After reading Ernest Hemingway's to have and have not I realized that it could have been interperated a couple of different ways. The main character, Harry Morgan, was a driven man. Early in the story Harry was being betrayed as a man that just wanted to make a living for his family. In my opinion, it was due to a couple of misfortunate circumstances (more like getting ripped off by his own friends) that made him turn his legal operation, a fishing boat, into a transportation for whatever paid the most. .
Harry found that transporting liquor from Cuba to the states during prohibition was a more profitable trip than using his boat for just a fishing charter. When he was on his way back from Cuba on one of his smuggling trips, Cubans who were trying to steal his cargo shot him in the arm. Since he didn't get any medical attention right away, his arm had to be amputated thus painting him as a traditional pirate. Although Harry lived the life of a pirate, he had a loving family and a wife who adored him. Marie, his wife, described Harry in the Chapter Fourteen; "She watched him go out of the house, tall, wide shouldered, flat backed, his hips narrow, moving, still, she thought, like some kind of animal, easy and swift and not old yet, he moves so light and smooth like, she thought and when he got in the car she saw him blonde, with the sunburned hair his face with the broad mongol cheek bones, and the narrow eyes, the round jaw, and getting in the car he grinned at her and she began to cry." "His goddamn face, " she thought. "Every time I see his goddamn face it makes me want to cry." Marie wasn't the most beautiful woman but she was a loving wife who cherished everything about her husband.
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Richard Gordon was introduced into the story when he walked into Freddy's bar with his wife Helen Gordon.
