Hemingway’s most episodic novel, To Have and Have Not is arguably his one book in which the sum of the parts does not equal the individual fragments. It certainly is his one novel that does not maintain artistic unity. Although filled with vivid writing and peopled with memorable characters, the book is weak as a novel. In fact, Hemingway was on record as saying that it was conceived as separate short stories although eventually published as a novel.

The first chapters of the novel focus on Harry Morgan’s efforts to support himself and his family. His tools for accomplishing this are his fishing boat, his wits, and his strength. He must depend on the rich, whom he often despises, to charter his boat, and then he must deal with their erratic, often destructive natures. He is not an immoral man, but he is willing to make compromises to achieve his principal goal: clothing and feeding his wife and three daughters. This leads him to progress from fishing trips for rich “sportsmen” to smuggling liquor, ferrying illegal immigrants, and, finally, providing a getaway for gangsters. He is one of the “have nots” and sympathizes with the other “have nots,” but he lives off the “haves.” This means that he must be willing, when necessary, to sacrifice other “have nots” such as the Chinese immigrants, whom he is paid to double-cross.

The episodic chapters reveal Harry Morgan driven closer and closer to the edge, forced to rely more and more on animal cunning and strength. Increasingly, the distance between himself and the “haves” is made clear. In fact, it is the rich who destroy Morgan’s options, so that he must go outside the law and eventually become caught in the violence that ends in his death. A rich tourist, Johnson, sneaks away without paying Morgan for the charter of his boat or the loss of his equipment. Then, when Morgan is smuggling whiskey, he is seen and reported by a pompous rich official, losing the boat that is his only source of income.

The rich, however, exist only in the background of the book, until near the end, when Hemingway focuses on the writer Richard Gordon, his wife, and some of their lovers and acquaintances. Hemingway leaves no doubt in the reader’s mind what he thinks of these characters, but they have nothing to do with the story of Harry Morgan and seem to have been dragged in merely so that their corruption would contrast with the animal power and essential honesty of Morgan.

The episodes of the novel propel Harry Morgan with relentless energy from one situation to another, until he is cornered with no hope of escape. He hates dealing with Johnson, the crooked lawyer Bee-lips Simmons, Mr. Sing (who pays him to double-cross his Chinese passengers), and the Cuban thugs. His distaste and scorn for these people is always evident. He may feel superior to his drunk, part-time helper, Eddy, and to Wesley, the black man who assists with bait, but he respects them more as human beings than he does the slimy characters for whom he must work.

When Morgan loses his own boat, he rents his friend Freddy’s boat so that he can take out the four Cubans. The Cubans rob a bank before boarding the boat, and then kill Morgan’s mate, Albert, because he saw them escaping the bank. Morgan has no time to feel regret, or even fear. When Albert’s body is tossed over the side, Morgan manages to kick over the Cubans’ machine gun. Eventually, he also manages to kill the Cubans, but in doing so he is mortally wounded. The boat drifts until finally it is found by the Coast Guard. They are amazed that he was able to kill the four Cuban thugs. These last moments of Harry Morgan are sharply contrasted with chapters exposing the pettiness of Richard Gordon and others like him, the rich and perverse who think that they are moral and socially aware but who actually are totally selfish and oblivious to true human feeling and morality.