Ernest Hemingway's influence on the development of American Literature - Research Paper Example

?Ernest Hemingway’s influence on the development of American literature is immeasurable, and his achievements as a novelist and a short story have never been put into question. His narrative art possesses a unique sensibility and insight into the lives of his characters. His works are just like his life: filled with characters who are initially strong, yet who get weakened by addiction, characters who sometimes question their own masculinity, characters who fight in wars and are left with life long scars, characters who contemplate death. A writer’s work always depicts his life and it is only a question of finding the right references. Hemingway’s dramatic and adventurous life style had always put him in the spotlight, and besides being a writer for forty years, his other careers included being a “hunter, fisherman, skier, boxer, reporter, soldier, bull-ring and saloon aficionado” (Waldhorn 3). His soldier’s resume includes “service as an ambulance driver for the Italians in WWI (with an honorable wound); activity as a war correspondent in the Greek-Turkish War (1922), the Spanish Civil War (1937-39); the Chinese-Japanese War (1941) and the war against Hitler in Europe (1944-45)” (Bloom 5). In his novels A Farewell to Arms and The Sun Also Rises Hemingway he speaks of a generation who has fought in the war(s), just like him and has become disillusioned by its aftereffects. The war does not symbolize the same thing for people who have survived it in the comfort of their own home or town, and for those who went out into the battlefield and saw death, despair and the crumbling of old values. War changes people and it is exactly this change for the worse that Hemingway aimed to portray in his novels. Just like Faulkner, Cummings and other writers using similar themes, Hemingway “had presented the pathos and endurance and gallantry of the individual caught and mangled in the great anonymous mechanism of a modern war fought for the reasons that the individual could not understand, found insufficient to justify the event or believed to be no reasons at all” (Warren 25). Thus, all these young men were sent to the battlefield with a burning heart to right wrongs. Yet, in the end, they finally realized that they did not understand what wrongs they were supposed to right and this led to the destruction of everything they used to believe in, because their ideals were no longer valid, no longer relevant. What they believed was a sham, and the aftermath of the war had stripped their ideals naked and showed the people the ugly truth. They were not offered a reason, a direction their changed life was supposed to take. It was easy for everyone to continue on after the war, but for the soldiers it was close to impossible. They became “the lost generation” as Gertrude Stein named them (Warren 26). They had lost their youth, their innocence and purity of emotion, and all they could expect from life was misery. Because, how can a man like Jake Barnes from the Sun Also Rises continue with his life normally, when he suffered the strongest blow a man can endure: the loss of his manhood? Many critics believed that Hemingway perceived the world as male-centered and that this emasculation was the result of a generation of wounded soldiers, like Jake, and the generation of women who sought to be liberated from the conventional perception of what a woman is. This was the time of female emancipation, when women like Brett, also from The Sun Also Rises, presented liberated female sexuality, a threat to the patriarchal society Hemingway firmly believed in. He had four marriages, three of which ended in a divorce. His relationship with women was that of dependence and his work offers instances of him eager to free himself from this dependence (Spilka 146). Women of Hemingway’s literature are mostly dependent on their male counterparts, but there is also the other side of the medal, presenting women like Brett as a destructive force. The dependent women include instances such as the young woman in Hills Like White Elephants who is forced to have an abortion against her wishes; the peasant in An Alpine Idyll who abuses the corpse of his late wife due to the fact that he cannot bury her immediately; the Indian women from the collection of Nick Adams stories who are in a hopeless social position. They are all women who depend on their men either emotionally or financially. For most of them, a different kind of life does not exist and they are content. But, for women like Brett, different choices and goals are there and attainable. As an adventurer, Hemingway was a fan of bullfighting and had used this theme and its symbolism extensively in his works ever since he saw his first bullfight in Pamplona in 1923 and it remained of his major passions in life. He considered it a highly “masculine world” (Lynn 365). He believed that if one gathers up the courage to face death, one’s life achieves a state of higher understanding and significance. The matadors face death on a daily basis and thus, their every day counts, while the bullfighting they do symbolizes the pinnacle of adrenalin. This way, Hemingway glorifies the bravery and martyrdom of the matadors in this sacred ritual “against animal force and the odds of death” (Wilson 12). It is man against raw nature in an effort to make sense of his own existence. In addition, Hemingway’s The Old Man and the Sea also contemplates the idea of man against nature. If we take into account the opinion of most critics that nature is usually gendered as being female, this conflict can be symbolic of the conflict between men and women, the male and female concept. Hemingway himself said that “the true sin is masculizing nature” (Beegel 194). For Santiago, the fisherman, the sea is called “la mar” instead of “el mar,” representing his love for it. As a devout fisherman, Hemingway understood how Santiago feels. Even after he survived two serious plane crashes, he still did not cancel his fishing trip afterwards, despite the fact that he was in great pain, which lead him to do even more drinking than usual. But unfortunately, “given the nature of the sea in Hemingway’s novella, this is not a “safe” romance at all but a story about the tragic love of mortal man for capricious goddess” (Beegel 193). Like most of his characters, Hemingway sought a way out in women and drinking, trying to soothe his physical and psychological pain. In the end, the burden became too heavy and Hemingway, like several of his characters, committed suicide. During his last years, his “long debate with himself about self-destruction was moving inexorably toward violent resolution, despite his terrifying belief that suicide was a cowardly, unmanly act” (Lynn 107). It is synonymous with self-destruction, a personal eradication. Yet, from the viewpoint of the person committing it, it may be perceived as “an attempt to eliminate the world” (Lynn 107). It is as if Hemingway desired to beat the world, and the only way was by destroying himself with it. Consequently, if he destroys himself, he will destroy the world, as well. From this point of view, in a battle between the world and the individual, Hemingway is the winner. For a writer having such a diverse and adventurous life, it is impossible not to employ some of his personal traits and events into his work. It is exactly this that gives his works the authenticity of life. References: Beegel, Susan F. “Santiago and the Eternal Feminine: Gendering La Mar in The Old Man and the Sea.” Ernest Hemingway. Ed. Harold Bloom. York: Chelsea House Publishers, 2005. Print. Bloom, Harold. Ernest Hemingway. New York: Chelsea House Publishers, 2005. Print. Lynn, Kenneth Schuyler. Hemingway. London: Harvard UP, 1987. Print. MCMahan, Elizabeth, et al. Literature and the Writing Process. 9th ed. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 2011. Print. Spilka, Mark. “A Retrospective Epilogue: On the Importance of Being Androgynous.” Ernest Hemingway. Ed. Harold Bloom. York: Chelsea House Publishers, 2005. Print. Waldhorn, Arthur. A Reader’s Guide to Ernest Hemingway. New York: First Syracuse UP, 2002. Print. Warren, Robert Penn. “Ernest Hemingway.” Ernest Hemingway. Ed. Harold Bloom. York: Chelsea House Publishers, 2005. Print. Wilson, Edmund. “Hemingway: Gauge of Morale.” Ernest Hemingway. Ed. Harold Bloom. York: Chelsea House Publishers, 2005. Print. Read More