Hemingway and McLain - Research Paper Example

Hemingway and McLain: A Critical Study Introduction Earnest Hemmingway’s ‘The Sun Also Rises’ was originally ‘published in 1926 after the World War 1. The novel present the disillusioned young generation of his time, whose life was profoundly affected by war. Hemmingway was not a soldier but drove an ambulance in Italy where he was wounded and awarded a medal for his courage. He bore both physical and mental scars that he lived with for the rest of his life. He takes his own experiences and dramatizes them through unforgettable characters; Jake Barnes and Lady Brett Ashley. The story unfolds as the flamboyant Brett and unfortunate Jakes journey from the wild nights in Paris to bullfighting rings of Spain with a miscellaneous group of expatriates. It defines the postwar age of moral bankruptcy, unrealized love, spiritual dissolution and vanishing illusions (Timeless Hemingway 1) ‘The Paris Wife’ by Paul McLain was published in 2011. The novel is a biographical fiction about Hemmingway’s first marriage to his wife Hadley. The author explores the time periods, cultures and the prominent artistic neighborhood that the couple lived in and how Hemmingway became a good writer (McLain 3). A Critical Study The two novels are connected in many ways. First Hemmingway in his novel revolves around characters Jake Barnes and his expatriate friends in Paris. They occasionally work but spend a lot of time partying, drinking and arguing. The author uses Jakes Perspective to bring out the cast of other characters in the story. Lady Brett Ashley is brought out as exciting, beautiful and unpredictable British divorcee. Another important character is Robert Cohn who weak, unlucky and even is unsuccessful as a writer (Boon, 18). McLean on the other hand views Hemmingway through Hadley’s eyes. The story opens in Paris before an extended flashback where Hadley recalls her early days in St. Louis, how she met Hemingway and their short courtship. The author shows their life in Paris from the humble beginning in the garret apartment to the notorious trip to Lausanne during which Hadley lost all of Hemmingway’s drafts of three years. Other trips that inspired Hemingway’s ‘The Sun also Rises’ include the Paris races, Skiing in Austria and bullfighting in Pamplona (Boon 19). The time frame in the two stories is similar where both are set in the post world war 1 period. The two novels depict an era of open relationships or marriages. In ‘The sun also rises’, McLain shows male artists Fond, Pound and eventually Hemmingway taking their mistresses to the same home as their wife. In Hemingway’s novel, Brett is separated from her husband and waiting divorce. She has affairs with a number of men but she does not want to commit to a relationship with any of them. Even though she loves Jake she is unwilling to give up sex in order to commit to him (Wagner 31). The two novels depict the aimlessness of the lost generation. The men and women who faced the war became psychologically and morally lost. In Hemmingway’s novel, Jake, Brett and their friends no longer believe in anything. Their lives are empty and the consequences are drinking, escapist activities such as dancing and debauchery. McLain brings out Hemingway and his friends lives to be similar. She refers to them as the fabled ‘lost generation’ that includes Gertrude Stein, Ezra Pound and F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald. Despite the love that he shared with his wife, Hemingway grows costly and this becomes more challenging to Hadley (Burke 26). The characters are connected in a way. Hemingway uses Jake to show the effects of a young man’s life after war trying to put back the pieces together. Jake is wounded after war. Although he does not say so straightforwardly, there are several suggestions in the novel that show results of his injury; he lost the ability to have sex. In many ways he appears to fit in the “lost generation” group whose experiences in the world-war 1 undermines their belief in justice, manhood, love. Lack of these emotions made this generation to live aimlessly without any ideals to rely on. McLain’s work presents Hemingway according to how Hadley viewed him. Hadley states that Hemingway’s eyes were opaque; she could easily tell when he was hurt or wounded. He too was affected by World War 1 and just like the protagonist character in his book, he was an escapist. He wanted to escape the Post war realities by moving to Paris (McLain 102). In ‘the sun also rises’, Jake acknowledges that those memories will not disappear even if one moves from place to place. The author quotes “You can’t get away from yourself by moving from one place to another”. It is the same author that writes this that is ironically seen to move from place to place. Both the protagonists in the two books perceive the problems in their life, but they are unwilling or either unable to remedy them. They understand well the dilemmas of the lost generation but they choose to remain trapped in them (Boon 23). Hadley is traditional and stands her ground. Unlike her husband, she is not easily swayed by the new culture and their acquaintances. She remained herself in the thorny volatile world. In ‘The Paris wife’, Hadley’s voice speaks from shadow. It reflects the thought of one who has seen it all from the beginning. She is the one, who after three months of marriage moved to Paris and began her critical role of the ever kind and loving partner. Within seven years she had observed transformation of Hemingway from a discontented journalist to a successful novelist. In the novel ‘the sun also rises’ It cannot be denied that Brett has also seen it all, or at least a better part. She is a divorcee and the author presents her as a powerful woman (De 16). Her beauty and charisma seems to charm everyone she comes across. She refuses to commit to anyone although her independence does not make her happy. She disrupts relationship between men with her presence. Hemmingway’s views depicts that a liberated woman is a corrupting and dangerous force for men. It is very ironic since in the end he leaves her conservative wife for her friend Pauline (De 17). McLain shows Hemmingway’s first marriage to his first wife and their life in Paris as most important in his writing of his first successful work. Hemingway’s novel reflects his own life. However he doesn’t mention his wife in this novel but she appears in several instances in the novel ‘A moveable feast’. McLean novel show how Earnest and Hadley began their life in a flush of love. Hemingway writes while her wife cooks and they drink away the evenings. She quotes” Until we were beautifully blurred and happy to be there together”. The fact that Hadley was different from his friends inspired him in his writing career (Tyler 7). Throughout the story, she referred to herself as a ‘Victorian’ and not a ‘Modernist’ like the rest of her friends did. This quiet support helped Hemmingway become a better writer, the person he aspired to be before. In the novel it is clear that Hadley wanted them to achieve their dreams. He asked him before leaving for Paris,” What do you aspire to be?”, and he replied, “Make literary history, I guess”. He had already been seriously wounded in Italy and suffering from shaking nightmares, but Hadley was there to love him unconditionally and offer him abundant sympathy with compassionate sensitivity (Book club 72). He supported him in order to achieve his dream since she achieved her dream to be a wife. The two understood each other and were aware that what they had was true and incredibly rare. Hemmingway opened her up and encouraged her to live more broadly and more passionately. She anchored him, made him feel safe, loved him and gave him the freedom to pursue his dreams. McLain states that the two characters complemented each other perfectly (Timeless Hemingway 16). When they first arrived in Paris, Hadley’s expression differed from Hemingway’s. She viewed the city as “war-shocked, tawdry and raw”. This is in contrast with how Hemingway views Paris. He is delighted by the place. Hadley in time comes to appreciate the “oddity and splendor” of the place in order to support his husband. Hemingway was able to make Paris his university. This shows how his life in Paris would be important for his dreams. He wanted recognition. From here, he could gather information from working class Parisians as well as the expatriate intellectuals who mostly served as his mentor (Tyler 6). One of the best examples is an episode in Paris that Ezra Pound and Gertrude Stein assisted him build a blazingly new way to write fiction. He was able to study the Cezannes at the Musee du Luxembourg, and learn how to convert their purity into language. He could bear long strenuous hours to writing in cafes and garrets knowing that Hadley, who hoped for his accomplishment keenly as if it were her own, would be waiting for him soothingly at home. This thought of his supportive wife in a way contributed to his success (McLain 36). According to McLain, the city turned grey and rainy. Hardly was trying to make Hemingway choose between her and his work. His refusal signals were the beginning of the end. Two months later, when Hemmingway was covering the peace conference in Lausanne and Hadley planned a surprise visit to him. She brought all his manuscripts, including carbon copies and a novel in progress. She packed them in a small suitcase which got lost on the train. This did not make Hemmingway happy. Their relationship had started to fall apart. As Jakes female counterpart, Hadley lulls herself into a willful state of self denial while her writer husband shapes “human disaster and messiness” into something that would last forever. She rationalizes her grief by romanticizing Hemmingway’s talent. She wants a child but Earnest does not. She says, ‘I was supposed to have my own thoughts and dreams and be exceptionally ambitious for experience and new knowledge”. Hadley was content, but she thought getting pregnant would save her marriage. These hardships in the city and marriage drove Hemmingway to work hard in order to succeed (McLain 106). Hadley was with him even during her pregnancy. She felt the need to go to Canada in order to deliver her child there. They sailed to Canada in September 1923 and a month later their child Bumby was born. While here he was working for the Toronto Star and became friends with Novelist Morley Callaghan and writer/ broadcaster Gordon Sinclair. This encounter helped him a great deal as when he went back to Paris, he began his career as a novelist. Hemmingway is able to use his own experiences to interweave facts and fiction. In his novel ‘the sun also rises’ the life of the characters reflects that Hemmingway and his friends in Paris. Nearly all of Jack’s friends are alcoholics similar to Hemmingway’s friends. Drinking allows them to endure lives severely with no purpose. Hemmingway portray that alcohol brings out the worst in a character for instance in Mike. Hemingway loves drinking and passing time with his friends. He is living the same way that the characters he is writing about do. He writes from his perspective, only that the characters names are changed. Otherwise they are counterparts of his circle of friends (Burke 112). In both ‘the sun also rises’ and ‘the Paris wife’ bull fighting episodes are common. Just as the bulls fight, Cohn, Mike and Jake become violent to each other in command of Brett’s attention. In the arena, Belmonte once commanded the affection of the crowd which now shifted to Romero. This symbolize the lost generation whose time has already passed on. The author uses bullfighting to symbolize destructiveness of sex. In person, Hemingway loved bull fighting and there is an episode where his wife is even comparing her body to that of the bull. Such thoughts in writing may have been triggered by personal experiences (Timeless Hemingway 10). It is ironic how McLain refers to Hadley as the ‘Paris wife’ yet she is a faithful and loyal companion unlike the other Paris characters in the story. She is nothing Parisian but it is because of her naivety and idealism that she followed Hemingway to Paris. It was his idea and not hers to move to Paris. But this trip proves to be important in the career of Hemmingway as a writer. It is here that he left Hadley and married her friend Pauline. The two immediately moved to America as if it was Hadley’s idea to move to Paris in the first place. Despite the fact that he left Paris, it left an indelible mark in his life and work as reflected in the novel ‘a moveable feast’ (Hemingway 21). While persuasively imagining familiar events from Hadley’s perspective, McLain bases his works on known facts and uses fiction slightly. For instance, there is a letter that Fitzgerald wrote to Hemingway, advising him to cut the first fifteen pages of the ‘sun also rises’. This becomes a meeting between the two writers during which Fitzgerald inspires Hemingway in a big deal. In fact, Fitzgerald helped Hemingway in a more significant manner than McLain acknowledges in her book. McLain’s book captures Hemmingway legendary charisma and his fatal tendencies towards bullying and boastfulness. The book presents Hadley as a perfect faithful wife who should not .be blamed for her broken marriage. However she explains from the beginning that she was such a bore. Some readers wish that McLain had given Hadley a more distinct voice from the highly stylized prose of the ‘moveable feast’ (McLain 4). McLain manages to put quite a picture of the life that Hemingway and Hadley had in Paris. In ‘moveable feast’, Hemingway explains “This is about the first part of Paris, the Paris you could never put in a single book”. McLain vividly presents a pregnant Hadley sewing baby blankets between blankets between bullfights. She slowly unfolds sadly how all the youthful men and women will turn out to be and how the bright young things will taint and crumble, just like the love between Hemmingway and his wife. The author has come very close to present all the activities that the couple encountered in one book (De 22). The book “Moveable feast”, is another successful work of Hemmingway. It gives an account of experiences and times that Hemmingway had in Paris. He describes a great deal of drinking, writing in the cafes that he frequented, visits to Gertrude Stein’s and her homosexuality and how she characterized the ‘lost generation’. He describes a point in life when Hadley loses all his manuscripts. He spends considerable time to describe Fitzgerald and his wife Zelda. The book end with an account of the idyllic time he and Hadley spent in the Vorarlberg Alps of Austria skiing and studying snow and avalanches. McLain refers to this novel to show the importance of Hemmingway’s first marriage and life in Paris with the contribution it had on his success as a writer (Lee 100). From this novel, the reader gets a sense of nostalgia for the struggle and hardship that characterized his introduction into a writer’s life in literature. It is an extended mediation on how he became a great writer. Hemingway operated under a simple rule which enabled him to succeed in writing. In his book he says, “Do your best to write what is true”. He suggested that if writers followed this rule, then they would on the way writing something that is good. In his memoir he presents a life that, despite its hardships is undeniably attractive and alluring. It is interesting that this book was brought together so close, in the end to his suicide. There’s such an elegiac tone to his reminiscences as if he really who people were back then and what he felt about them. The messiness of his traumatic memory and the inevitable interweaving of fact and fiction is perhaps a symbolism of his muddled mental state. In a way, this memory saw him write his works from the first to the very last one, before his suicide. According to some critics, many parallels have been drawn between Earnest Hemingway’s life and fiction. Most of the scholars have an agreement that the character who mostly resembles Hemingway is Nick Adams. There is some opposition however, concerning whether it is Hemmingway’s personality or experiences which are embodied to his characters. Most of Hemingway’s fictional work is based on his individual experience. When crafting the fiction, he formulates from this experience. A scholar Philip Young pays particular attention to the injury that Hemingway suffered while he was working as an ambulance driver for the Italian army. He shows how this episode resurfaces in his literature (Lee 103). Some Hemingway’s contemporary had theories that argued why the great author was so prone to walking down the aisle. His friend Fitzgerald felt that Hemingway needed a new woman for every big book. William Faulkner pointed out that “Hemingway’s mistake was that he thought he had to marry them all”. All these show that Hemingway was not the easiest person to live with. In his book ‘moveable feast’ he never forgave himself for betraying Hadley his first wife since she is the one he cared for most. This indicates the importance that Hadley had in his life and how their life together in Paris led to a multiple of successful works and books. (Timeless Hemmingway 7). In conclusion, both novels trigger different emotions that flow through the pages. The two novels have a close connection through the story line and the events that occur in both books. McLain tells the story of Hemingway through her fist wife Hadley, point of view while Hemingway tells his story from his own experiences and personality. In the end, Hemingway takes his own life symbolizing the end of the end of the ‘lost generation’ just as symbolized by Jake’ impotence in ‘the sun also rises’. Both books are clearly written, have colorful characters, and a picturesque backdrop of a truly artistic and bohemian time in Paris. The drama, the mundane and even the tragedy turned out to be poignant. The two are recommended books for a book club. Work Cited Book club-in-a-box discusses the Paris Wife, by Paula Mclain: The Complete Package for Readers and Leaders. Book club-In-A-Box, 2012. Print. Boon, Kevin A. Ernest Hemingway. Tarrytown, NY: Marshall Cavendish Benchmark, 2007. Print. Hemingway Ernest The sun also rises. 1926. Print Burke, David. Writers in Paris: Literary Lives in the City of Light. Berkeley: Counterpoint, 2008. Print. De, Tessan C. H. Forever Paris: 25 Walks in the Footsteps of the Chanel, Hemingway, Picasso, and More. San Francisco: Chronicle Books, 2012. Internet resource. Hemingway Ernest. The moveable feast. Simon & Schuster Publishers 2009.Print Lee, Jun Y. History and Utopian Disillusion: The Dialectical Politics in the Novels of John Dos Passos. New York: Peter Lang, 2007. Print. McLain, Paula. The Paris Wife: A Novel. New York: Ballantine Books, 2011. Print. Timeless Hemingway. The Ernest Hemingway Primer. Timeless Hemingway Publications, 2009.print Tyler, Lisa. Student Companion to Ernest Hemingway. Westport, Conn: Greenwood Press, 2001. Print. Wagner-Martin, Linda. Hemingway: Eight Decades of Criticism. East Lansing, Michigan: Michigan State University Press, 2008. Print Read More