Architecture and Culture in Italy - Essay Example

Hemingway's Italy Fiction is often dismissed as being unimportant because it is 'made-up' or not real.What many people seem to overlook, though, is that while the stories themselves may focus on unreal characters or even unreal places, there is generally a great deal of truth found within the pages. This is because the characters reflect recognizable elements of human nature, environments are adapted to human consumption and events are generally modeled after significant events taking place during the author's lifetime even if they are hidden under the facade of an earlier era or fantastic otherworld. For this reason, even authors such as Ernest Hemingway, notorious for his brevity and deceptively simple-sounding stories, can reveal much about the areas they write about. In the novel Across the River and Into the Trees, written in 1950, Hemingway provides a great deal of detail about Italy both in what he says and in what he doesn't say. The story begins with a morning of duck hunting. The protagonist emerges slowly, simply called the shooter at first. His personality is the first thing that becomes known about him as it is revealed through his words with the boatman, his thoughts and his actions. Although coarse and irritable, he is also gentle in his treatment of others and his appreciation of beauty. This is seen in his irritation with the boatman as they work through the ice of the canal, "Get your back in it, jerk" (3) as compared to his understanding of the same man at the end of the book once the Colonel realizes it was his military jacket that set the man off. Throughout the novel, most of which is a flashback to the days just prior to the duck hunt, the people of Italy are consistently referred to as polite and more honest than people elsewhere: "It's a tougher town than Cheyenne when you really know it, and everybody is very polite" (35). Yet there are continual hints that things are not quite as idyllic as the Colonel wants to picture it. Such an instance is introduced in scenes such as the one where the Colonel, then a general, knocked two men unconscious for having the impertinence to whistle at Renata at an even earlier time period or the scene in which he finds it necessary to scare two punks away from him by pretending to be carrying pistols in his pockets as he walks around Venice with Renata's family emeralds in his pocket. The Colonel's ability to appreciate the beauty of the landscape around him also helps to reveal the character and geography of Italy. This initial landscape is seen as particularly inhospitable, though, full of icy canals and tall grasses - giving an impression of a frozen marshland. It is expanded as the Colonel and his driver make their way across country as "one farm blended, almost blurred, into another farm and you could only see what was far ahead and moving toward you" (14) and given texture as the driver starts to talk about the artists of the country, such as Titian: "if he painted any pictures of that country up around there, with those sunset color rocks and the pines and the snow and all the pointed steeples" (15-16). This glimpse of the country is also given a dual nature as the Colonel approaches the city, looking out at the flat canal-lined boulevard that they're following and remembering the ghastly scene of soldiers bodies, bloated and floating on unmoving water in those canals and yet also observing the peaceful, gentle motion of a sail from one of the barges moving slowly through one of those canals. This image of Italy finally opens up into the streets of Venice with the mention of St. Mark Square and the Colonel relives his last day with his girl, a 20-year-old native beauty in a segment that takes up most of the bulk of the book. In this consistent representation of the dual nature of both the people and the place, the book is very much in keeping with the historical era in which it was written. The second World War had just ended in which many of the older men fighting had already seen their share of war a few decades earlier during the first great war. One of the differences with World War II was the way it was fought. A good deal of this second war was fought with biting propaganda, fierce diplomatic scuffles and sporadic but brutal military skirmishes as each country tried to discredit the leaders of their rivals and touched off difficulties among themselves. The inherent differences in understandings and cultural pursuits that preceded WWII intensified following the war. Former allies began to mistrust each other while former enemies had to find a way to get along (Weinberg). Many of the atrocities committed during the war on both sides were still being discovered, touching off a fascination among the civilians about war stories as is demonstrated through the character of Renata. As often as she can, she is questioning the Colonel about what he saw in war, idolizing him for his participation in it and his gallantry in protecting her honor several years earlier. Those who had survived the atrocities of the war were much like the Colonel and the men he meets - shattered individuals struggling to come back to a 'normal' way of life. "War and armed conflict can cause lasting harm to individuals - not only from the psychological shock of war-related trauma but from physical injury and disability as a result of the war ... multiple authors assert that resolving psychological trauma may help to reduce the reoccurrence of war" (Martz 5) and conflict. This concept was also known or at least suspected at the time Hemingway wrote this book and plays its own role in the novel as part of the multi-leveled driving force behind the girl's questioning of the Colonel. She encourages him to "tell me true and hold me tight and tell me true until you are purged of it; if that can be" (225) as if she is aware of what is most important for the well-being of the soul she loves. It is very possible that she is aware of this as she tells him later, "We are an old town and we had fighting men always. We respect them more than all others and I hope we understand them a little" (239). Both characters are well aware of the Colonel's impending death to heart disease, which also serves to explain the girl's urgency in serving as something in the order of a final confessor. Through this relationship, Hemingway reveals another duality of the times in which people were struggling to rebuild nations and men at the same time that structures were falling apart beneath them. Hemingway orients this novel in Italy which is where he spent part of the war years and was a country on the other side of the ideological divide from America. During the war, Italy was a member of the Axis nations, a group of nations including Germany and Japan that were focused on more or less fascist political orientations. In his book Ethics and Political Theory, Groc says "fascism advocates strong national leadership, a single collective ideology created by heavy indoctrination through social conditioning, and the willingness and ability to commit violence and wage war on other nations as a means of staying strong" (Grcic 120). Much of the reason Italy was on the side of the Axis was because of their treatment coming out of World War I. During that war, Italy lost many men, but felt they had been cheated when the London Pact they'd made was nullified in the Treaty of Versailles that ended the Great War (Weinberg). This anger enabled Benito Mussolini, who became a fascist dictator, to rise to power and get involved in treaties with other growing fascist nations which eventually led to their early involvement in the second World War. However, the Italians suffered a number of devastating defeats and, by the end of the war, had deposed Mussolini and switched sides to fight with the Allies (Dear and Foot). By the time Hemingway wrote this book, Mussolini had been executed by an Italian Communist faction and the country was still struggling to overcome the devastation and the moral defeat of its involvement. As is characterized in the figure of the boatman, they were both beholden to and resentful of the Americans and other Allied forces. Again, Hemingway presents an image divided. Hemingway uses a number of clear images to depict the Italian atmosphere, but he also includes some less obvious references within his pages. Some of the clear images are the depictions of St. Mark's Square. It is mentioned as a place of joy and peace in context of where all the pigeons come, a place of brutality in Renata's memory of the soldier shooting the pigeons and a place of submersion as it becomes flooded by the high tide during Colonel Cantwell's stay. Another clear image is the picture of the gondolas within the Venice canals: "The light from the hotel shone on the blackness of the gondola and made the water green. She looks as lovely as a good horse or as a racing shell, the Colonel thought. Why have I never seen a gondola before? What hand or eye framed that dark-red symmetry?" (149). This thought also references a famous line in a poem by the 18th century English poet William Blake. The poem is "The Tyger" and asks for clarity about the dual nature of the animal, both beautiful and deadly. There are several other references to art in the book, all of the rest being references to Italian masters, most of whom worked during the Renaissance period when Italy was one of the superpowers of the world. The Renaissance that started in Italy in the 14th century eventually expanded to the rest of Europe, giving them the tools, technology and science they would need to create the weapons that would eventually come back to bring Italy to its knees. Throughout the book, as the Colonel continues to make references to the artists, art and beauty of Italy, it always seems to be placed in close proximity to destruction, transience or fading glory. It is plausible to think that Hemingway intended most of the subtle nuances implied by the many references he makes within his text because he strongly believed in omitting extra details in his writing as a way of strengthening his stories. He compared this to an iceberg with most of the substance of the story existing below the visible surface. In this story, though, he breaks one of his traditional stances which is a notorious slander of women: “He had no sympathy for women ... portraying them either as manhood-destroying bitches or as mere objects of sexual domination” (Lynn 10). He also typically created a man who exemplified his concept of machismo. The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines machismo as “a strong sense of masculine pride: an exaggerated masculinity” or as “an exaggerated of exhilarating sense of power or strength." There is a common perception that machismo refers to the negative attributes of drunkenness, abusive dismissiveness toward women and self-centered behavior, but there are positive elements to the term as well, many of which are demonstrated in Richard Cantwell's character. For those who lived by its code, it was well-understood that “a noble man … is a man of his word; should have a sense of responsibility for his own well-being and that of others in his circle; he rejects any form of abuse … physical, emotional, mental or spiritual … to himself or others; should take time to reflect, pray, and include ceremony in life; should be sensitive to understanding; should be like a mirror, reflecting support and clarity to one another; lives these values honestly, and with love” (Rodriguez & Gonzales, 1997). Like many of his other characters, Hemingway creates a character facing up to his own death, treating his woman with gruffness but gentleness, engaging in acts involving guns and outdoor sport and being a part of a masculine-oriented community that shuns most female inclusion. Other elements of true machismo as Hemingway understood it included rejecting abuse and showing concern for the well-being of others, both of which are seen in Cantwell's character as well, such as when he allows Renata to sleep while he remembers his wartime experience. Through his characters, scenes and actions, Hemingway continues to demonstrate a sharply conflicted world in which nothing is at it seems and yet, is all there ever was. Italy is shown to be a land of indescribable beauty and mind-numbing dullness. It is a land of rich history, cultural significance and impressive accomplishments at the same time that it is the scene of unspeakable brutality and submersion of reality. The people are rough and coarse as well as polite and honest. His girl, Renata, is both innocent and wise as she represents both the younger generation's fascination with war stories and the older generation's understanding of the need for a soldier's catharsis of the events he's lived through for the peaceful rest of the soul. These people are rightfully proud of who they are, what they accomplished, and the heritage that they come from but they are also ashamed of their actions, have lost confidence in their beliefs, and struggle to accept their defeat at the hands of their enemies turned allies. Within the pages of the book, Hemingway has characteristically hidden enough story to keep one busy analyzing for a decade and still be left wondering if everything has been revealed. In this, he is both like and unlike any other author of his time, which is completely fitting for an author of this caliber. Works Cited Blake, William. “The Tyger.” Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience. New York: Tate, 2007. Print. Dear, Ian C. B. and Michael Foot (eds). The Oxford Companion to World War II. Oxford UP, 2005. Print. Grcic, Joseph. Ethics and political theory. Lanham, MD: University of America, 2000. Print. Hemingway, Ernest. Across the River and Into the Trees. New York: Scribner's, 1950. Print. Martz, Erin. Trauma Rehabilitation After War and Armed Conflict. New York: Springer, 2010. Print. “Machismo.” Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary. (2009). Web. May 6, 2011. Rodriguez, Roberto & Patrisia Gonzales. “Deconstructing Machismo.” Chronicle Features. San Francisco, (June 20, 1997). Web. May 6, 2011. Smitha, Frank E. “The Cold War Begins.” Macro History. 2001. Web. May 6, 2011. Weinberg, Gerhard L. A World at Arms: A Global History of World War II. Cambridge UP, 1995. Print. Read More