Hemingway's In Our Time from a Feminist Perspective - Essay Example

Hemingway’s “In Our Time” from a Feminist Perspective Ernest Hemingway emerged as one of America’s morecolorful writers in the early to mid-1900s, presenting himself as the ultimate man’s man, worldly traveler, mighty hunter and hard-drinking spinner of tales. Within a short span of time, 1925-1929, he had established himself as having produced some of the most important literary fiction in his century. His short stories focused on the virtues held by men a generation or two earlier than him as well as the effects and aftereffects of war. Yet each story contained a deeper message within the lines, if the reader felt the desire to go searching for it. He believed in omitting extra details as a way of strengthening his stories. He compared this to an iceberg. Just like only the top 1/8th of an iceberg can be seen above the water with the rest remaining below the surface providing it with its momentum and dignity, Hemingway believed his stories should follow the same structure. Although some critics loved him, others said his stories were shallow. “He had no sympathy for women, they said, portraying them either as manhood-destroying bitches or as mere objects of sexual domination” (Lynn, 1987, p. 10). A close reading of his stories reveals not only the messages the author intended to send, but also some insights as to the way he felt about things. This attitude can be seen by closely analyzing three of the stories in In Our Time, including “Indian Camp”, “The End of Something” and “The Three Day Blow.” “Indian Camp” tells the story of a time when Nick Adams accompanies his father and uncle in the middle of the night to an Indian camp where a young woman has been in labor for two days. She can’t have the baby because it is in the wrong position, but the men around her do not seem to be very sympathetic. This lack of sympathy is shown by the idea that it has taken them this long to send for a doctor to help and in the reactions of the men around her. The doctor explains everything in simple terms for Nick to understand, but he doesn’t bother to explain anything about what he’s doing to either the woman or her husband. “I haven’t any anaesthetic … but her screams are not important. I don’t hear them because they are not important” (Hemingway, 1925, p. 16). While the doctor insists that the screams of the woman are not important, even using this phrase twice to emphasize it, the husband on the top bunk rolls over to face the wall and covers his head with a blanket as if he were trying to ignore her. While they are helping the lady, she bites Uncle George during a moment of extreme pain and he calls her a “damn squaw bitch” (Hemingway, 1925, p. 17) while the other men laugh. This type of language indicates that the woman is not important both because she is a woman and because she is an Indian. However, another way of reading this same text can point to an idea that Hemingway might have been trying to indicate the woman is stronger than the men. To begin with, she has been suffering in labor for two days before the doctor arrives, but still has the energy and strength to scream and bite. It takes four men to hold her down while the doctor cuts her open with a jack-knife and she’s still alive at the end. While the doctor’s words about her screams being unimportant might be taken to mean that the woman’s voice and opinion are not important, “the father is trying to emphasize that other things are of prior importance such as, to help the woman give birth and save her. This is much more important than to concentrate on a trivial issue like her screaming” (El-Banna, 2001). Finally, the woman is able to survive the physical and emotional battle of childbirth, but her husband is dead by his own hand, the doctor is shown to have ignored an important part of his job in not attending to the man’s needs earlier, the uncle shows little to no respect for the accomplishment and the boy is permanently damaged by his experience. These messages of opposing ideas concerning the relationships of men with women are continued in Hemingway’s connected stories of “The End of Something” and “The Three Day Blow.” In these stories, Nick is shown with his girlfriend, Marjorie, on a fishing trip where he breaks up with her and then visiting with his best friend Bill as a storm passes over their remote location in the woods. In “The End of Something,” Nick yells at Marjorie because she says she knows something. “You know everything. That’s the trouble,” (Hemingway, 1925, p. 34) he says. Shortly after this, he is “afraid to look at Marjorie” (34). Without any argument, Marjorie simply leaves, speaking again only to let him know she’s taking the boat. This suggests that when Marjorie finally learns what she needs to know to successfully go out fishing with Nick, she becomes too much like a man and is no longer fun. Because she isn’t a man, she is something fearful to look upon, yet when she’s called out for what she is, she leaves quietly, as a woman should. “In real life the rejected woman would not depart without setting a difficult condition” (Lynn, 1987, p. 255). This idea is emphasized when Bill, in “Three Day Blow” tells Nick he did the right thing by breaking things off. “Once a man’s married he’s absolutely bitched … He hasn’t got anything more. Nothing. Not a damn thing. He’s done for” (Hemingway, 1925, p. 46). This leaves little room for doubt as to how the influence of a woman in a man’s life is seen by Hemingway as something unpleasant and reductive. Yet there is still room for a more female-friendly reading of these stories, or at least female strengthening. She is able to learn the ways of fishing and hunting that are the man’s code of honor within the context of the story, having learned everything that Nick had to teach her. Even though she is able to gain the male knowledge, she retains her female status and now appears threatening to Nick because of this ability that he does not share. Marjorie, “who until now has thought everything was fine, and who was more likely to expect a marriage proposal at this point than a breakup” (Ferrero, 1998), responds with grace and dignity, merely standing up and leaving. She is stronger than Nick in that she does not find it necessary to drag him through agonizing steps toward breakup and she is level-headed enough to take the easier way home. Meanwhile, Nick realizes in “The Three Day Blow” that he’s lost everything he ever had with Marjorie. “It was all gone. All he knew was that he had once had Marjorie and that he had lost her. She was gone and he had sent her away. That was all that mattered” (Hemingway, 1925, p. 47). This indicates that while Marjorie has retained the ability to get married and be happy (as indicated by Bill), Nick is left in misery, implying that she is stronger than he is. Although a quick reading of any of these three stories – “Indian Camp”, “The End of Something” and “The Three Day Blow” – can lead a person into believing that Hemingway hated women and was fearful of having relationships with them, a more in-depth reading can also reveal a deeper respect and awe of women. Obvious reasons exist why most readers would anticipate that the women in Hemingway’s stories are weak. The fact that these stories give women little or no voice to speak with and often exclude them completely from the scene has led many to understand that women should remain silent and meek. But a closer reading of how this silence on the part of the women serves to demonstrate an even greater strength than what is shown in the men. According to Linda Patterson Miller, Hemingway intentionally made his female characters quiet and shadowy because “he discovered them more fully by giving them little to say. His women embody the 7/8ths of the iceberg that is down under...” (2002, p. 6). The Indian woman gains strength through her ability to survive the obvious pain she’s in and Marjorie gains strength in her silence as she rows across the lake to a life filled with happiness and fulfillment. Hemingway intentionally leads the reader to believe that these are the ultimate outcomes of the stories, never permitting the weakness of grief to touch these characters despite their sudden and surprising losses. Despite their silence, because of their silence, these women are allowed to walk in strength to better lives than those left behind in the stories of Hemingway. Works Cited El-Banna, Hala. “The Narrative Technique: Ernest Hemingway’s Indian Camp.” The Ambassadors. Vol. 4, I. 1, January 2001. Ferrero, David J. “Nikki Adams and the Limits of Gender Criticism.” The Hemingway Review. Spring 1998. Hemingway, Ernest. In Our Time. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1925 (reprint 1970). Lynn, Kenneth S. Hemingway. New York: Fawcett Columbine, 1987. Miller, Linda Patterson. “In Love with Papa.” Hemingway and Women: Female Critics and the Female Voice. Lawrence R. Broer (Ed.). Tuscaloosa, AL: University of Alabama Press, 2002. Read More