CHARACTERIZATION Of THE AMBHICAH ABEOAD 11 fH UOflOl OF SHIEST HEMINGWAY APPROVED: ~V.1_ Ha^or Professor (?. ''C/u. Minor pWfeasor Wree^or of " of English /(ru^tn*«4LA^. Deanan orf the Graduate School CHARACTERIZATION Of THE AMERICAN ABROAD II THE FICTION OF SRNSST HBMINGVAT THESIS Presented to the Graduate Council of the North Texas State College in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements For the Degree of MASTER OF ARTS Rosan Augusta Jordan, B. A. Denton, Texas August, 1961 TABLE Of CONTESTS Chapter Pag® I. INTRODUCTION: HSUINGVAY ABHOAD ....... 1 II, AMERICAN TGU1XST3 10 III. AMERICANS LIVING ABROAD . 18 I?, THE HEMINGWAY HSROSS 28 V. CONCLUSION 58 BIBLIOGRAPHY ..... 62 ill CHAPTER I INTKOBUCTION: HEMINGWAY ABROAD Many young men returning to America after World War I were conscious of a monotonous mediocrity which was spreading across the United States. Somehow their roots had been destroyed during th@ war, leaving them conscious of belonging nowhere. Feeling themseives above distinc- tions of class or education, many of them took refuge in Paris, where they felt that individuality could flourish. Their cynicism enabled them to live in a world in which they had been disillusioned, for they were determined that never again could they be fooled by false promises, Sdwin Berry Bergum, in "The Psychology of the Lost Genera- tion,1* describes the -American expatriates in Paris! Proud of their sophistication, they refused to acknowledge the aimless&ess of their lives# They imposed upon their random activities 00 rigid a con- trol as to provide an illusion of purpose, even of heroism, , , , To keep a stiff upper lip was their most valid rule, affording them a specious unction of manhood, carrying over into their frivolous peacetime pursuits the stoicism of the soldier to grin and bear. Actually the inner turmoil broke through the purpose of the facade by becoming stylized as a part of it. For this code of manners had overtones of irony and indeed of hateful- ms8. A Hemingway belonged to this generation of expatriate Americans, and from it 'tote frequently derived his subject matter. As a young man of seventeen, Hemingway left the United States to serve as a led Cross volunteer with the Italian army. Hungering to play a more active part in the war, Hemingway began to carry such things as candy and cigarettes directly to the front, where he became a familiar and welcome figure among the Italian soldiers. On the seventh day of this service, he was wounded by the exploding fragments of a trench mortar which landed close to him. In The Apprentice ship of Brnest Hemingway * Charles A. Penton sums up the psychological and artistic implications of Hemingway's first contact with war: The wound permitted him to assume the role of semi-professional soldierhood at the very least, with the privileges and responsibilities attending that role* His front-line service was brief and taamar- tial, but the wound qualified him as a combat man and deepened his absorption in war as a temporary arena for the study of men and the practice of his creative energy* Because of the shock of the wound, and the three months of enforced idleness, Hemingway was able "hidwin Berry Bergus, "the Psychology of the Lost Generation," Srnest Hemingway: The Han and His Work * edited by L rrlr*McCaffiry ('OlivelaSS,'"TOBTT pp. 313-314. to evaluate, even if only in an elementary way, the experiences m had endured and observed.2 After his convalescent leave ended, Hemingway managed to enter the Italian infantry, where he served for two months until the Armistice in lovember, 1918, thus gaining the experience of combat, He was later recommended for, and received, the silver medal of valor for his conduct at the time when he was wounded, from this phase of his life he drew much of the material used in A garewell to Arms, These experiences left him with deep and intense feelings about war and fighting men. Later, when men began to write cynically of this phase of the war, Hemingway held on to his own memories of Italy: I thought . about what a great advantage an eaeperience of war was to a writer. It was one of the major subjects and certainly one of the hardest to write truly of and those writers who had not seen it were always very Jealous and tried to make it seem unimportant, or abnormal, or a disease as a subject, while, really, it was just something quite irreplace- able that they had missed.5 In December, 1921, Hemingway sailed for Europe to serve as a roving correspondent of the foronto Star, making Paris his headquarters. This expatriation preceded the beginning of the mass expatriation of young American artists? it was simply a personal need that motivated 2 Charles A, Penton, The Apprenticeship of Ernest Hemingway (Hew York, 1954)7P» °7» 5Ibid., p. 55. Hemingway* s move to Paris, the earlier events of Ms life having formed a steady stream of disillusionment which, had built up into a dissatisfaction with life in the United States, In Paris Hemingway wrote about the American bohemians who flocked to the Cafe Hotonde. The story, which was printed by the Star Weekly* constituted a statement of Hemingway*s creed. He wrote: The real Paris is thoroughly hidden from casual tourists. It is an artificial and feverish Paris, operated at great profit for the entertainment of the buyer and his like who are willing to pay any prices for anything after a few drinks.*- Penton adds that Hemingway's contempt was always for the tourist rather than for those who cheated him. "For those who knew Paris, he maintained, there was a completely dif- ferent and authentic night life.His impressions of Paris at this time form the background for The Sun Also Rises. As a Journalist Hemingway covered the Genoa Economic Conference in 1922, an experience which helped to increase his political disenchantment. He next spent several weeks traveling through Spain, Switzerland, Italy, and Germany. Renewing his associations by seeing these countries from a 4Ibid., pp. 130-131. 5Ibid., p. 131. fresh perspective helped give Hemingway an intimacy with Europe which would enable him to create an atmosphere of authenticity of setting in his European novels. His expatriate view of Europe served to illuminate the short- comings of the culture he had been eager to leave behind. After a trip to Germany in the late summer of 1922, Hemingway went to Asia Minor to cover the crisis in the Hear last, where he increased his knowledge of the science of war. In late 1922, Hemingway covered the Lausanne Confer- ence for the Hearst news agencies. At Lausanne he met William Bolitho Ryall, who taught him much about the workings of international politics, strengthening in him "his knowledgeability, his Instinct for being on the Inside, and his insistence that one should think for himself." ' The series of articles which Hemingway wrote on the French occupation of the Euhr during his assignment in 1925 demonstrated his understanding of a nation not his own. After The Sun Also Eises was published in 1926, Hemingway continued to live modestly in Paris, with excur- sions to Spain for the bull fights and to Tyrol for skiing. He then went back to the United States to work on 6Ibid., p. 195. A Farewell to Arms, Living in Key West from 1928 to 1938, Hemingway earned a reputation as Ma fisherman, a big-game hunter, and an all-around sportsman. At Bimini in 1936 when civil war broke out in Spain, Hemingway raised $40,000 on his personal notes to buy ambulances for th® Loyalist armies# He made several trips to Spain as a correspondent for the North American News- paper Alliance, becoming a friend of the military leaders during his visits to the front. "He was taking a post- graduate course in war, after his freshman studies in Italy and his field work with the Greeks in Asia Minor."8 It was from his experience in this war that Hemingway produced For Whom the Bell Tolls. In his article "Not Spain but Hemingway," Arturo Barea describes Hemingway as he knew him in Madrid in early spring, 1937: I remember him vividly now, as I knew him it those monthsj big and lumbering, with the look c? a worried boy on his round face, diffident and yet consciously using his diffidence as an attraction, & good fellow to drink with, fond of dirty jokes "pour epater 1 *Espagnol," questioning, sceptical and intelligent in his curiosity, skilfully stressing his political ignorance, easy and friendly, yet remote and somewhat sad." %aleol® Cowley, "A Portrait of Mister Papa," Ernest Hemingway: The Han and Hig Work, edited by J. K. M. McCaffery (Cleveland, 19^6)» p. 51* 8Ibid.. p. 42. ^Arturo Barea, "Not Spain but Hemingway,w Horizon« III (May, 1941), 360. Barea describes Hemingway as mixing more with, the soldiers in the bars than with the pretentious Left-Wing intel- lectuals* "He could speak well with Spaniards, but he never shared their lives* neither in Madrid, nor in the trenches."1® As a Spaniard who lived through the period of the Spanish War, Barea complains that while Hemingway1 s portrayal of parts of Spanish life is accurate, he still is limited by the narrowness of his knowledge, that his picture of Spain is not the true Spain but only Hemingway's Spain. Hemingway published fo Have and Have Hot in 195?. la- this book the European scene is replaced by Key West— "like the Paris of 1925* an outpost of the world in ro£«H—a 3jmboi for Hemingway of America in the depres- sion.