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Louisiana State University LSU Digital Commons LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses Graduate School 1968 Elements of Humor in Ernest Hemingway. Thomas Neal Hagood Louisiana State University and Agricultural & Mechanical College Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_disstheses Recommended Citation Hagood, Thomas Neal, "Elements of Humor in Ernest Hemingway." (1968). LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses. 1490. https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_disstheses/1490 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at LSU Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses by an authorized administrator of LSU Digital Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. This dissertation has been microfilmed exactly as received 69-4473 HAGOOD, Thomas Neal, 1930- ELEMENTS OF HUMOR IN ERNEST HEMINGWAY. Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College, Ph.D., 1968 Language and Literature, modem University Microfilms, Inc., Ann Arbor, Michigan ELEMENTS OF HUMOR IN ERNEST HEMINGWAY A Dissertation Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of the Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in The Department of English by Thomas Neal Hagood B.A., Jacksonville State University, 1954 M.A., Birmingham—Southern College, 1960 August, 1968 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I offer my sincerest gratitude to Professor Lewis P. Simpson and Professor Darwin Shrell of the Department of English of Louisiana State University whose patient and painstaking supervision has made this dissertation possible. I wish to acknowledge debts also to Fred Collins of the Department of English of Memphis State University for spark­ ing my investigation of this topic. My sincere thanks go also to those whose timely encouragements have facilitated my efforts: Dr. H. B. Evans, chairman emeritus of the Department of English of Memphis State University; Dr. John Norris, Chairman of the Department of English at McNeese State College; and Dr. Milton Rickels of the University of Southwestern Louisiana. Last I wish to thank most those who have given most in this effort, my wife Annette and sons Craig, Bruce, and Hugh, who all understand how much they have given and why they have done so. CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS.................... '................ ii ABSTRACT ........................................... V INTRODUCTION ................................. 1 A. Critical Opinion of Hemingway's Humor . 1 B. Purpose and Procedure ................... 7 C. Nomenclature ........ ...... 9 I. THE HUMOR OF YOUTHFUL CYNICISM .................. 27 A. Hemingway's Family and Early Life ..... 27 B. Juvenilia ........................... 40 C. Journalism........................... 46 D. Three Stories and Ten P o e m s .......... 72 E. in our t i m e ......................... 76 F. In Our T i m e ......... 84 II. HUMOR IN THE TORRENTS OF SPRING AND THE SUN ALSO R I S E S ....................................93 A. The Torrents of Spring ...................... 93 B. Hemingway as Tragicomedian: The Sun Also R i s e s ..........................115 III. RESURGENCE OF PESSIMISM: MEN WITHOUT WOMEN AND A FAREWELL TO A R M S ....................... 135 A. Men Without W o m e n ...................... .135 iv CHAPTER PAGE B. A Far ewe 11 to A r m s ......................... 143 IV. THE HUMOR OF THE MACABRE AND OF GLOATING . 159 A. Death in the Afternoon..................... 160 B. Winner Take Nothing ...................... 173 C. The Esquire Letters ...................... 178 D. Green Hills of Africa ............. ...182 V. HUMOR AND SOCIAL REINVOLVEMENT ............... 193 A. TO Have and Have N o t ...................... 193 B. The Fifth Column and the First Forty-Nine Stories ...................... 211 C. For Whom the Bell T o l l s .................... 216 VI. THE FINAL PHASE: LITERARY MORBIDITY .......... 229 A. Acress the River and into the Trees . 230 B. The Old Man and the S e a .................... 239 C. Two Late Stories .................... 241 CONCLUSION ..................................... 244 BIBLIOGRAPHY .................. * ..................... 249 APPENDIX ..... 256 VITA 267 ABSTRACT This study is an examination of the elements of humor in Ernest Hemingway's works. It recognizes that Hemingway was not primarily a humorist, but seeks to prove that grim, ironic humor was important to him in many ways: sometimes as a safety valve for frustration or despair; often in helping to create a realistic picture of life, which Hemingway knew was never entirely without humor; sometimes as a way of achieving tragic effects; and, at other times, as a satirical weapon. This study examines the elements of Hemingway's humor in the juvenilia written at Oak Park High School, in his journalism and poetry, and in one play, as well as his fiction and other work. It also examines the sources and development of his humorous techniques, the relation of humor to his tragic view of life, and the relationship of his life to his use of humor. Hemingway showed a special fondness for writers with a disposition to humor, studied their works, and, at first, modeled his work upon theirs. Poe, 0. Henry, Kipling, Ring Lardner, and Mark Twain were notable influences on him. When he was in Toronto, Heming­ way was influenced by journalistic practices that encour­ aged humor and satire. Sherwood Anderson, dadaism, sur- v vi realism, Hieronymus Bosch's grotesqueries, and Pieter Brughel's earthy humor also influenced him. Chapter I of this study discusses the cynical work of Hemingway's youth, which culminated in Three Stories and Ten Poems, in our time, and In Our Time. These works fea­ ture the Nick Adams-Hemingway character as he is introduced to various moral dilemmas, wounds, and death. There are strong elements of macabre and gloating humor and satire in these works. Chapter II focuses on The Torrents of Spring and The Sun Also Rises. In the former, Hemingway parodied Sherwood Anderson, his former mentor, and forced Liveright to break its contract with him, thus enabling him to sell The Sun Also Rises to Scribner's. The second novel justi­ fied Hemingway's assertion of independence. Its tone is tragicomic, its humorous elements giving greater depth to the tragedy. The vein of humor is stronger in this work than in any other. Chapter III examines the resurgence of pessimism in Men Without Women and A Farewell to Arms. The general tenor of Men Without Women is abnegation. The pes­ simistic tenor continues in A Farewell to Arms, Hemingway's first full-length study of doom. Chapter IV studies the developing depression of spirits in Death' in the' Afternoon and Winner Take Nothing and the lighter tone of Green Hills of Africa. Death-embracing macabre humor predominates in the first two works, but changes to gloating humor in the last. Chapter V discusses Hemingway's rejoining society in To Have and Have Not, The Fifth Column and the First Forty- Nine Stories, and For Whom the Bell Tolls. In this period he shows a strengthened satirical impulse, but his targets change from American complacency to bureaucracy and Fascism. Chapter VI examines Hemingway's most unsuccessful work, Across the River and into the Trees, which fails primarily because the author cannot control his rabid satire, and The Old Man and the Sea, written in a chastened mood, embracing the Crucifixion theme, and demonstrating the least humor of any of Hemingway's works. The recognition of the elements of humor in Heming­ way demonstrates that he has more scope than he is given credit for. He has both a greater emotional range and a greater technical range than is generally acknowledged. INTRODUCTION A. CRITICAL OPINION OF HEMINGWAY’S HUMOR The first essay on the work of Ernest Hemingway ap­ peared in April, 1924, when in our t i m e was reviewed in the trcinsatlantic review in an article signed "M. R. " A second article on Hemingway was published six months later when Edmund Wilson reviewed Three Stories and Ten Poems and in our time for the October, 1924, issue of the Dial. This marked the first appearance in an American publication of a critical study of Hemingway. 2 Since his first notices nearly fifty years ago, critical studies of Hemingway have been published not only in England and America but in France, Germany, Spain, Italy, Russia, Norway, Sweden, Japan, and in our time (Paris: Three Mountains Press, 192 4), is a thirty-two page book of "miniatures" (to use Carlos Baker's nomenclature), and is quite different from in Our Time (New York: Boni and Liveright, 19 25), which is a col­ lection of fifteen short stories. The "miniatures" of in our time, except for two which have been extended to full length stories, are used as interchapters for In Our Time. 2 Edmund Wilson, "Emergence of Ernest Hemingway," The Shores of Light (New York: Farrar, Straus, and Cudahy, 1925y, p7 119. Wilson thought his was the first critical article. In the reprint of his article in Hemingway and His Critics, ed. Carlos Baker (New York: Hill and Wang, 19617*7 p7 57, he corrects the error in a footnote. 1 elsewhere. The volume of studies has become massive and keeps growing. In general, one gets the impression from reading the extensive critical commentary on Hemingway that he has no sense of humor. Nevertheless, we find hints here and there indicating that various early critics saw a sense of humor in Hemingway. In a review published in February, 1926, Lewis Kronenberger found "culture . humor . sophis- 4 tication . objectivity" m In Our Time. When Torrents of Spring appeared in the same year, Ernest Boyd, prejudiced against In Our Time because Hemingway was an expatriate, saw in the author "a genuine humorist and a critic so shrewd" as 5 to "possibly cure the disease he so well diagnoses." A half dozen years later, in 1932, Joseph Warren Beach, not noticeably enthusiastic about Hemingway, commented on under­ statement, satire, and a certain irrational quality in his early work.

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