explicitly stating them, but instead, by what she witnesses directly and how it is that his wife, son, store clerks etcetera are reacting to him. He came off as a know it all with a strong personality: the kind of person that's always right and always has the last word. However, Ross gives us the information subtly. She describes what I find to be annoying traits in Hemingway and contrasts that with reactions from the people around him who seem either not to mind or too timid to say otherwise. I think Ross' technique in creating this kind of subtextual tension is interesting because one could either choose to not notice it, or maybe even genuinely miss it because it is so subtle. She very craftily manages to paint a picture of Hemingway that could be described either as a positive portrayal of the writer, or a negative. What I learned in reading the piece was that writing a profile of someone is comparable to reality TV. Everything in it has happened, but it is up to the editor to create a story from it all.