Hemingway and the Influence of Religion and Culture

Home , Leicester Hemingway, Mary Welsh Hemingway, Michael Katakis, Pauline Pfeiffer, Pilar (boat), The Dangerous Summer

HEMINGWAY AND THE INFLUENCE OF RELIGION AND CULTURE

______

A Thesis

Presented

to the Faculty of

California State University Dominguez Hills

______

In Partial Fulfillment

of the Requirements for the Degree

Master of Arts

Humanities

______

Jeremiah Ewing

Spring 2019

Jeremiah Ewing

2019

This work is dedicated to my father, Larry Eugene Ewing, who finished his Master’s in

Liberal Arts in 2004 from California State University, Sacramento, and encouraged me to

pursue my own.

iii

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

My thanks to Dr. Lyle Smith who helped and guided me through the process.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

PAGE

DEDICATION ...... iii

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ...... iv

TABLE OF CONTENTS ...... v

ABSTRACT ...... vi

CHAPTER

1. INTRODUCTION ...... 1

New Historicism ...... 1 The Cultural Context and Overview of the Chapters to Follow ...... 4

2. HEMINGWAY AND JUDAISM ...... 6

Historical Overview of Judaism...... 6 Judaism in Hemingway’s Biography and in his Novels ...... 15

3. HEMINGWAY AND CHRISTIANITY ...... 28

4. HEMINGWAY’S SPIRITUALITY ...... 48

5. CONCLUSION ...... 71

WORKS CITED ...... 74

ABSTRACT

Despite having been raised a Congregational Protestant, Ernest Hemingway abandoned the faith of his youth after he left home—especially, after he experienced destruction and death in the Italian theater during World War I. In the following years,

Hemingway converted to Catholicism when he married his second wife, Pauline Pfeifer.

Hemingway also had an anti-Semitic streak, often using racial slurs, and even making the villain in his first novel, The Sun Also Rises, to be a rich Jew. This thesis uses new historicism as the critical lens through which to view Hemingway’s attitude towards

Judaism and Christianity. It includes an investigation of his biography and some of his novels. Though he practiced Catholicism, he sometimes had negative things to say about it. Yet, his later novels show an increased level of spirituality culminating in The Old

Man and the Sea.

1 CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION

This thesis utilizes new historicism as a lens through which to view Hemingway’s attitude towards religion and spirituality. It involves first a brief explanation of this perspective and then an investigation of Hemingway’s life and several of his novels.

New Historicism

Stephen Greenblatt gets the credit for coining the term “new historicism” in a

1982 issue of Genre (Harpham 363). Greenblatt saw new historicism as a practice, not a doctrine. Greenblatt preferred the term, “cultural poetics,” in lieu of the term, new historicism. New historicism is cultural interpretation. New historicism searches the real and the raw and claims to give a new approach to history. Brook Thomas sees new historicism as linking a bridge to the literary past (Thomas 182). It claims to give a new approach to history, providing a new angle from which to view the past. According to

Thomas: “New historicism suggests the newness of the past” (25). According to Joel

Fineman, new historicism “proposes to introduce a novelty or an innovation, something

‘[n]ew,’ into the closed and closing historiography of successive innovation” (qtd. in

Harpham 362). New historicism suggests that, through an understanding of the past, the reader will see the past through new eyes and as it was seen in the past itself (Thomas

187). Plus, new historicism seeks to represent those who were not represented in the past. New historicism is categorized as “Against Theory” (187). Yet, it is a theory in its own respect. New historicism questions whether dominant cultural forces predominate or

2 if cultural power is potentially undermined by other, underlying, destabilizing, forces

(Harpham 360).

New historicism incorporates the reading of “both literary and non-literary texts” in order to understand the past from the point of view of the past (Kerridge 10).

Literature is defined as a cultural construct, being unique to its own era and it is “shaped by the many peoples and discourses of that era” (10). New historicists believe that texts should be viewed from their original setting and from the cultural context of that particular period (10). Jane Tompkins in writing from the new historicist perspective tries to sympathetically recreate the context in which literary works were produced and the specific problems to which these literary works were devoted (185). Put simply, new historicism seeks to understand writers via their own historical terms (Veeser 186). New historicists hope that by “Reconstructing an era from the materials it produced, the historian could sympathetically reinhabit the past” (89). Using the new historicist model, texts can reveal insights about the people that created them, their discourses, and their ideology (Kerridge 10-11). In new historicism “literary and non-literary texts” are given equal scrutiny and regard (11). Consequently, literature is a unique by-product of the culture from which it originated and sheds unique insight into that culture.

Despite Greenblatt’s preference for his own term, “cultural poetics,” the term, new historicism, stuck. Whereas Greenblatt coined the term, some scholars see Michel

Foucault as the power behind the method (Harpham 369). Foucault encouraged a group of young scholars at Berkeley to promote new historicism in their journal

3 Representations. In addition, Foucault seemed to learn from this group. Foucault’s

“most identifiable legacy in American literary studies” was new historicism (370).

New historicism claims to represent the real by defining the real as the textual

(360). According to Harpham: “Literature is traditionally said to produce an ‘ethical’ effect through its ability to transcend its historical moment” (374). Harpham says that the real is defined as the local, the material, and the specific. He also notes that “A ‘new’ historicism promises knowledge of the past that really is knowledge, that discloses the object as in itself it really was, that is not simply a reflex or internal mirroring of contemporary self-awareness” (362). It is the goal of the new historicist to be objective instead of subjective. For instance, the subjective seeks to define history through personal tastes, feelings, and opinions. New historicism is the opposed to this. New historicism seeks to present the past as it really was, without the modern biases and prejudices of those currently researching it. New historicism tries to see through the eyes and minds of the people who actually lived through and experienced history. It tries to understand the mindset and the feelings of the people of the time period in question.

What people thought and how people thought is important. Today’s current beliefs should be left out of the mix. Past beliefs are essential to understanding the thinking processes of the past.

4 The Cultural Context and Overview of the Chapters To Follow

Ernest Hemingway was a man of his times. Like many of his Lost Generation, after the Great War (in particular), he abandoned the faith of his youth, although he quite possibly did earlier. World War I cemented this rejection. In Hemingway’s twenties, he married and then committed adultery. According to Hemingway biographer, Mary V.

Dearborn, he liked to marry those with whom he slept. Hemingway started attending religious services again after his second marriage to the rich Catholic, Pauline Pfeiffer.

Hemingway lived as an expat in Paris during the Roaring 20s. Hemingway’s friends were newspapermen, artists, and writers. Paris was hedonistic in those days. After the carnage and terror of World War I, the returning Lost Generation just wanted to live life to the utmost and the fullest. In early-twentieth-century Paris, Hemingway lived in an atmosphere of lax morals. Anything went. In consequence, he conformed to the culture around him. Some of Hemingway’s literary friends were anti-Semitic. Perhaps they influenced him, but Hemingway eventually showed signs of anti-Semitism too.

Moreover, some of the authors that Hemingway read, especially as he was trying to become a better writer, were anti-Semitic themselves. Living in predominantly Catholic

France, converting to Catholicism at the insistence of his second wife was an easy task for Hemingway. Many of his friends were Catholic—James Joyce, being one. At the time, Hemingway was just a conforming product of the culture and attitudes of those around him. He wanted to fit it in—he wanted to be one of the boys—yet throughout his life and his writing he was haunted by death and he wanted to find a spiritual solution to his many struggles.

5 Chapter 2 investigates Hemingway and Judaism, and Chapter 3 centers on

Hemingway and Christianity. In Chapter 4, the author argues that, although he didn’t turn out to be a good person and was vindictive against fellow writers, critics, and others,

Hemingway was a good writer and used all his experiences, good and bad, to bring across the truth and reality of life in his works of literature. Hemingway’s last novel, Old Man and the Sea, provides the clearest statement of his spiritual and religious perspective.

CHAPTER 2

HEMINGWAY AND JUDIASM

Historical Overview of Judaism

Anti-Semitism, or hatred of Jews, has been around since the rise of Judaism. In the Old Testament, Pharaoh was the first political leader known to persecute the Jews.

Pharaoh was concerned with the growing Jewish population and their loyalty. Among many other things, he tried to kill Jewish, “first-born sons” (Cohn-Sherbok 13). Next in the Old Testament, Haman tried to have the Jews killed off under Queen Esther.

However, most scholars agree that anti-Semitism came into its own in the years after

Christ left this earth. For example, Dan Cohn-Sherbok argues that “it was only when

Christianity emerged in the first century CE that Jews came to be viewed as contemptible and demonic” (17).

Unfortunately, the intensity of anti-Semitism in Christianity was mainly due to misinterpretation. In earlier centuries AD, people could not read Scripture for themselves and they were consequently misled. In those days, people had faith in and trusted the

Catholic Church, seeing the pope as infallible. Some misinterpreted Scripture to say that the Jews were responsible for Christ’s death. However, Scripture emphasizes that Christ died for all, so, consequently, he died for everyone. If one looks at it from that point of view, then, everyone, past, present, and future were, are, and will be responsible for

Christ’s death. Yet, some didn’t look at it that way. In fact, the Apostle Paul went out of his way to preach and try to reach Jews first. 7

Paul wrote in Romans 1:16: “For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the

Greek” (English Standard Version). John 4:22 reads: “You worship what you do not know; we [Jews] worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews.” In Romans

11:17-18, Paul suggests that Gentile believers are just grafted into the Jewish promise: “If some of the branches were broken off, and you, being a wild olive, were grafted in among them and became partaker with them of the rich root of the olive tree, [then] do not be arrogant toward the branches; but if you are arrogant, remember that it is not you who supports the root, but the root supports you.” Unfortunately, some uninformed, early Christians did not put two and two together. For some, it was believed that the

Christian Church took the place of Israel, which isn’t accurate. Some believed that “the

Church . . . was the true inheritor of God’s promises” (Cohn-Sherbok 45). It was believed that Jews no longer had a covenant with God and that Christians had completely overshadowed and replaced Israel in that covenant. This is not true.

Acts 13:46 reads of preaching to the Jews first: “It was necessary that the word of

God be spoken to you first.” Jesus, also a Jew, promoted preaching to the Jews first. In

Matthew 12:5-6, Jesus says to the twelve disciples: “Go nowhere among the Gentiles and enter no town of the Samaritans, but go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel”

(English Standard Version). In Matthew 15:24, Jesus says: “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel” (English Standard Version). The first Christians were a group of Jews. Jews were different, so eventually urban legends sprang up; without accurate facts and the knowledge of Judaism’s teachings, some people latched onto these

false assumptions and believed the lies that others were propagating about the Jews. For instance, Jews were accused of murdering Christian children and, then, using their blood for ritual practices. It was believed that Jews used the blood of murdered Christian children: “in the preparation of unleavened bread for Passover” (Cohn-Sherbok 54). The ritual murder charge was a misunderstanding (81). In fact, in the fourteenth century,

Jews were accused of bringing about the Black Death by poisoning the wells and springs

(60, 67). This assertion first gained credence in southern France (81). Yet, Jews suffered and died under the Black Death as well. This is an example of the Jews being blamed as scapegoats.

In the early Church, the Bishop of Constantinople, John Chrysostom, accused the early Hebrews of sacrificing “their sons and daughters to demons and” eating their own children (37, 47). Chrysostom said of synagogues: “to go there . . . was no better than visiting a brothel, a robber’s den or any indecent place . . . [it is] a theatre, a house of prostitution, and domicile of the devil” (47). Chrysostom said that the Jews: “have surpassed the ferocity of wild beasts, since they murder their offspring and immolate them to the devil” (47). Chrysostom also accused the Jews of worshipping the devil. Yet

Jeremiah 31:3b reads in reference to Israel: “I have loved you with an everlasting love; therefore I have continued my faithfulness to you” (English Standard Version). If so- called Christians would have accurately read this during this period, they would have seen that God loves his people and his nation, Israel. But, some Christians thought that the Christian Church entirely replaced God’s Covenant with the Jews. Consequently,

Chrysostom said that Christians must hate the Jews (Cohn-Sherbok 47). Yet hatred is an

anti-Christian doctrine. In Matthew 5:44, Jesus says: “But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you” (English Standard Version).

False conceptions of the Jews even seemed to be found among some of the

Church Fathers. Some of the Church Fathers were frustrated that the Jews would not convert to Christianity nor would they renounce their Judaism. In some cases, the quest for converts became a competition. Cohn-Sherbok writes: “During the same period

Tertullian, the African Church Father, called the synagogues of his day ‘fountains of persecution of Christians’” (46). Justin Martyr “related that Jews laugh, curse and insult

Jesus” (46). Jerome referred to Jews as Judases (47). In fact, Judas was thought to be:

“symbolic of the Jewish people” (84). In the New Testament, “the figure of Judas . . . was associated in the public mind with deviousness and treachery” (83).

Desecration of the communion host became another false charge against the Jews as the then-Christians believed in the doctrine of transubstantiation. In the doctrine of transubstantiation, the communion bread and wine (of the Eucharist) literally becomes the body and blood of Jesus. During this time, it was believed that Jews stole the host in order “to assault it and thereby torture Christ” (80). The charge of desecration of the

Host was a hallucinatory fantasy (82). However, the Jews did not believe in the Doctrine of Transubstantiation, which was affirmed at Fourth Lateran Council in 1215 (80). Only

Catholics believe this doctrine today. Since the Jews did not believe in transubstantiation, they would, in all likelihood, not have attacked the host because they

couldn’t believe that they were actually attacking Christ in the process. Desecration of the Host was a wild belief and a total fantasy.

In some cases the Talmud was burned because it was believed to be anti-

Christian. Agobard, Archbishop of Lyons, believed that Jews stole Christian children and sold them to Arabs (64). He also believed that Jews seduced Christian women. All sorts of wild beliefs developed about Jews, many without factual basis. It was all conjecture and imagination. In Germany, “a French monk Radulph went about preaching that Jews were enemies of God and should be persecuted” (65). As previously mentioned, the Jews were scapegoats; they were blamed for everything. During the witch-hunting crazed days of the fifteenth century, Jews were seen as being in cahoots with witches and the devil (71). During this time, it was believed that the Jews were born misshapen, hemorrhoidal, and both sexes afflicted with menstruation. In Trnava,

Slovakia, it was believed that Christian blood was an excellent means by which “to cure the wound produced by circumcision” (71).

For the duration of the Middle Ages “Christians viewed Jews as sorcerers, able to cast spells against their enemies” (72). It was believed consequently that the Jews were capable of working magic against Christians. During the Black Death, it was also believed that Jews wanted to poison Christians. In fact, “Jews were accused of using

Christian blood for magical purposes” (73). The little contact that these early Christians had with Jews also led to their paranoia, viewing the Jews as an alien, mysterious, and strange people (74). Urban legends seemed to sprout up due to the lack of knowledge.

Ignorance of Jews reigned.

Jewish medicine too became suspect. It was claimed that high rulers were killed off through Jewish medicine. During the Middle Ages, the Vienna Faculty of Medicine thought that “the private code of Jewish doctors required them to murder one patient in ten” (77). Jews were eventually thought to possess attributes of the devil. The Jews

“were perceived as having horns, tails and the beard of a goat, and could be recognized by their noxious smell, the foetor judaïcus” (79). Consequently, the Jews were seen as sub-human. It was believed that Jews lacked morality; anything went with them. Jews were so despised that they were exiled from countries. At different times, Spain, France, and England expelled their Jewish populations. In some instances, they were invited back.

The charges against Jews were grotesque fantasies. Tracts were written against the Jews. One such read of the Jews: “‘Demons from hell, race of the Jews, detestable men, more accursed than Lucifer, and more wicked than all the devils, cruel tigers, be gone, unworthy as you are to live among us, when you thirst so for blood’” (qtd. in Cohn-

Sherbok 86).

Martin Luther at first favored the Jews, writing a pamphlet, That Christ was Born a Jew. However, after he was unable to convert the Jews to his Protestant Reformed,

Christian faith, he became anti-Semitic. So “Luther stressed that they [the Jews] are the most contemptible of all peoples” (90). Luther wrote: “’make no mistake, that aside from the Devil, you have no enemy more venomous, more desperate, more bitter, than a true

Jew who truly seeks to be a Jew’” (qtd. in Cohn-Sherbok 90). Moreover, “Martin Luther speculated that if the Jews could kill Christians, they would gladly do so” (73).

Of the Jews, Luther believed that “Those who tolerate them [the Jews] will incur great loss: ‘Whoever wishes to accept venomous serpents, desperate enemies of the Lord, and to honour them, to let himself be robbed, pillaged, corrupted, and cursed by them, need only turn to the Jews’” (90). Luther suggested of the Jews: “Their synagogues . . . should be set on fire, and whatever does not burn up should be covered or spread over with dirt so that no one may ever be able to see a cinder or stone of it” (qtd. in Cohn-

Sherbok 90). Luther wrote: “Their [Jews’] homes should likewise be broken down and destroyed. For they perpetrate the same things there that they do in their synagogues . . . they should be deprived of their prayerbooks [sic] and Talmud in which idolatry, lies, cursing and blasphemy are taught . . . their rabbis must be forbidden under threat of death to teach any more” (qtd. in Cohn-Sherbok 90).

Luther also wrote: “Passport and travelling privileges should be absolutely forbidden to the Jews . . . They ought to be stopped from usury . . . Let the young and strong Jews and Jewesses be given the flail, the axe, the hoe, the spade, the distaff, and spindle, and let them earn their bread by the sweat of their brow” (qtd. in Cohn-Sherbok

90). Luther called the Jews an “insufferable devilish burden” (qtd. in Cohn-Sherbok 90).

Luther said that Jews were “children of the Devil, condemned to the flames of hell” (qtd. in Cohn-Sherbok 91). Luther believed that the Jews should be despised. Luther even thought that “the Jews are worse than the devils” (91). Luther saw the Jews as

“instigators of social and economic corruption” (94). Luther thought that the Jews wanted to “destroy Christian civilization” (95).

Luther saw himself in a fight against Satan in the Jews. Despite Luther’s anti-

Semitism, a good thing did emerge out of the Protestant Reformation. Scripture was translated into the common vernacular so that literate people could see what the Bible said for themselves instead taking a priest’s or a pope’s word for it. This led to literate

Christians seeing the Jews through the lens of Scripture instead of through anti-Jewish sermons and hear-say from church leaders.

In Hemingway’s twentieth century, the Jews were seen as favoring political revolution and as having played a role in the revolutionary activities of the era (231).

This viewpoint started after the revolutions of 1848 (244) and it is not entirely off the mark. For example, Karl Marx was a Jew. Although not all Jews were revolutionaries,

Nicholas Reynolds says that: “More than a few Russian revolutionaries were Jewish, one reaction to the state-sanctioned anti-Semitism and the resulting pogroms that occurred with frightening regularity” (Writer, Sailor, Solider, Spy 72). Capitalism also came to be associated with the Jews—particularly its vices (Cohn-Sherbok 248). In the United

States, the Jews were blamed for the Russian Revolution (231). There was fear of the

Jews, or Judaeophobia. A writer that Hemingway read was the anti-Semitic Fyodor

Dostoyevsky. Perhaps, this helped to influence Hemingway to be anti-Semitic.

Dostoyevsky wrote: “Like a vast, tightening net, the power of assimilated Jewry stretches over the whole world, and no matter where we set foot, we are caught in it . . . We must struggle to our last drop of blood against the insidious Judaization of Europe, and especially of Germanism” (qtd. in Cohn-Sherbok 232).

In 1912, the Marconi Affair hit Great Britain. Two leading Jewish politicians,

Rufus Isaacs and Herbert Samuels, were implicated in this corruption scandal.

Eyewitness reported: “Isaacs’ brother is the president of the Marconi Company. Isaacs and Samuels have privately arranged to have the British people pay the Marconi

Company a considerable sum of money through the intermediary of Samuels, and for

Isaacs’ benefit” (qtd. in Cohn-Sherbok 236). In wake of the Marconi Affair, one of

Hemingway’s early favorite writers, Rudyard Kipling, “dedicated a hymn of hate to the affair” (236). Like the biblical, greedy and crafty servant (of the prophet Elisha), Gehazi, who is punished with leprosy for his sins, Kipling’s poem “was intended to illustrate the cunning of these Jewish [Marconi] politicians” (236).

Once America made its foray into World War I, “Jews were seen as participants in international conspiracy” (240). Americans thought that the Jews might be part of the

Russian Revolution. In the literary world, “a number of writers commented on the evil influence of Jewry” (241). Hemingway’s one-time-friend and literary mentor, F. Scott

Fitzgerald, was one such example. In fact, Fitzgerald negatively portrayed New York

Jewish merchants in his novel, The Beautiful and the Damned:

Down in a tall, busy street he read a dozen Jewish names on a line of stores. In

the door of each stood a dark, little man [Jew] watching the passersby with intent

eyes, eyes gleaming with suspicion, with pride, with clarity, with cupidity, with

comprehension. New York—he could not dissociate it now from the slow

upward creep of this people. The little stores, growing, expanding, consolidating,

moving, watched over with hawk’s eyes and a bee’s attention to detail. (qtd. in

Cohn-Sherbok 241)

This anti-Semitic view of Jews could have influenced Hemingway whether he read the book or if Fitzgerald made his anti-Semitic views known to Hemingway. The same could be said of Ezra Pound. Ezra Pound was a big anti-Semite and one of Hemingway’s friends. It could be questioned if Ezra Pound influenced Hemingway to be anti-Semitic.

In July of 1943, Pound was indicted for treason due to his anti-Semitic, pro-Fascist radio broadcasts from Italy (Dearborn 491). Pound’s radio broadcasts “were shocking, even vile—he recommended The Protocols of the Elders of Zion and Mein Kampf; he spoke of the ‘60 kikes who started this war,’ and asserted, ‘The Jew is a savage’” (491). Later, due to Hemingway’s suggestion, Pound pleaded insanity and spent several years in an

Institution. Hemingway’s one-time friend, Donald Ogden Stewart, who was present for the Pamplona bull fights in 1925 “took the blame for having been the probable inspiration for Bill Gorton’s [a character in The Sun Also Rises] anti-Semitic remarks and exclamations” (Blume 123). Stewart wrote that: “I have no doubt that I was really basically anti-Semitic in those days, as probably also was Hemingway” (123). Lesley

Blume stresses that Hemingway’s anti-Semitism “was not . . . a deep-rooted hatred like the variety that gave rise to Nazism” (123). Stewart referred to Hemingway’s anti-

Semitism as “a form of social snobbishness, something that people simply took for granted [during that time]” (Blume 123). One would think that after the Holocaust,

Hemingway would cease his anti-Semitic comments, but he still continued. In

Hemingway’s twentieth century, “American literature repeatedly described Jews in the most unsavoury (sic) terms” (Cohn-Sherbok 249).

The French also saw the Jews as having played a part in the Russian Revolution

(241). In France, where Hemingway lived part of his literary life, Alphonse Toussenel wrote “The Jews: King of the Epoch, [in which] he blamed the Jews for the ills afflicting

society” (248). In France, “According to Edouard-Adolphe Drumont in La France Juive,

the [French] Revolution had benefited only the Jews” (248). Edouard-Adolphe Drumont

caricatured the Jews as being hook-nosed, possessing “huge ears, soft hands and arms of

unequal length” (qtd. in Cohn-Sherbok 248). In France, the Dreyfus Affair of the

nineteenth century had ratcheted up the prominence and appeal of French anti-Semitism.

Yet, the logical consequence of anti-Semitism took place years later during World War II

when Hitler instituted the Holocaust. Of course, Hemingway knew of this deadly result

of anti-Semitism, but it is unknown how much it changed his view of Jews, as later, he

did show some more anti-Semitic behavior. Perhaps, old habits die hard.

Judaism in Hemingway’s Biography and in His Novels

Unfortunately, Hemingway was an anti-Semite. To what degree is unknown.

Some say that Hemingway was mildly or casually, anti-Semitic (Hendrickson 32).

However, in fits of anger, Hemingway would hurl anti-Semitic slurs at those he knew to

be Jews. Yet, ironically, “Hemingway knew, admired, and imitated Jews” like his friend

and literary mentor, Gertrude Stein (Berman 39). Hemingway was also friends with

Harold Loeb, a Jewish man (Dearborn 192). Hemingway and Loeb had played tennis,

boxed, and wrestled together. In The Sun Also Rises, the character of Robert Cohn is based upon Harold Loeb. Hemingway once had good things to say of Loeb. On March

4, 1925, Hemingway wrote to William B. Smith of Loeb, “A hell of a good guy. . . .

Loeb is a male you can wrestle wit. He aint been throwed since he learned in Princeton- only weighs 150 about. Heavy weights cant throw him. He’s never wrestled pros or of course he’s have got throwed. Still he aint been throwed. I tried to throw him and he throwed me in no time” (sic throughout; Hemingway in Katakis 28). In The Sun Also

Rises, the Loeb, Robert Cohn character is also Jake Barnes’ tennis partner (13). Despite all his anti-Semitism, later Hemingway married the half-Jewish reporter and writer,

Martha Gellhorn as his third wife (Stoneback 136). Unfortunately, it is exactly unknown why Hemingway was anti-Semitic. It would seem that the times in which he lived played a role.

In The Sun Also Rises, Hemingway has a stereo-typical, Jewish character, Robert

Cohn, that he portrays as a proud, rich, weak, self-pitying, self-doubting, awkward, sniveling, whining, misbehaving, mannerless, undesirable, unremarkable, and dysfunctional killjoy who is an outsider and a drag on everyone’s spirits. Cohn is supposed to represent all Jews (Berman 39). In fact, Hemingway goes so far as to write that Jews are inferior. Hemingway writes of Cohn: “He cared nothing for boxing, in fact he disliked it, but he learned it painfully and thoroughly to counteract the feeling of inferiority and shyness he had felt on being treated as a Jew at Princeton” (Sun 11). Loeb had also gone to Princeton.

Hemingway based almost the entire book of The Sun Also Rises on a real life event that happened when Loeb, Lady Duff Twysden, and Pat Guthrie (Lady Duff’s cousin and boyfriend) joined him, Hemingway’s first wife, Hadley Richardson, Don

Stewart, and Bill Smith in Pamplona for the Festival of San Fermín in July of 1925

(Dearborn 188). In the novel this group goes to Pamplona to have fun. They join in the

Spanish Festival of San Fermín, where they drink excessively, party, and watch professional bullfights. All this time, the Harold Loeb character, Robert Cohn, follows his former lover, Lady Brett Ashely, around like a lap-dog, and from the perspective of the other festival-goers makes everyone else miserable.

Hemingway’s publication of this event into fiction hurt many of the real-life players in the memorable drama. The real Lady Brett Ashley, Lady Duff Twysden, later referred to the book as nothing more than “cheap reporting” (qtd. in Blume 206). Former

Hemingway friend, Donald Ogden Stewart felt the same way. In his 1975 memoir, By a

Stroke of Luck!, Stewart still refused to give The Sun Also Rises “the artistic stature that others accorded it” (Blume 230). Stewart’s son recalls that his dad would say: “That’s exactly what happened . . . it was like a photograph” (qtd. in Blume 230). So for Stewart, the novel was just a retelling of events; it is did not utilize artistic, narrative originality.

Just as Robert Cohn had had an affair with Lady Brett Ashley, so Loeb had had an intimate relationship with Lady Duff Twysden. Scholars are unsure as to whether

Hemingway had any serious relationship with Lady Duff; however, he was jealous. He liked her. In his reasoning, he had met Lady Duff first (Dearborn 188). “Even though

[Hemingway] had no plans to sleep with Duff himself, that didn’t mean, according to his

logic, that she was fair game for Harold [Loeb]” (188). Hemingway was protective of

Lady Duff, and Hemingway saw Loeb as a snake (189). Perhaps Loeb’s success with

Lady Duff finally pushed Hemingway against him.

Mary V. Dearborn notes that Hemingway was also jealous that Loeb’s book,

Doodab, was coming out before his own—Loeb’s in May, Hemingway’s in October

(191). Hemingway was very competitive in his writing career. In fact, before

Hemingway made it as a fiction writer, Harold Loeb had gone so far as to help

Hemingway get his first book of short stories, In Our Time, published (204). It is noted that “Harold [Loeb] rescued In Our Time from the returns pile at [Boni &] Liveright [the publishing company]; he fought for the book, and he was instrumental in getting it published” (192). Loeb had pleaded with Boni & Liveright: “Hold it. Give it [In Our

Time] another reading . . . . I know what I’m talking about” (Hawkins 39). In fact, if it were not for the persistence of his well-connected friends, Hemingway may have quite possibly never been published at all, since his manuscripts had been repeatedly rejected.

Unfortunately, Hemingway did not like to give credit to others for helping him to rise in his profession. He wanted to take all the credit and the glory for himself. He wanted to be self-sufficient. In addition, having not gone to college, Hemingway was leery of college-educated men. He felt inferior to them and he would try to compete with them in order to make himself look and feel better. Since Harold Loeb was a Princeton graduate,

Hemingway, was possibly disdainful of this and, in all likelihood, held it against Loeb.

In trying to get In Our Time published, Loeb took Hemingway to former Boni &

Liveright vice president, Leon Fleischman’s Paris apartment (Blume 71). Previously,

“Kitty Cannell [the Frances character in Sun] heard him [Hemingway] unthinkably use

‘kike’ with such casualness and scorn that she warned her Jewish lover, Harold Loeb, to be careful with Hemingway” (M. Reynolds, The Paris Years 242). Kitty Cannell worried that Hemingway “might create a terrible scene in front of Fleischman and his wife,

Helen. She said as much to Loeb. He brushed her off” (Blume 71). After this meeting with Fleischman, Harold Loeb heard Hemingway malign Jews in his speech.

Hemingway had a way of maligning, making fun of, and satirizing his friends and his perceived enemies. In the process, he lost many friends and unnecessarily caused the creation of many enemies. In fact, the release of The Sun Also Rises shocked Loeb as he had thought that he and Hemingway were good friends (Dearborn 191-92).

Hemingway also turned on his former, Jewish mentor, Gertrude Stein.

Hemingway got mad at Stein when she would not write a review for his new book, In

Our Time. Stein wanted to wait and see if Hemingway was going to be a success first.

On November 8, 1925, Hemingway commented to Ezra Pound of Stein, “What a lot of safe playing kikes” (Hemingway in Katakis 38). Later in life, after they broke with each other, Hemingway and Stein would argue—through writing—and trade barbs with one another. Hemingway would mock Stein. In his article for Esquire in the April 1934 issue, “A.D. in Africa: A Tanganyika Letter,” Hemingway wonders “how much Buddha at that age would resemble Gertrude Stein” (Hemingway in White 159).

Hemingway was also against the troubled literary critic, Dorothy Parker

(Dearborn 247). The half-Jewess, Dorothy Parker was tough in her literary criticism, yet she gave Hemingway great reviews. She adored Hemingway, but Hemingway didn’t

return the feelings (Blume 155). Parker and Hemingway had met in New York. In

Hemingway, Parker thought that she had found a kindred spirit (156). During

Hemingway’s New York visit, Parker “became so engrossed in his tales of the Left Bank that she shunted aside her skepticism and decided on the spot to move abroad” (156).

Parker became for Hemingway, a strong ally among literary critics. Blume notes of

Parker: “In years to come, she would also pen several adoring Hemingway profiles and book reviews” (156). Hemingway and Parker became so familiar that, eventually,

Hemingway started calling Parker, “Dotty” (156). Parker was so taken with Hemingway that her “devotion to him bordered on idolatry” (158). But, Parker’s love for Hemingway was a useful tool in Hemingway’s arsenal.

Unfortunately, Parker was probably not stable. She had tried to kill herself twice within three years. She confided in Hemingway “about a late-stage abortion she had recently undergone, about attempting suicide, and about some other recent bad luck in her life” (qtd. in Dearborn 247). During their conversation Hemingway discovered that

Parker did not like Spain. For Parker: “Pretty much everything about the country—from its treatment of animals to the rump-pinching habits of Spanish men—had appalled her”

(Blume 193). Moreover, “In Barcelona, she had walked out of a bullfight after a bull gored a horse and declared that she found matadors disgusting” (193). Back in Paris with

Hemingway, “Parker had imparted these impressions to Hemingway, for whom such views amounted to sacrilege” (193). Hemingway was offended by this and, like other things, Hemingway took this personally to heart as he was an ardent Hispanophile, loving the Spanish country, its people, the slow pace of life, and its culture (Dearborn 247).

Finally, Hemingway “had little sympathy for the self-inflicted wounds of a caustic and comparatively pampered urbanite” (Blume 194).

Later, “Ernest wrote a long, cruel poem about Parker, not published until both were dead, called ‘To a Tragic Poetess,’ revealing the personal details she had evidently related during their most recent meeting” (Dearborn 247-48). In the poem, Hemingway

“referred to the dead fetus, noted that she had all too conveniently failed in her suicide attempts, and mocked her failures with men. He was pointedly mean about her being

Jewish, referring to ‘the Jewish cheeks of your plump ass’” (248). The second half of

Hemingway’s poem “consists of insults piled on Parker and others who, out of ignorance about it, do not appreciate Spain (inevitably, bullfighting comes up)” (248). Pauline

Pfeiffer didn’t like this poem and referred to it as “about twelve tents [tenths] out of water maybe” (Hawkins 59). Pauline thought the poem shrill. In 1926, at the home of Archie and Ada McLeish, Ernest read this poem “To a Tragic Poetess” to the assembled gathering to try to get some laughs (Dearborn 248). No laughs came. Donald Ogden

Stewart called the poem “viciously unfair and unfunny” (qtd. in Blume 194). Because of the reading of the poem, the Stewarts kept their distance from Hemingway from there on out and Don Stewart was never close to Hemingway again (Dearborn 248). Ironically, since the poem was never published until after Parker’s death, “Parker never learned about the existence of the poem . . . [and] unaware of its existence, she continued to write wildly enthusiastic reviews of Hemingway’s work in The New Yorker and called him one of her favorite writers” (Blume 194). Parker also called Hemingway: “the greatest living

American short story writer” (M. Reynolds, American Homecoming 164).

There is also other evidence of Hemingway’s anti-Semitism. In his early years, at

Lake Walloon, the Point, where the young people always liked to fish, was sold “to two

Jews who wanted to build a club house” (M. Reynolds, Young Hemingway 114). Bill

Smith later recalled that he and Ernest had planned to throw rotten fish down the Jews’

chimney at the lake (M. Reynolds, Paris Years 252). In the mid-1920s, Hemingway

wrote Ezra Pound, calling the aspiring poet, Dave O’Neil a “’Celto-Kike’” (Dearborn

134). Hemingway also wrote of his friend, Nathan Asch: “You couldn’t tell [of Asch

being a talented writer]. Jews go bad quickly” (163). Later, in Key West, Hemingway

referred to the town as a “Jew administered phony of a town” (qtd. in Hendrickson 154).

At the time that Hemingway wrote this, Key West was for all intents and purposes

bankrupt “unable to collect enough taxes to pay its bills” (N. Reynolds 7). Under the

New Deal, the town of Key West had “petitioned the governor to take over the city”

(Hendrickson 154). As such, “The Florida branch of Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s

Federal Emergency Relief Administration (FERA) stepped in and took over” (N.

Reynolds 7). Plus, under the New Deal, the plan was to turn Key West into a tourist

destination, making Hemingway’s home on Whitehead Street one of the attractions (8).

This would interfere with Hemingway’s deeply coveted privacy (8). Moreover,

Hemingway was disillusioned with the government after some World War I veterans

were killed during a hurricane that hit some of the Florida Keys.

Later, In Cuba, in May 1955, The Old Man and the Sea film version of the novel was to be filmed. Hemingway’s Jewish friend, Peter Viertel, who was writing the screenplay, joked with Hemingway in order to try to break up the tension between Ernest

and the film producer, kidding “about Santiago going out on the eighty-fifth day and not catching a fish” (Dearborn 573). This made Hemingway mad. Narrowing his eyes and gritting his teeth, he said: “The Jews have always had a superior attitude toward fishing— probably because fish has never been part of their diet” (qtd. in Dearborn 573). This

Jewish comment, in turn, made Viertel mad, and he said that “he thought Ernest had gotten beyond his anti-Semitism with The Sun Also Rises” (qtd. in Dearborn 573).

Hemingway felt contrite that he had lashed out against his friend, Viertel, and he:

“assured Peter he had never been anti-Semitic, and matters were smoothed over” (573-

74).

Some Jews have the last name Stein. Especially in his youth, Hemingway like to refer to himself as Hemingstein or Stein. According to Dearborn, Hemingway was referring to a stein of beer in this case (39). Other nicknames he used were: Hymenstein or the Great Steinway (Hendrickson 266). Catherine Reef thinks that, these nicknames sound Jewish. She writes:

The last one [nickname] amused him [Ernest] most because it sounded like a

Jewish name. Like many young people in narrow-minded Oak Park, Ernest grew

up thinking it was all right to make fun of people of different faiths and

backgrounds, and he never fully let go of this attitude. As an adult he

occasionally called himself Hemingstein, or just Stein, and although he had

Jewish friends he sometimes mocked them behind their backs. (14)

In Death in the Afternoon, Hemingway refers to himself as the great psychiatrist, Dr.

Hemingstein (53). In real life, Hemingway’s son, Gregory, “Gigi” for short, was known as the Irish Jew (Hendrickson 245).

In The Sun Also Rises, Hemingway gives Cohn boxing as his only strength,

“There was a certain inner comfort in knowing he could knock down anybody who was snooty to him” (11). Because of boxing, Hemingway goes so far as to portray Cohn with the stereotypical, Jewish nose. In the novel, Cohn gets his nose broken during a boxing bout. The narrator, Jake Barnes, says of Cohn’s reworked nose: “it certainly improved his nose” (11). Ironically, Hemingway threatened a similar situation later in his life. In

Spain, at the Hotel Florida, after a serious shelling during the Spanish Civil War, some of the guests, including the movie producer, Herb Klein, wanted to switch their rooms to the safer rooms in the back of the hotel. At this point in his life, Hemingway would hold people to a higher standard of bravery than his own (Dearborn 387). So, Hemingway intimidated and bullied those Hotel Florida guests into keeping their rooms in lieu of switching them, saying they “would be running away from the enemy, capitulating to the

Fascists” (qtd. in Dearborn 387). However, in fact, Hemingway had his own room in one of the safer, back parts of the hotel. Then, “according to one observer, he rode up with

[Herb] Klein in the elevator, called him a coward, and ‘jostled’ him, saying, ‘I’d like to flatten your big Jewish nose’” (388).

In The Sun Also Rises, nobody wants to be around Cohn. He is trying to be an all- round guy and a Protestant gentleman (Berman 44). However, Ron Berman refers to him as a fake gentleman. Melvin Backman argues that Cohn lacks any real identity (4).

Although Cohn tries to assimilate and be chivalrous, nobody accepts his behavior as authentic. Hemingway portrays Cohn as still “too different to accept” (38). Cohn is also a show-off and he likes to brag. For example in winning a “several hundred dollars” in bridge, “It made him rather vain of his bridge game, and he talked several times of how a man could always make a living at bridge if he were ever forced to” (17). In another instance Cohn likes to brag about his relationship with Brett: “He was being confidential now and it was giving him pleasure to be able to talk with the understanding that I knew there was something between him and Brett” (106). Moreover, Cohn’s believed and perceived superiority is offensive to Jake’s friend, Bill Gorton. One time, Bill Gorton says of the approaching Cohn: “Well, let him not get superior and Jewish” (Sun 102).

This perceived superiority makes Jake extremely dislike Cohn.

Why I felt that impulse to devil him I do not know. Of course I do know. I was

blind, unforgivingly jealous of what had happened to him. The fact that I took it

as a matter of course did not alter that any. I certainly did hate him. I do not

think I ever really hated him until he had that little spell of superiority at lunch—

that and when he went through all that barbering. (105)

According to Dearborn, the character of Bill Gorton is a combination of Bill

Smith and Don Ogden Stewart. In the novel, Bill really doesn’t like Jews. Bill says of his Jewish friends, adding of Cohn: “Oh, yes. I’ve got some darbs. But not alongside of this Robert Cohn . . . But he’s just so awful” (107). Bill is blatantly anti-Semitic. He asks Jake of Brett and Cohn: “Why didn’t she go off with some of her own people?”

(107). Mike adds to this criticism later when he comments: “Brett’s gone off with men.

But they weren’t ever Jews, and they didn’t come and hang around afterward” (148). Bill

Gorton makes a number of anti-Semitic slurs. Before their fishing trip, Bill says to Jake:

“And as for this Robert Cohn . . . he makes me sick, and he can go to hell, and I’m damn glad he’s staying here so we won’t have him fishing with us,” to which Jake agrees (108).

In another case, Hemingway likens Cohn to an animal, a steer. Cohn likes to tag- along with Brett (141). After a bull fight, Cohn says: “It’s no life being a steer” (145).

Mike sarcastically replies: “Don’t you think so? . . . I would have thought you’d loved being a steer, Robert” (146). Being likened to a steer makes Cohn mad. Mike, partially drunk, says: “Is Robert Cohn going to follow Brett around like a steer all the time?”

(146). These demeaning remarks imply that Jews are sub-human.

At one point, Mike intimates that Cohn’s Jewishness disqualifies him from being a part of the group, “Do you think you amount to something, Cohn? Do you think you belong here among us?” (181). Mike says to Cohn, “I’m not one of your literary chaps

. . . . I’m not clever. But I do know when I’m not wanted. Why don’t you see when you’re not wanted, Cohn? Go away. Go away, for God’s sake. Take that sad Jewish face away. Don’t you think I’m right?” (181). In another instance, when Cohn tells Brett that he will stay with her, Brett replies: “Oh, don’t! . . . For God’s sake, go off somewhere” (184). Cohn is portrayed as leech-like, a clinger, similar to Jews accused of usury, bleeding people dry. With the eternal theme of Jewish suffering, Brett says of

Cohn: “I hate him, too . . . I hate his damned suffering” (186).

In his short story, “God Rest You Merry, Gentlemen,” published in 1933,

Hemingway takes a less anti-Semitic approach to Jews. In this story, there are two

doctors, Dr. Wilcox and Dr. Fischer. Dr. Wilcox is Christian while Dr. Fischer is Jewish.

A sixteen-year-old boy comes into the hospital and says that he wants to be castrated because he is struggling with lust. The boy is religious and, to him, lust is a problem. Dr.

Fischer is compassionate with the boy and genuinely seems interested in his predicament.

Dr. Fischer converses with the boy and finally tells him: “There’s nothing wrong with you. That’s the way you’re supposed to be. There’s nothing wrong with that” (Short

Stories 299). The boy still sees himself as sinning. Dr. Fischer tells the boy that what he is going through is natural and that, later, he will think himself fortunate (300). The boy is adamant that he is wrong. He doesn’t want to listen to Dr. Fischer’s explanations.

Logically, Dr. Fischer explains to the boy that there is nothing wrong with his body, that he has a good body, and that if he is religious, then, in the future, his body can help him consummate the sacrament of matrimony (300).

Dr. Wilcox takes a different approach. He calls the boy a fool (300). Then, the boy leaves when he finds out that nobody will castrate him. Dr. Wilcox rudely says to the boy: “Oh, go and—” (300). Horst Kruse interprets the absence as meaning, “jack- off” (62). The boy leaves and, later, he does try to castrate himself, amputating himself in the process. When the boy returns to the hospital with life-threatening injuries, Dr.

Wilcox, ironically, isn’t in a hurry to try to save the boy as he doesn’t see the condition as an emergency. In the story, it is Dr. Fischer who has shown mercy on the boy, not Dr.

Wilcox. Kruse sees Doc Fischer as the moral center of the story and suggests that

Hemingway’s portrayal of Dr. Fischer’s knowledgeable insight and humanity might be an attempt to try to “atone for his former anti-Semitism” (72). Kruse argues that Dr. Fischer

might even be seen as a Christ-figure, a fisher of men (65). Other scholars speculate that this story might have been an attempt for Hemingway to apologize for the way he treated

Harold Loeb’s alter-ego Robert Cohn (Kruse 73). But this interpretation is problematic.

A.E. Hotchner once asked Hemingway if he had remorse about the way he had portrayed

Loeb and the others in The Sun Also Rises (Blume 237). Hotchner asked Hemingway:

“so, if you had it to do over, would you have been softer?” (237). Hemingway replied to

Hotchner: “Oh, hell no” (237). Despite this possible attempt at atonement, Hemingway continued to make anti-Semitic statements after this story first came out.

CHAPTER 3

HEMINGWAY AND CHRISTIANITY

Ernest Hemingway was a born on July 21, 1899, in Oak Park, Illinois, then a

Protestant, conservative bastion. There, in his earliest years, Hemingway’s maternal grandfather, Ernest Hall, led his family and their servants, after breakfast, on their knees, in morning prayer (Dearborn 11; Hemingway-Sanford 14). Unlike the others,

Grandfather Hall did not pray with his eyes closed nor his head bowed (Pawley 22).

Instead, he prayed with his head upraised and “with his arms stretched upward, as if locked in a face-to-face with God” (Dearborn 11). He also prayed in a thundering voice

(Pawley 22). Ernest’s older sister, Marcelline Hemingway-Sanford, noted that she liked to peak out at Grandfather Hall through her fingers “because he seemed so surely to be talking right to his friend God” (Hemingway-Sanford 15). Marcelline suggested that

Grandfather Hall knew God intimately (14). In addition, Grandfather Hall led daily devotions for the household with the book, Daily Strength for Daily Needs (Isabelle 2;

Hemingway-Sanford 14). Even the cook and the maid were present at these family gatherings. Grandfather Hall also led grace at the table (Isabelle 2), and he would lead the family in worship (Hemingway-Sanford 15). He was Episcopalian and he liked to be referred to in the biblical term, “Abba,” which refers to God, as in “Abba father” (Isabelle

2; Mark 14:36). Marcelline referred to Grandfather Hall as being a very religious man

(Hemingway-Sanford 14). Every Sunday, he would go to Grace Episcopal Church, where, kneeling on the Brussels carpet, he would lead the church in evening prayer 31

(Pawley 21). He once said of his grandson, Ernest, to his mother, Grace: “this boy is going to be heard from someday. If he uses his imagination for good purposes, he’ll be famous, but if he starts the wrong way, with all his energy, he’ll end in jail, and, it's up to you which way he goes” (qtd. in Hemingway-Sanford 12).

Ernest’s paternal grandfather, Anson Hemingway converted to Christianity in

1859 (Dearborn 13). Anson was a descendent of Ralph Hemingway, “who came to

America with the Great Migration, and through him from a line of Puritan and

Congregationalist ministers” (12). Anson Hemingway was friends with the great evangelist, D.L. Moody, and he closely worked with him (for a while) as the general secretary at the Chicago YMCA (Dearborn 13; Hemingway-Sanford 18). Ernest idolized his grandfather Hemingway (Pawley 21). Ernest’s mother, whom Ernest came to hate, once wrote Ernest: “Not for nothing are you the great great grandson of that noble

Christian Rev. William Edward Miller and the grandson of the finest, purest, noblest man

I have ever known, Ernest Hall” (M. Reynolds, Young Hemingway 103-04). In fact,

Ernest Miller Hemingway was named after his grandfather and the Miller line of Grace’s family. Grace wrote to Ernest: “You are born of a race of gentlemen . . . who were clean mouthed, chivalrous to all women, grateful and generous. You were named for the two finest and noblest gentleman I have ever known. See to it that you do not disgrace their memories” (qtd. in M. Reynolds, Young Hemingway 138). Ernest’s family were such churchgoers that they had their own pews at the First Congregational Church

(Hemingway-Sanford 147).

On the flip side, Ernest’s father was rigid (Pawley 23). In disciplining his children, Dr. Clarence “Ed” Hemingway often forced his “children on their knees to pray to God for forgiveness” (Isabelle 4). Sometimes, Ernest mockingly referred to his father as “the Great Physician,” a title that Jesus also holds as a healer of people (Hemingway-

Sanford 127). According to a Hemingway biographer (no name given),

Sin scared the life out of Ernest. At night he prayed that he had been a good boy

during the day. The trouble was, a boy could never be sure if he had been good;

he might have done something bad and not known it was bad. It was so hard to

obey every rule, so hard to please his mother, his father, his teachers, his minister,

his God; so hard that sometimes it wasn’t worth trying, and a boy felt like giving

up. (qtd. in Pawley 23)

Ernest grew up then with a great spiritual legacy and upbringing that he found at times challenging and problematic.

On Easter in 1911 at the Third Congregational Church, Ernest and his sister,

Marcelline, were confirmed and they received their First Communion” (Dearborn 33). It was at this church that Ernest’s mother was the choir director; she even had Ernest—a soprano—and Marcelline sing in the choir (M. Reynolds, Young Hemingway 108; L.

Hemingway 28). In his youth, Ernest Hemingway and Marcelline joined a contest put on by the adult advisor of the Christian Endeavor Society, Mr. Sweeney, to see who could read the entire King James Bible first (Dearborn 37; Hemingway-Sanford 135). It was

Mr. Sweeney’s idea and he offered a prize (Hemingway-Sanford 135). Although Ernest did not win, he and Marcelline did complete the reading of the whole Bible (Dearborn

37). In addition, Ernest and Marcelline passed a comprehensive test on what they had read (Pawley 24). Additionally, as a youth, Ernest was given “an allowance of one penny per year of age each week,” out of which he gave a tithe to the Sunday school (24). At the age of fourteen, Ernest starred in a Sunday school play at the Third Congregational

Church (24). After his parents transferred their membership to the First Congregational

Church, Hemingway and Marcelline joined the Plymouth League, where Ernest often led

Sunday afternoon services (Dearborn 33; Isabelle 7-8; Pawley 24; Hemingway-Sanford

147). Marcelline notes that “the refreshments served after the meetings were quite an attraction for the high school members” (Hemingway-Sanford 147). For the Plymouth

League, Ernest took turns at being the treasurer, the program chairman, and sometimes, the speaker at the meetings. At church, Ernest and Marcelline also played in the church orchestra. Once, Ernest and his four brothers and sisters dressed as Chinese and Japanese citizens in order to phonetically sing the Japanese national anthem (147-48). Yet, when

Hemingway went to Italy for World War I, he saw and experienced the horrors of war.

Perhaps, because of this, and, through his teenage years, Hemingway went astray from his religious upbringing. While in Italy, Ernest met and fell in love with a nurse, Agnes von Kurowsky. He loved her and wanted to start a new life with her in America.

Hemingway wrote to William D. Horne, Jr. about this on March 30, 1919: “But Bill I’ve loved Ag. She’s been my ideal and Bill I forgot all about religion and everything else- because I had Ag to worship . . . All I wanted was Ag and happiness” (Hemingway in

Katakis XXV). This letter shows Hemingway distancing himself from religion in Italy and replacing it with the woman he loved. This is similar to how Catherine Barkley

made her lover, Frederic Henry her religion in A Farewell to Arms (452). Unfortunately, for his parents, Hemingway became a prodigal son and he never returned to the faith of his youth (M. Reynolds, Young Hemingway 139).

Despite having turned away from his faith, Hemingway could never entirely get away from his upbringing and Oak Park mores. For instance, in his first marriage to

Hadley Richardson, Hemingway was sometimes shocked by Hadley’s language. In fact, despite the fact that Hemingway used those very same words, he didn’t think it proper for a woman to use them (163). Hemingway still prayed; “when he was courting Hadley,

[he] asked her if she would pray with him in the Milan cathedral as Agnes would not”

(Stoneback 110-11). Hadley responded that she would: “I am doing the best thing a woman can do for a man. Bringing you back to religion” (qtd. in Stoneback 125-26).

Stoneback asserts that there is abundant evidence that Hemingway “liked to pray in

Catholic churches and cathedrals years before he met Pauline” (113).

Before going to World War I, Hemingway worked for the Kansas City Star.

While there, Hemingway’s mother learned that Ernest “had stopped going to church” and she sent off an angry letter to him (Reef 24). In one of his letters to his mother,

Hemingway wrote: “You know I don’t rave about religion but am as sincere a Christian as I can be . . . . I believe in God and Jesus Christ, have hopes for a hereafter, and creeds don’t matter” (qtd. in Pawley 24). In addition, prior to going to the Great War, Ernest’s father encouraged Ernest to associate with strong, Christian, YMCA men (M. Reynolds,

Young Hemingway 128). In his letters to Ernest, Dr. Clarence “Ed” Hemingway often sounded like a minister (171).

Upon his return to Oak Park after the war, Hemingway wore his war uniform around for four months and gave talks of his war experience. Marcelline Hemingway says that this was because Ernest’s long boots helped support his injured and weakened legs. Yet, Hemingway lied and embellished his wartime experience. This behavior is just like that of Harold Krebs in Hemingway’s short story, “Soldier’s Home.” Krebs would lie and attribute “to himself things other men had seen, done or heard of, and stating as facts certain apocryphal incidents familiar to all soldiers” (Short Stories 111-

12). In an essay in Ernest Hemingway: Artifacts from Life, Tom Putnam surmises that

Krebs, in embellishing his war record to impress those around him, “grows more disillusioned—finding himself becoming a fraud” (Putnam 184). Hemingway may have disillusioned himself with his lies too. In one instance, Hemingway once gave a version of his fictitious war stories in a talk to an audience at the First Baptist Church (M.

Reynolds, Young Hemingway 56). So, Hemingway lied in front of a church. Proverbs

12:22 reads: “Lying lips are an abomination to the Lord, but those who act faithfully are his delight” (English Standard Version).

Back in Oak Park, Hemingway turned to alcohol for his comfort. He stayed in bed, day after day, and hid the liquor from his parents (Pawley 25). Staying in bed helped his aching legs. But he didn’t stay in bed more than half the day (Hemingway-

Sanford 178). According to Marcelline, there were also times when Ernest had “almost depressed intervals when he retired to his room away from the well-wishers and curiosity seekers” (Hemingway-Sanford 183). Hemingway used the alcohol to cope with the pain of his war wounds (Pawley 25). One day, Marcelline was upset about something and

when she came to Ernest’s room, he noticed this and asked her what was wrong

(Hemingway-Sanford 183). Then, he offered her a drink. She tasted it. Then, he said to her:

Don’t be afraid . . . Drink it up, Sis, it can’t hurt you. There’s great comfort in

that little bottle . . . not just for itself. But it relaxes you when the pain gets bad.

Mazaween . . . don’t be afraid to taste all the other things in life that aren’t here in

Oak Park . . . Taste everything, Sis . . . Don’t be afraid to try new things just

because they are new. (qtd. in Hemingway-Sanford 184)

Ernest later wrote of an experience of drinking, “and the rhum (sic) enters into us like the

Holy Spirit” (Hemingway in Katakis 17). God was not Hemingway’s comfort, alcohol was. After that night, Marcelline wondered to herself whether Ernest would ever be happy again at home (Hemingway-Sanford 184). She noted a difference in him upon his return to Oak Park. Marcelline writes, “But Ernest wasn’t the same old friend and playmate I had known” (qtd. in Hemingway-Sanford 178), adding that “a lifetime of new experiences, war, death, agony, new people, a new language and love had crowded into

Ernest’s life” (qtd. in Hemingway-Sanford 178).

After recovering from his wounds, Ernest still didn’t get a job or show any interest in college. He had no plans at all. Instead, he went to Michigan to enjoy life with his friends (Hemingway-Sanford 198). In Michigan, according to Marcelline: “Though

Mother implored Ernest’s help and tried to talk to him about the family situation, he blithely ignored her appeals and managed to leave immediately after meals with his friends or go fishing when something needed to be done; he promised vaguely to help

‘some other time” (205). His parents were very worried about his “lack of adult responsibility” and “his rudeness and his willingness to let both Mrs. Charles, Bill

Smith’s aunt, and our family go on providing for him . . . [led Mother to decide that] something drastic had to be done to wake him up” (205). Leicester Hemingway says that

“Our parents had harbored definite hopes that this fling at soldiering had taught him

[Ernest] a lesson, that now he would suddenly show a keen interest in some ‘sensible’ way of life” (L. Hemingway 56).

The entire situation is similar to that of Harold Krebs in “Soldier’s Home.” Krebs returns from World War I with his Methodist faith shattered (Pawley 25). Krebs is unemployed, but his mother encourages him: “’God has some work for everyone to do . .

. There can be no idle hands in His Kingdom’” (Short Stories 115). Krebs’ mother adds his father’s opinion: “All work is honorable as he says. But you’ve got to make a start at something” (115). When Krebs’ mother asks Harold if he would kneel and pray with her,

Krebs says that he can’t. Krebs’ mother encourages him to try, then she asks him if he wants her to pray for him. Krebs consents (116).

Of Ernest’s free-loading, loafing time, Leicester Hemingway writes, “About the only thing I really understood of that first summer after the war was that Ernest was in an agitated state, and being around the family did not calm him at all” (59). In the end,

Ernest’s mother wrote Ernest a letter in which she said that Ernest had overdrawn his account with her and that he was not welcome back at the family vacation home of

Windemere in Michigan (Dearborn 90). This action got Ernest out of the house, looking for a job on his own. It also added to his resentment towards his mother. In “Soldier’s

Home,” Krebs tells his mother that he doesn’t love her. Putnam suggests that Krebs has forgotten how to love (Putnam 184). In Ernest’s case it is quite possible that he didn’t love his mother. It is known for sure that he didn’t like his mother. When married to his fourth wife, Mary Welsh, Ernest would sometimes rant about his mother, blaming her for making life hell for his father, contributing to his father’s suicide, and referring to his mother as “that bitch” (qtd. in Di Robilant 55). Perhaps his mother’s ultimatum pushed him further away from his Protestant upbringing. Although Hemingway didn’t like his mother, Hawkins argues that he inherited his volatile temper from her as she held grudges against people. Hawkins writes of Grace Hemingway: “Grace had a tendency to store up injustices done to her, so that on occasion even the smallest thing triggered a litany of perceived wrongs” (34). In addition to his mother’s ultimatum, Ernest’s parents didn’t seem to accept writing as a viable career for Ernest (M. Reynolds, My Brother 63). No matter, like Harold Krebs, Hemingway did abandon his childhood faith after World War

Hemingway became interested in Catholicism during his service in Italy during

World War I. There, he served in the Red Cross Ambulance Corps of Unit 4 as driver for the Italian Army (Hemingway-Sanford 157). After a few days in Italy, Ernest and Bill

Horne found the place dull. So, hearing of the chance to volunteer “for a special branch, the Red Cross Rolling Canteen Service,” they applied and were accepted (160). This

Service operated all the way up to front lines—which was right where Hemingway wanted to be, in the midst of the action. He “had volunteered to be one of the bicycle riders who distributed mail, chocolate and tobacco to the soldiers in the trenches at the

front” (160). At that time, the attack on the Piave River had started and the Austrians were shelling around only fifty yards away on the other side of the river. There, making his rounds in Fossalta, Hemingway was wounded by an Austrian Trench Mortar as he handed an Italian soldier a cigarette and chocolate (161). People thought that

Hemingway was going to die. During this time, Hemingway later claimed that he was baptized by a priest; “At Fornaci, Ernest and the other wounded soldiers were administered extreme unction by a chaplain with the Italian army, Don Giuseppe

Bianchi” (Dearborn 59-60).

Michael Reynolds claims that the priest’s absolution of sins and anointment of oil was an epiphanic moment for Hemingway (M. Reynolds, The Paris Years 346).

However, it is unknown if Hemingway was really absolved of his sins by a Catholic priest. H.R. Stoneback notes that battlefield baptism and extreme unction did not produce a “formal process of reconciliation or conversion” (109). On March 10, 1927,

Hemingway divorced Hadley Richardson to marry his new flame, the Catholic, Pauline

Pfeiffer. This divorce devastated Hemingway’s parents. In fact, Leicester Hemingway overheard his dad say of Ernest’s divorce, “No. It’s the disgrace. I'd rather see him in his grave” (L. Hemingway 103). Leicester Hemingway recalls that one morning, while digging for worms with Dr. Hemingway, the doctor says: “You know, of course, that your brother has brought great shame on our family by divorcing Hadley, don't you?”

(103). Dr. Hemingway laments the fact that there hadn’t been a divorce in the

Hemingway family for seventy years. While in the process of trying to marry Pauline,

Ernest returned to Italy, searching for this priest, Don Giuseppe Bianchi, in order to

ascertain if this priest had actually performed an emergency baptism on him, thus making him Catholic (Dearborn 236). According to Hawkins, Ernest found and visited with

Bianchi (71). Hawkins notes that as a rule, priests during the First World War did not

“hand out baptismal certificates as they moved through hospital wards to anoint the wounded” (71). Despite the fact that there is “no evidence that Ernest returned with a baptismal certificate,” he did swear to it (236). With this baptism he was allowed to marry Pauline (M. Reynolds, American Homecoming 121). According to some scholars, death-bed baptism led Hemingway to become interested in Catholicism. In addition, some scholars go so far as to say that this event marks the point when Hemingway started to be Catholic. Perhaps, Ernest’s near-death experience infused a seed of Catholicism in his heart.

Michael Reynolds notes that “when an eighteen-year-old kid thinks he's dying, a

Catholic priest can make a lasting impression” (The Paris Years 346). Reynolds claims that long before Pauline, the ceremony, the ritual, and the mystery of the Catholic Church were a strong attraction to Hemingway. Even if Pauline had not entered his life,

Hemingway would have eventually turned Catholic. Pauline simply accelerated this process. Later some found Hemingway’s Catholic conversion to be suspect, specious, and very convenient (345-46). Yet “none of these doubters seriously thought of

Hemingway as a Protestant, and he, himself, never looked back on his Congregational training which he associated with Oak Park hypocrisy, his father’s unbearable piety and his mother’s church politics of who would rule the choir loft” (346).

Hemingway’s second wife, Pauline Pfeiffer, converted him to Catholicism. In fact, Pfeiffer was such a serious Catholic that she caused Hemingway “ to take seriously doctrine, especially of sin, and observance, especially of prayer” (Berman 33). Before their marriage, Pfeiffer had misgivings about marrying a married man and cutting him off from his wife and child (Dearborn 229). For Pauline “To do so would be not only to invite the damnation of her soul, but also the unforgiving wrath of her Catholic parents”

(M. Reynolds, The Paris Years 318). If Pauline committed adultery, she believed that she would have been “sinning so mortally their souls were in jeopardy” (318). Reynolds wryly observes that “[o]ne could not remain a devout Catholic and an ardent adulteress”

(318).

For his part, Ernest considered “converting to Catholicism in order to marry

Pauline in the Church” (Dearborn 221). Dearborn adds: “No doubt Pauline was researching the Church’s requirements for marriage to a divorced man” (221). In order to marry Pauline, Hemingway had to provide proof that his first marriage to Hadley was outside the Church, and so, unofficial, null and void (M. Reynolds, American

Homecoming 114). So, since Hemingway “testified that he had been baptized during the war in Italy and that his first marriage was outside the Church . . . [he] received, on April

25, the necessary dispensation from the Archbishop of Paris which removed the last obstacle to the ceremony” (121). Yet, Hemingway’s friend, Ada MacLeish, did not attend Ernest’s and Pauline’s wedding because she was disgusted by the Catholic

Church’s solemnization of the new couple’s bond and thought it a farce (Dearborn 237).

Ada

was completely disgusted with Ernest’s efforts to persuade the Catholic Church

that he had been baptized by a priest who walked between aisles of wounded men

in an Italian hospital—therefore Ernest was a Catholic and Hadley never had been

his wife and Bumby was a bastard. To see this farce solemnized by the Catholic

Church was more than we [Archie and Ada] could take. (M. Reynolds, American

Homecoming 124)

In his quest to marry Pauline, Hemingway openly and formally embraced

Catholicism. Hemingway wrote to Ernest Walsh about his rediscovered Catholicity:

If I am anything I am a Catholic. Had extreme unction administered to me as such

in July 1918 and recovered. So guess I am a super-catholic . . . It is most

certainly the most comfortable religion for anyone soldiering. Am not what is

called a “good” catholic . . . But cannot imagine taking any other religion

seriously. (qtd. in M. Reynolds, The Paris Years 345)

It is unknown whether Ernest ever mailed this letter.

Ruth A. Hawkins suggests that Hemingway ardently became a true Catholic believer after he was cured of his temporary sexual problems after his marriage to

Pauline. Hemingway told A.E. Hotchner that he and Pauline had had a good sex life during their affair, yet, after they got married, Hemingway experienced problems with impotence (Hawkins 86). To try to alleviate this problem, Hemingway saw doctors and a mystic. Nothing worked. Pauline was patient and understanding. Ernest was discouraged so she encouraged him to go to the church a few blocks away and pray.

Ernest recounts: “I went there and said a short prayer. Then I went back to our room.

Pauline was in bed, waiting. I undressed and got in bed and we made love like we invented it. We never had any trouble again. That’s when I became a Catholic” (qtd. in

Hawkins 86).

Throughout his literary career, Hemingway writes a number of stories involving

Catholics. His short story, “The Wine of Wyoming” is about a French Catholic bootlegging couple and is based upon a real-life Catholic couple that he met in Sheridan,

Wyoming (Dearborn 263). Hemingway also writes about Catholicism in The Sun Also

Rises. However, Hemingway doesn’t write so much about Catholicism, but rather of

Catholics themselves in their day-to-day lives (Hertzel 78). In The Sun Also Rises, Jake

Barnes is nominally Catholic. He basically lives the way that he wants to, prays, and goes to church occasionally. This is kind of like Hemingway, who, although not a nominal Catholic, lived the way that he wanted to, while still claiming to be Catholic and following some rituals. In The Sun Also Rises, Jake talks of going to church “a couple of times, once with Brett” (Sun 154). Although Jake prays regularly, including for his friends, he also prays for mundane things like the upcoming bullfights and the Festival of

San Fermín. “I wondered if there was anything else I might pray for, and I thought I would like to have some money, so I prayed that I would make a lot of money” (103).

While praying Jake gets distracted and he begins to think about other things: “as all the time I was kneeling with my forehead on the wood in front of me, and was thinking of myself as praying, I was a little ashamed and regretted that I was such a rotten

Catholic” (103). Of his bad example as a Catholic, Jake realizes that “there was nothing I could do about it, at least for a while, and maybe never, but that anyway it was a grand

religion, and I only wished I felt religious and maybe I would the next time” (103). One critic asserts that The Sun Also Rises: “is a novel about spiritual bankruptcy” (Djos). Jake is spiritually bankrupt, but he tries to go about things in another way. He drinks in order escape the pain of the war and his impotency. So, alcohol might be said to be Jake’s primary spiritual comfort; like it was a comfort for Hemingway. Carlos Baker categorizes The Sun Also Rises as a tale of Wastelanders (Berman 44). Moreover, Jake once thinks: “To hell with people. The Catholic Church had an awfully good way of handling all that” (Sun 39). Jake believes that the Catholic Church has a good way of sending people to hell, purgatory, or heaven, to whatever fate the individual deserves.

In addition, Catholicism is referenced in Hemingway’s A Farewell to Arms with its protagonist Frederic Henry. Unlike, the nominally Catholic Jake Barnes, Frederic has no religion whatsoever (Farewell 279). However, there is a priest in Frederic’s Italian army unit that Frederic likes a lot. Yet, Frederic thinks the priest dull (33). According to

Frederic, he and the priest share many of the same tastes, yet there is a difference between them (12). Frederic is a man of the world, who does not believe in religion, per se, and he loves women. The priest is a man of God, he loves God above all, he doesn’t pursue women. When Frederic is recovering from his war wound in the hospital, the priest comes to visit him. Frederic tells the priest that he does not love God (62). He adds that he is “afraid of Him in the night sometimes” (62). Gary Sloan argues that

Frederic’s girlfriend, Catherine, “will be his [Frederic’s] religion even as he, she says, is hers” (452). Michael Reynolds points out that “Catherine sounded a lot like [Ernest’s second wife] Pauline, who had made Ernest her religion, risking her soul on the promise

of his love” (M. Reynolds, American Homecoming 216). This is also the case when

Ernest made his first girlfriend, Agnes von Kurowsky, his religion over organized religion.

Although Frederic is not religious, in desperate times, he seems to temporarily become religious. When he first receives his war injury, he cries out to God: “get me out of here” (48). When his and Catherine Barkley’s baby dies, Frederic thinks of the baby and thinks that it should have been baptized (279). Faced with the possibility of

Catherine dying, Frederic prays: “Everything was gone inside of me. I did not think. I could not think. I knew she was going to die and I prayed that she would not. Don’t let her die. Oh, God, please don’t let her die. I’ll do anything for you if you won’t let her die” (282). Hertzel points out that some of Hemingway’s characters pray frequently.

However, it is also important to note that the prayers never get answered (79). For example, in Hemingway’s posthumously published Islands in the Stream, Thomas

Hudson’s son, David, makes this comment about prayer: “You can’t tell, Audrey. You never know when it [prayer] may [do good]. . . . I don’t mean that Mr. Davis needs to be prayed for. I just mean about prayer technically” (186). In Frederick Henry’s case, both his baby and Catherine die. Apparently, in Hemingway’s mind, there was no supernatural realm and prayers go nowhere. Frederick asks Catherine on her death bed:

“Do you want me to get a priest or anyone to come and see you?” (Farewell 282).

Catherine just wants Frederic to stay with her. Frederic says that his only religious feeling comes at night (227). So the spiritual connection of sex is a religious experience to

Frederic.

Hemingway does not present a supernatural dimension to Catholicism (Hertzel

78). In The Sun Also Rises, as Jake and Brett leave a chapel in Pamplona, he thinks that

“[t]he praying had not been much of a success” (212). Brett also portrays religion as being useless—at least for her, saying, “Don’t know why I get so nervy in church . . . .

Never does me any good” (212). Brett says that praying never does her any good and that she has never gotten anything that she prayed for (213). Jake does say that he has gotten things that he has prayed for. Brett replies of prayer: “Maybe it works for some people” (213). Jake considers himself “pretty religious” (213). Hemingway himself prayed, but, apparently after the Spanish Civil War, his view on prayer changed. In The

Dangerous Summer, he says “[I]. . . never [prayed] for myself during the Spanish Civil

War when I saw the terrible things that happened to other people and I felt that to pray for oneself was selfish and egotistical” (142). In a June 19, 1945 letter to Thomas Welsh,

Hemingway expounded:

In first war . . . really scared after wounded and very devout at the end. Fear of

death. Belief in personal salvation or maybe just preservation through prayers for

intercession of Our Lady and various saints that prayed to with almost tribal faith.

Spanish war seemed so selfish to pray for self when such things being done to all

people by people sponsored by Church that never prayed for self. But missed

Ghostly comfort. . . . This war [Spanish Civil War] got through without praying

once. Times a little bad sometimes too. But felt that having forfeited any right to

ask for these intercessions would be absolutely crooked to ask for same no matter

how scared. (qtd. in Stoneback 128)

Consequently, Hemingway only prayed for others after the Spanish Civil War. In The

Dangerous Summer, Hemingway writes of praying for others in Spain: “I prayed for all those I had in hock to Fortune, for all friends with cancer, for all girls, living and dead, and that, Antonio would have good bulls that afternoon” (69). Yet, it is unknown if any of Hemingway’s prayers were ever answered. In fact, Hemingway wondered if his prayers ever got anywhere:

In case my prayers were invalid, as they well might have been, and to make sure

someone competent was doing it I took out a membership in the Jesuit Seminary

Fund Association at New Orleans for Carmen and Antonio [Ordóñez, bullfighter].

There was a class graduating who, when they were ordained, would pray for them

each day. (142)

So, Hemingway got others to pray for his friends, family, and others in case that his prayers were going nowhere. In Hemingway’s works, instead of offering a supernatural element to the Catholic Church, he presents the Church as a solely human institution.

Hertzel writes that Hemingway treats the Catholic Church as “a colorful institution with richness, tradition, ritual and discipline, but it provides no convenient miracles” (78-79).

Consequently, Hemingway uses Catholicism as a literary motif to add texture to his writings (79).

In Death in the Afternoon, Hemingway seems to make fun of the inspiration of the Holy Spirit that, according to Christians, is the method by which the Bible was written. Hemingway’s example is silly. Hemingway mockingly describes the writing process of Waldo Frank, the author of Virgin Spain. He “lay naked in his bed in the night

and God sent him things to write, how he ‘was in touch ecstatically with the plunging and immobile all” (53). Moreover,

After God sent it he wrote it. The result was that unavoidable mysticism of a

man who writes a language so badly he cannot make a clear statement,

complicated by whatever pseudo-scientific jargon is in style at the moment. God

sent him some wonderful stuff about Spain, during his short stay there

preparatory to writing of the soul of the country, but it is often nonsense. (53)

Hemingway wrote more generally of the religion of the Lost Generation, again with a touch of mockery:

There will be many new salvations brought forward. My generation in France for

example in two years sought salvation in first the Catholic Church, 2nd DaDaism,

third the movies, fourth Royalism, fifth the Catholic Church again. There may be

another and better war. But none of it will matter particularly to this generation

because to them the things that are given to people to happen have already

happened. (qtd. in M. Reynolds, The Paris Years 327)

In his books, Hemingway also seems to make fun of religion in order to try to be comedic. In his ficto-biography, True at First Light, Hemingway asks the interpreter:

“Did you not like the Mission School? Remember God is listening. He hears your every word” (182). Later Hemingway asks G.C.: “And will you carry these principles into

Life, son?” (204). G.C. responds: “Drink your beer, Billy Graham” (204). Ironically, years later, Billy Graham would use Ernest Hemingway as a sermon illustration. More comedy follows in True at First Light when Hemingway talks about a new religion that

he created for the Africans. He said that his African helpers, Ngui, and Mthuka, and himself “could decide what was a sin and what was not” (281). Hemingway also talks about the “Happy Hunting Grounds” as if it were some sort of heaven.

In The Sun Also Rises, Hemingway is comedic through the character of Bill

Gorton. Walking down a boulevard with Jake, Bill spots a taxidermist’s shop and jokingly tries to get Jake to buy a stuffed dog. Jake knows that it is a joke, and just tries to keep Bill moving down the boulevard. After Jake promises to get a stuffed dog on the way back, Bill Gorton says: “All right. Have it your own way. Road to hell paved with unbought stuffed dogs. Not my fault” (78). Hemingway also does this with the priest in

A Farewell to Arms in order to try to infuse comedy into this novel when the captain at the soldiers’ mess keep joking with the priest as the butt of the joke, “Priest to-day with girls” (7). The captain adds: “Priest every night five against one” (7).

On the train to Bayonne, Bill Gorton says of some pilgrims on the train with them: “Goddam Puritans” (Sun 91). In the train compartment with Jake and Bill is a man from Montana with his wife and son. The man says to Jake and Bill of getting a meal while pretending to be pilgrims: “They thought we were snappers, all right. . . . It certainly shows you the power of the Catholic Church. It’s a pity you boys ain’t

Catholics. You could get a meal, then, all right” (93). Frustrated by the situation, Jake assures him that he is Catholic. When Bill Gorton corners a priest returning from a meal with the pilgrims, Bill asks him when the Protestants will get a chance to eat. The priest says that he doesn’t know and Gorton replies: “It’s enough to make a man join the Klan”

(93).

After fishing along the Irati River, Jake and Bill meet to have lunch. After talking about William Jennings Bryan and which came first, the chicken or the egg, Bill mocks religion and the question of whether the chicken or the egg comes first: “Oh . . . how should we know? We should not question. Our stay on earth is not for long. Let us rejoice and believe and give thanks” (126). Holding a drumstick, perhaps, like a mock scepter, and a bottle of wine, Bill tries to be mockingly funny: “Let us rejoice in our blessings. Let us utilize the fowls of the air. Let us utilize the product of the vine. Will you utilize a little, brother?” (126). Handing Jake the bottle, Bill says: “Utilize a little, brother . . . Let us not doubt, brother. Let us not pry into the holy mysteries of the hencoop with simian fingers. Let us accept on faith” (127). Then, pointing at a drumstick, Bill says: “Let me tell you. We will say, and I for one am proud to say—and I want you to say with me, on your knees, brother. Let no man be ashamed to kneel here in the great out-of-doors. Remember the woods were God’s first temples” (127). They uncork another bottle. Before they take a nap, Bill asks Jake if he is really a Catholic

(128). Jake replies that he is technically a Catholic. When asked what that means, Jake says that he doesn’t know (129). Even though the Eucharist is mocked, Jake and Bill are seemingly reborn as they fish in nature. So, nature provides a chance at rest and regeneration.

Just like Hemingway in most of his life, some of his characters are not religious, although they have religious influences. Robert Jordan is one example. His father was religious. But his father’s religion turned Robert off. In one instance, as a younger man, when Robert is about to leave on a train, his father gets emotional and says a prayer over

him. In response, “Robert Jordan had been so embarrassed by all of it [his father’s emotionalism], the damp religious sound of the prayer, and by his father kissing him good-by, that he had felt suddenly so much older than his father and sorry for him that he could hardly bear it” (For Whom Bell Tolls 405-406). This would seem similar to

Ernest’s leaving home for the first time, en route to Kansas City (Hemingway-Sanford

154). In this instance, Hemingway’s father bought him the ticket and saw him off (154).

Maybe, Dr. Hemingway did cry when he saw Ernest off, for he really loved his son.

While Ernest was in Italy, Marcelline notes that her “Dad had always loved Ernest especially dearly, and he missed him and prayed for him daily” (Hemingway-Sanford

160). To compound all this, like Hemingway’s father, Robert’s religious father later

“shot himself” in a suicide in the same manner as Robert Jordan’s father (For Whom Bell

Tolls 66). Robert “understood his father and he forgave him everything and he pitied him but he was ashamed of him” (340). Perhaps, Hemingway was ashamed of his father after his father’s sad suicide. This shame and embarrassment of his late father and his perceived cowardice may have pushed Robert away from religion (338). In addition, it is quite probable that the suicide of Hemingway's father additionally pushed him away from the Protestant tradition of his father as his father had been a deacon and a very upright and religious man (Reynolds, M., American Homecoming 211). Yet Daniel Pawley notes that Hemingway loved his father more than anyone else in the world. At one point in For

Whom the Bell Tolls, Robert says: “I do not believe in ogres, nor soothsayers, nor in the supernatural things” (250). When Pilar tells Robert that she cares about him, Robert tells

Pilar that he doesn’t want her love. He qualifies: “Ni tu, ni Dios” (Neither yours, nor

God’s) (387). Robert doesn’t want God’s love either.

CHAPTER 4

HEMINGWAY’S SPIRITUALITY

According to Michael Reynolds, Hemingway liked all things ancient and medieval, and that included the Catholic Church. In fact, Hemingway liked visiting medieval cathedrals, among them Chartres. He “liked the ritual, the mystery, the odors of age and incense. He liked its permanence in stone” (M. Reynolds, The Paris Years 325).

Hadley Richardson liked to refer to the chivalric Hemingway as her “gentil, parfit knight,” an allusion to Chaucer’s description of the knight in The Canterbury Tales (M.

Reynolds, Young Hemingway 223), and he liked to wear a scapular. This scapular has

“got an image of Christ on it, suspended from a brown, shoestring-like loop. At home, in

Key West, friends have observed him with the scapular, and how he’ll make the sign of the cross before he goes in swimming” (Hendrickson 28).

Hemingway would come back to the Bible in his later years in his search for literary titles. Hemingway alludes to Ecclesiastes 1:4-7 in his title of The Sun Also Rises.

The Scriptural passage was used to signify that, basically, the Lost Generation would pass away, but that the earth would abide forever. Moreover, Hemingway gave the Bible credit for teaching him how to write (Blume 213).

In his youth, Hemingway idolized his missionary uncle to China, Willoughby (M.

Reynolds, Young Hemingway 110). Willoughby had a medical mission there. In fact,

Ernest’s father, Dr. Clarence Hemingway, inspired by his brother, had wanted to be a medical missionary to Guam, but his wife had dissuaded him from it (Pawley 24). Dr.

Hemingway also had an offer for a medical mission in Greenland (L. Hemingway 21).

Grace refused to go. Ernest Hemingway’s life might have had a much different outcome if his mother would have supported his father in becoming a medical missionary to Guam or, even Greenland. Years later, when Hemingway was living in Cuba, Hemingway’s sister, Ursala, visited and she and Ernest reminisced about their Uncle Willoughby, recalling his visits, and, together, they sang “‘Jesus Loves Me’ in Chinese until the tears rolled down their cheeks” (25). Upon the death of his father, Ernest returned home to

Oak Park where he openly displayed his new-found Catholic faith. Marcelline says that, upon his arrival, Ernest “told us that he had had a Mass said” for their dad (Dearborn 268;

M. Reynolds, American Homecoming 211; Hemingway-Sanford 233). With Dr.

Hemingway’s body lying in repose in the music room, Ernest, now leader of his family, led his family in the Lord’s Prayer. This echoes back to the time in Ernest’s youth when his Grandfather Hall would lead his family in the Lord’s prayer, “his eyes directed heavenward” (Dearborn 268). However, during this time of mourning, Ernest’s

Catholicism angered some people—especially Marcelline.

Relying on Catholic teaching, Ernest believed that his father had gone to purgatory since suicide was a mortal sin (M. Reynolds, American Homecoming 211). In addition, Ernest mentioned that since his family was a Heathen Family, “it was impossible to offer enough prayers to get his [Dr. Hemingway’s] soul into heaven”

(Dearborn 268). Marcelline thought that Ernest’s idea of praying their father out of purgatory was disgusting. Ernest told his kid brother, Leicester Hemingway, to “pray as hard as he could for his father’s soul to be released from purgatory” as “things go right on

50 from here” (Dearborn 268; My Brother 111). Despite the waves that Ernest made with his family, he showed genuine care, concern, and distress, in his belief that his late father was in purgatory (Dearborn 268). In this instance, Hemingway definitely took Catholic doctrine seriously.

Dearborn paints Ernest Hemingway as a practicing Catholic, one who would go to

Mass and fast on Good Friday. She suggests that during this trying time Hemingway turned to his faith in order to anchor himself through his grief. She further suggests that

Ernest’s claim that his father was in purgatory was a way for him to assert his patriarchal dominance over the family and to show that he was in charge. Marcelline, as the eldest, had tried to claim this role, but in her struggle with Ernest, she had lost (269).

In Chicago, a Dominican priest wrote to Hemingway to thank him for saving his friend, Don Stewart, in the bull ring at Pamplona (M. Reynolds, American Homecoming

156). This priest had heard of Hemingway’s conversion to Catholicism within that year,

1927, and he urged Hemingway to become a writer for the Dominican cause in order to defend the Church and its “cause of Truth” (156). In response, Hemingway wrote:

I have been a Catholic for many years although I feel very badly and did not go to

communion for over 8 years. However I have gone regularly to mass for the last

two years and absolutely set my house in order within the year. However, I have

always had more faith than intelligence or knowledge and I have never wanted to

be known as a Catholic writer because I know the importance of setting an

example—and I have never set a good example . . . Also I am a dumb Catholic

and I have so much faith that I hate to examine it—but I am trying to lead a good

life and to write well and truly and it is easier to do the first than the second. (qtd.

in M. Reynolds, American Homecoming 156)

In a 1940 Valentine’s Day letter to his editor, Maxwell Perkins, Hemingway wrote: “I am not a Catholic writer, nor a party writer, nor even an American writer, but just a writer meant to rise above injustice” (qtd. in Isabelle 51).

Despite his Catholicism, Hemingway’s faith didn’t help him to change into a better man. Although, he did some good things, Hemingway’s Catholic faith did not transform him, nor even make him Christ-like. Hemingway did not have a salvation experience. Nor was his faith life-altering. Stoneback agrees that “Hemingway did not turn to the church . . . for instant deliverance” (Stoneback 122). As a Catholic,

Hemingway continued to live the way he had before he had been a Catholic. Ernest’s

Catholicism did not translate into his personal life. Hemingway’s religious life was one solely of Catholic rituals. He did not change his behavior or his vices. He did not overcome his problems. Unfortunately, in the end, Hemingway’s problems overcame him.

Despite his personal shortcomings, Hemingway did, at times, take Catholicism seriously. After one of his African safaris, he returned to Paris and saw his friend, Ned

Calmer. Calmer was a reporter and an aspiring novelist. There, Hemingway learned that

Calmer’s daughter had not been baptized (Hendrickson 44). This was unconscionable to

Hemingway. Years later Calmer wrote that “Ernest . . . seemed genuinely concerned.

The attitude was: this will never do! He came along to the church of St. Sulpice in Paris

52 as sponsor at the ceremony” (qtd. in Hendrickson 44) where Calmer’s daughter was baptized.

Hemingway’s faith affected him in other ways too. During the Spanish Civil

War, his Catholicism would give him “sympathy with the conservative, traditionalist side in Spain, at least in the early days of this unrest” (Dearborn 303). Later, Hemingway would switch his allegiance to the anti-Franco, anti-fascist, communist-supported side of the conflict. Unfortunately, this shift caused many family disputes with his wife, Pauline

(Isabelle 25). However, it was Hemingway’s belief that politics and religion should not mix (Stoneback 117). After the Spanish Civil War and in Cuba, Hemingway used to worry that the FBI were Roman Catholics and, thus, consequently Franco sympathizers

(N. Reynolds 127). In fact, Hemingway liked to refer to the FBI as: “‘Franco’s Bastard

Irish’ and ‘Franco’s Iron Cavalry’” (127). Nicholas Reynolds suggests that Hemingway was paranoid about the FBI because he had signed on to be a spy with the Russian

Narodny Kommisariat Vnutrennikh Del (People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs), better known as the NKVD. Yet, Hemingway never actually did anything for them. His code name was “Argo.” Dearborn notes that “[d]espite his professed Catholicism, Ernest was impatient with religion, over philosophizing, and what we would call today self- help” (320). Dorothy Parker makes a different claim about Hemingway: “There is . . . no more than a thin line of moss . . . to stamp the spot where Robert Benchley and Ernest

Hemingway had that big philosophical discussion about the meaning of life” (qtd. in M.

Reynolds, American Homecoming 106). Philosopher Ralph Withington Church “recalls his conversations with Hemingway about the ‘problem of redemption’ and

Malebranche’s ‘theory of grace’” (Stoneback 121). Ernest also had his own privately- held opinions about Catholicism. For example, Hemingway told one of his daughters-in- law that, unlike the Catholic Church’s teaching that animals don’t have souls, he believed that animals did (Dearborn 516). Secondly, Ernest seems to have taken on or been influenced by his mother’s mystic, spiritualist bent. Ernest believed in superstitions and in some types of psychic phenomena (518).

Later in his life, Ernest seems to have some misgivings about Catholicism. He consistently said, when Pauline’s name surfaced, that “her Catholic faith had wrecked the marriage” (Dearborn 406). Pauline had been advised by her doctor not to have any more children. The fear was that Pauline would get pregnant and die from the pregnancy

(Hawkins 141). Since Catholicism only permitted the birth control method of withdrawal, Ernest’s pleasure was significantly diminished by this technique and consequently doomed their marriage. Hemingway had also wanted to have a daughter, but this dream was never realized. Pauline’s second son, Gregory, who became a doctor, contends that all that his father would have had to have done to retain his pleasure would have been to abstain from intercourse on Pauline’s fertile days. According to Greg’s reasoning, this “would have been obvious to ‘any fool’” (qtd. in Dearborn 406).

According to Leicester Hemingway, Ernest wanted nothing to do with the Catholic church after Pauline, and he asked for “the address of an uncle, William E. Miller, who had written many hymns in the Episcopalian hymnal” (Isabelle 58-59). Moreover, Ernest was concerned about his sons, Patrick and Gregory, attending a Catholic school. Ernest feared that this school, Canterbury, was affecting Patrick gradually and insidiously

(Dearborn 480). In fact, Ernest hated this school, and he referred to it as “one of ‘those snot, schools’” (480).

Pauline’s and Hemingway’s second son, Gregory, had a troubled life. Over time, he came to like to dress up as a woman. In Los Angeles, this caught up with him when he tried to enter the women’s restroom of a theater in drag (Hendrickson 297). Pauline cabled Hemingway that Gregory was in trouble. Hemingway called back. Pauline was in a lot of pain, but went to the phone anyway to tell Hemingway about the problem. On the phone Hemingway said, “It’s all your fault . . . see how you’ve brought him up, you’re corrupt and he’s corrupt” (qtd. in Hendrickson 297). Hemingway intimated that, perhaps,

Gregory’s Catholic upbringing had pushed Gregory into transgenderism. Gregory had served as an altar-boy at Saint Mary Star of the Sea (386).

That night, Pauline went to bed in tears. Unfortunately, the heated, accusative argument with Ernest had set Pauline off. At the time, Pauline had been staying at her sister’s, Virginia, residence in Los Angeles. In the early morning, Virginia and her friend, Laura, awakened to what they described as a “horrendous scream” from Pauline’s room. Pauline was taken to the hospital where her blood pressure skyrocketed, dropped to zero, and caused “her to die of shock on the operating table” (Hawkins 271). Later,

Hemingway blamed Pauline’s death on Gregory. Yet, Gregory became a doctor and researched his mother’s death more thoroughly. Through an autopsy report, Gregory learned that his mother had died of a “rare tumor of the adrenal gland,” also known as pheochromocytoma (275). This type of tumor secretes large quantities of adrenaline, causing blood pressure to spike—even to the point where arteries can rupture. Pauline

55 had had only an intermittent tumor that would secrete during times of stress. Gregory informed his father of his findings in a letter in the summer of 1960. Gregory wrote that

Hemingway’s argument with Pauline had set Pauline off, “causing a blood vessel to rupture,” after which her blood pressure dropped to zero, with the resulting shock, killing her on the operating table (275). So, Gregory blamed Hemingway for Pauline’s early death from shock due to the ruptured blood vessel and the drop of her blood pressure to zero.

In 1947, Hemingway’s son, Patrick, had a spiritual crisis of his own. Due to his

Catholic mother, Patrick had been schooled in Catholic schools. In 1947, Patrick had been studying for the College Board exams at Hemingway’s home, the Finca, in Cuba.

However, when Gregory had a spring vacation, Patrick decided to join him in Key West.

In 1945, Pauline had bought herself a sports car (Dearborn 497). In 1947, in Key West,

Patrick was newly licensed and Patrick let Gregory drive the sports car. Gregory drove off the road and hit a tree near Casa Marina.

In the process, Patrick and Gregory seemed to suffer only minor injuries.

Gregory “received a minor knee injury,” while Patrick “suffered a cut on his chin and slight headache” (Hawkins 251). Yet, Patrick had suffered a severe concussion (Di

Robilant 7). At first, the boys didn’t seem to have any ill effects from the accident and they arrived back at the Finca. However, shortly after his arrival, Patrick started acting strangely (Dearborn 497). At the Finca, Patrick asked “for a pot of hot water and some tea” (497). When René Villarreal brought the hot water and tea to the little house,

“Patrick complained that the water was dirty” (497). Then, Patrick, commenced shouting

56 loudly at the cook, Ramón, who wasn’t even there. Next, at the main house, Ernest placed Patrick “on a wicker chaise and stroked his head” (497). In Havana the next day,

Patrick was able to take the College Board exams, but as the day progressed, he grew increasingly agitated. So, Ernest called for a doctor. The doctor “sedated Patrick, but the next day he was delirious and soon became violent, and it was necessary to restrain him”

(497). Andrea Di Robilant believes that Patrick had a complete breakdown (7). His loss of normalcy became a terrible ordeal for the Hemingway family in which his future, his sanity, and his life hung in the balance (Dearborn 497).

In response, Ernest placed Patrick in his own bed at the Finca and slept on a straw mat in the living room, just outside the door of his bedroom, taking care of Patrick around the clock (Dearborn 497-98; Hawkins 251). Ernest did this for the next, three months

(Dearborn 498). It was hoped that Patrick would recover and be well within a couple of weeks. Yet, it didn’t turn out this way. Doctors from all over Cuba were called in. Dr.

Herrera deemed Patrick to be “predemential,” a condition either set off from the exams or by a crisis of his Catholic faith (498). Religion was a big portion of Patrick’s delirium, the other subject being putas, whores. A local priest, named Don Andrés, became one of

Patrick’s chief caretakers. Surprisingly, due to the spiritual nature of Patrick’s condition, this priest was unable to enter Patrick’s room without being accused of being the devil incarnate. Consequently, this priest became known as the Black Priest.

Patrick was so delusional that Ernest and his doctors were concerned about being near Patrick because they were afraid that they would be scratched or bitten. Patrick remained bedridden for weeks and “he moved in and out of consciousness” (Di Robilant

7). However, Patrick’s condition did not improve; he only worsened and became more violent—having to be constantly restrained (Dearborn 498). At first the doctors wanted

Ernest to put Patrick in a hospital, but Ernest was determined to keep Patrick at home.

Patrick was so delirious that he wouldn’t eat. When Patrick did eat, he stuffed the food in his mouth like a hamster to spit out at his caretakers. Patrick even couldn’t swallow his own saliva. Considering that Patrick would probably rip out feeding tubes, it was decided to feed him rectally, under restraint and under heavy sedation. Patrick had not eaten since his illness had begun five days prior. It would take a full hour and a half to feed Patrick rectally. Despite this procedure, Patrick dropped to eighty-eight pounds by the start of August. He had become psychotic.

Given the limited means and the early days of psychiatric diagnoses, in that time and age, it seemed like Patrick was schizophrenic, perhaps even needing a lifetime of institutionalized care (499). In July, a new physician suggested that Patrick undergo shock treatments. In those days, the only options were lobotomy and electroshock therapy (499-500). So, seeing no other viable option, Patrick’s parents relented to the electroshock therapy (500). In the outbuilding of the Finca, Patrick received his first shock treatment. After only around ten minutes, Patrick was reported as being “lucid.”

Fortunately, Patrick’s electroshock therapy brought him back.

The Hemingways remembered how the shock treatments had brought Patrick back from the brink of hopelessness. However, when electroshock treatments were tried years later on Ernest himself because of his traumatic brain injuries and compounding depression, they had the opposite effect. For Ernest Hemingway, electroshock treatments

58 wiped out his memory and he could no longer write, take pride in himself, and support himself financially by the only means he knew how. The shock treatments pushed

Hemingway further into depression.

After his marriage to Pauline Pfeiffer, Hemingway had misgivings about his

Catholic faith. However, H.R. Stoneback asserts that Hemingway never entirely gave up his Catholicism and that he continued to go to Mass, pray, support the church, and regard himself as Catholic (114). Despite all this, Hemingway had some bitterness toward the

Catholic Church. Yet, it still played an influence in his life. Lloyd Arnold says of

Hemingway’s last twenty years of life: “I did not know Papa as a man without God” (qtd. in Stoneback 105-06). Even after his marriage to Pauline, Hemingway did put some stock in Catholicism. His divorce from Pauline made him excommunicated from the

Catholic Church—he could not receive communion—but, he still did visit Catholic churches and pray inside. During his marriage to Pauline, Hemingway had faithfully and regularly attended Mass. Of his post-Pauline years, Hemingway friend and biographer,

A.E. Hotchner noted that, in 1954, Hemingway, on his way to Madrid, stopped into the cathedral at Burgos, where he kneeled and prayed (Stoneback 106). According to

Hotchner, in 1958, Hemingway paid for a new roof for the Catholic Church in Hailey,

Idaho. Then, he gave an address to that parish’s young people, admonishing them not to work on Sunday as it was “very back luck” (qtd. in Stoneback 106).

Actor Gary Cooper, who had played the role of Robert Jordan in the 1943 film version of For Whom the Bell Tolls, converted to Catholicism himself in 1958. In response, Hemingway “talked sympathetically with Gary Cooper about” it (Stoneback

106). In 1959, Hemingway was pickpocketed in Spain, so, in response, he put an ad in the newspaper, asking the Spanish pickpocket to return his billfold as he cared mostly for

“getting back the “image of St. Christopher in it” (qtd. in Stoneback 106). Throughout his lifetime, Hemingway named a son after a pope, “displayed great pride in Patrick’s confirmation mastery of the catechism, gave money and support to the church” (110).

Ernest even taught his oldest son, Bumby, how to pray (L. Hemingway 99). When

Hemingway received his Nobel Prize for Literature in 1954, he gave the medal to the

Virgen of Cobra Shrine in Cuba (Isabelle 52).

In a conversation with his fourth and final wife, Mary Welsh, Hemingway says to her: “Religion is superstition . . . and I believe in superstition” (qtd. in Stoneback 118).

Ernest adds that it is his “Tribal heritage” (118). Mary wrote to Stoneback of Ernest that when they would visit cathedrals in France, Italy, or Spain, Hemingway would light candles in honor of the memory of his friends. Stoneback writes that with Ernest, Mary

Hemingway had to live through a Catholic prism. With Ernest, Mary had to eat fish on

Fridays, observe Lent, do the Christmas traditions, celebrate Ernest’s saint’s day, have masses and prayers said for family and friends, observe holy days and Catholic feasts, drive miles off course to visit and revisit cathedrals and churches, and to attend religious processions (119). Mary Hemingway would later say that Hemingway “admired” the

Catholic church and that he “thought of himself always as Catholic” (qtd. in 119). Mary

Hemingway said of Ernest’s friend, the Black Priest, Don Andrés, that he and

Hemingway would talk alone and that Ernest regarded him “as his ‘personal priest and confessor,’ that they prayed together and for each other” (120). According to Toby

Bruce, Hemingway and the Black Priest were very good friends, they talked quite a lot, and that when Don Andrés died in 1955, Hemingway had masses said for him (132).

Mary said of Ernest: “When he said he was Catholic he meant it” (qtd. in 120).

Mary added that Ernest tried very hard at being Catholic. Allen Tate said that

Hemingway was “very Catholic” and that his attitude towards sports was “rooted in religious sensibility” (120). Tate added that it was the ritual of sport that Hemingway liked. R.W. Church says that Hemingway’s “talk during these late hours at Lips made evident his conviction that Sport, and bull-fighting in particular, afforded a major way to the redemption of man” (135). Stoneback argues that, for Hemingway, sport is a redemptive ritual that is central to his life and work (136). The renowned sportsman,

George Leonard Herter, said that although Hemingway was a strong Catholic, his “religion came mainly from the Apparitions of the Virgin Mary” (121). Herter said that Hemingway was almost obsessed with the apparitions and talked about them often

(134). Hemingway thought that they were important. Hemingway did not understand why the Catholic church did not publicize the apparitions. Hemingway was amazed that most brothers, nuns, and priests were ignorant of the apparitions and seemed to care even less. Herter said that he had heard Hemingway speak of the apparitions, including

Lourdes, Fatima, and others, “at one time or another” (qtd. in 134). Herter says that

Hemingway believed that if there was no Bible, “no man-made church laws,” then the apparitions conclusively proved that the Catholic church was the true church (134-35).

Herter adds that: “Hemingway knew all the apparitions. The ones at Pontmain,

Pellivoisin, Allyrod greatly impressed him” (134-35). In addition, Hemingway basically believed that the Virgin Mary was earth’s listening post for Jesus and God (135).

Reynolds Price suggested that: “Hemingway’s ‘lifelong subject’ was

‘saintliness’” (121). Stoneback asserts a spiritual order to Hemingway’s works in which

Hemingway examines the conscience through a Catholic lens (122). Stoneback summarizes an October 18, 1933, letter to Pauline. Hemingway

tells Pauline that the proofs of Winner Take Nothing have arrived, and though it is

a “damned good” book it’s too much to expect the church will stand for it. As he

sees it, considering his writing, the church would have two choices: either kick

him out or prove he has no right to be in. Either one would be bad because he

couldn’t tell them to “go to the devil” because of the “Italian complications.” At

least, he’ll be able to say his prayers, participate in the Mass, support and

contribute to the church, and wherever they don’t know him he can go to

confession . . . He does not want to seem to be seeking “appui” as a “Catholic

writer.” He says that he has no right to write the way he does and be “‘officially

of the Church.’” Everything is fine with his conscience; however, he adds that

there’s nothing wrong with the church. (Stoneback 129-30)

Stoneback summarizes an interview with Fraser Drew. As Stoneback summarizes, Hemingway told Drew:

I [Hemingway] like to think that I’m a Catholic, as far as I can be. I can still go to

Mass, although many things have happened—the divorces, the marriages. He

spoke with admiration of Catholicism and then of his friend, the Basque priest

whom he had known in Spain [Don Andrés] and who now lived in San Francisco

de Paula. He comes here a great deal, said EH. He prays for me every day, as I

do for him. I can’t pray for myself any more. Perhaps it’s because in some way I

have become hardened. Or perhaps it is because the self becomes less important

and others become more important. But that Time article was bad. He referred to

a recent article in Time which had commented that he had been born a

Congregationalist, had become a Roman Catholic, and now no longer went to

church. This conversation with EH confirms my earlier feeling that he is a

religious man with respect for the religions of others. (Stoneback 131)

Toby Bruce said of Hemingway and religion: “I’d say he was very religious. Always went to Mass, especially when he was here, still with Pauline. And afterwards too” (qtd. in 132). Bruce added: “He was a real Catholic, and I think he tried very hard to be a good

Catholic. Who knows for sure? Yes, he was. . . he planned to donate a considerable sum toward the restoration of the Mary Immaculate Convent. Don’t know if he did. I guess

I’d say he was a good Catholic. Don’t know what the church would say about it” (qtd. in

Stoneback 132-33).

Hemingway would cross himself—even after the 1930s (133). George Herter wrote: “Hemingway was a Catholic in those days when the Catholic Church was a church instead of a mass of confusion. The fact that he had been a steady marrying and divorce type didn’t bother Ernest at all in his views on Catholicism . . . I knew Ernest only had his religion in his very shaky world” (qtd. in Stoneback 134). George Herter responded to H.R. Stoneback in a letter about Hemingway: “I repeat, he was a very strong Catholic.

He had complete faith in God, Jesus, the Virgin, Holy Ghost, guardian angels. Much more so than nearly all Catholics I have known. . . . He was a traditional Catholic as we all were at the time” (qtd. in Stoneback 134). In another letter from Herter to Stoneback, dated February 23, 1978, Herter writes: “Hemingway was a strong Catholic . . . He had a very good knowledge of early Christianity. He did not attend Mass regularly. He believed the church’s stand on divorce was right although he was divorced many times.

He often stated that he was a poor example of a Catholic but offered no excuses” (qtd. in

Stoneback 134-35). Stoneback asked a Key West resident what he thought of

Hemingway’s religion. The man responded: “Hemingway was very religious; went to

Mass early in the morning with Pauline. . . . You could tell he was religious when he fed the cats, the way he looked at the sky” (136).

Yet, in his last years of life, Hemingway said some very anti-Catholic and anti-

Christian things. For instance, married to his last wife, Mary, Ernest said in an interview to Lillian Ross of the possibility of an afterlife: “Only suckers worry about saving their souls” (qtd. in Ross 50). Hemingway continued, “Who the hell should care about saving his soul when it is a man’s duty to lose it intelligently, the way you would sell a position you were not defending, if you could not hold it, as expensively as possible, trying to make it the most expensive position that was ever sold” (50). Gregory Hemingway recounted something similar. Gregory said that his father didn’t genuinely believe in organized religion and that his father “made it clear he didn’t believe in an afterlife. He did, finally, believe in a superior being” (qtd. in Hawkins 186). Although Hemingway didn’t believe that it was necessary to save one’s soul, he did contemplate the soul. As a

64 boy, Hemingway had thought that his soul had blown out of him once and it had returned to his body (First Light 172). Hemingway claimed ignorance of the soul and he didn’t know if it existed, nor if anyone he knew anything about it. Hemingway ponders the soul: “Probably a spring of clear fresh water that never diminished in drought and never froze in the winter was closest to what we had instead of the soul they all talked about”

(172). As a boy, Hemingway assumed that he had a soul, but as he grew older and jaded, he wasn’t sure anymore. Hemingway thinks that death ends things. Yet he ponders that, perhaps, only really religious people have souls (172-173). Of a belief in an afterlife for the soul, as heaven or hell, Hemingway had his own opinions of that. On July 1, 1925,

Hemingway creatively wrote to F. Scott Fitzgerald of his vision of heaven:

To me heaven would be a big bull ring with me holding two barrera seats and a

trout stream outside that no one else was allowed to fish in and two lovely

houses in the town; one where I would have my wife and children and be

monogamous and love them truly and well and the other where I would have my

nine beautiful mistresses on 9 different floors . . . Then there would be a fine

church like in Pamplona where I could go and be confessed on the way from one

house to the other and I would get on my horse and ride out with my son to my

bull ranch named Hacienda Hadley and toss coins to all my illegitimate children

that lined the road. I would write out at the Hacienda and send my son in to lock

the chastity belts onto my mistresses because someone had just galloped up with

the news that a notorious monogamist named Fitzgerald had been seen riding

toward the town at the head of a company of strolling drinkers. (Hemingway in

Katakis 37)

However, after his World War I injury, Ernest wrote his family:

You know they say there isn’t anything funny about this war, and there isn’t. I

wouldn’t say that it was hell, because that’s been a bit overworked since General

Sherman’s time, but there have been about eight times when I would have

welcomed hell, just on a chance it couldn’t come up to the phase of war I was

experiencing. (qtd. in Hemingway-Sanford 166-67)

So, if there was a hell, Hemingway didn’t believe that it was worse than the horrors of war. Of his past, Hemingway did have regrets. He wrote, “This past was never my past life which truly bores me to think about and is often very distasteful due to the mistakes that I have made and the casualties to various human beings involved” (Hemingway in

White 466).

The question of the soul comes up continually in the works of Hemingway. In

“Now I Lay Me,” Nick Adams tries not to go to sleep at night because he is afraid, like

Hemingway was, that his soul is going to leave his body in the dark. This all stems from a battlefield injury and experience that Nick had when his soul temporarily left his body.

Nick relates: “I had been that way [not sleeping at night] for a long time, ever since I had been blown up at night and felt it [his soul] go out of me and go off and then come back.

I tried never to think about it, but it had started to go since, in the nights, just at the moment of going off to sleep, and I could only stop it by a very great effort” (Short

Stories 276).

Yet, Nick doesn’t fear his soul leaving him during the day time. Hemingway also had a similar experience with his wounding at Fossalta. According to Leicester

Hemingway, Ernest once told Guy Hickok of this near-death experience: “I felt my soul or something coming right out of my body like you’d pull a silk handkerchief out of a pocket by one corner. It flew around and then came back and went in again and I wasn’t dead any more” (56). Hemingway gives Frederic Henry the same experience in A

Farewell to Arms. After the explosion that caused his wounding, Henry says that

I tried to breathe but my breath would not come and I felt myself rush bodily out

of myself and out and out and out and all the time bodily in the wind. I went out

swiftly, all of myself, and I knew I was dead and that it had all been a mistake to

think you just died. Then I floated, and instead of going on I felt myself slide

back. I breathed and I was back. (47)

Hemingway later referred to his Christian upbringing as “that ton of shit we are all fed when we are young” (qtd. in Pawley 24). Michael Reynolds makes the claim that in Ernest’s youth, fishing was his religion (118). However, Archie MacLeish said of

Hemingway: “Actually, he was one of the most profoundly and spiritually powerful creatures I have ever known” (qtd. in Hendrickson 158).

In The Old Man and the Sea, Hemingway paints the old man, Santiago, as a

Christ figure. There is so much Christian symbolism in this tale that the story can be thought of as a parable. The name Santiago literally means Saint James in Spanish

(Baker 293). In the Bible James was one of Jesus’ brothers. Baker says of Santiago, that he “shows, in his own right, certain qualities of mind and heart which are clearly

67 associated with the character and personality of Jesus Christ in the Gospel stories” (299).

Like Christ, Santiago is able to “ignore physical pain” while focusing on the larger, objective goal to be gained in the end (299). There is an allusion to Christ on the cross when Santiago, in fighting for his prize, “settled comfortably against the wood and took his suffering as it came” (Old Man Sea 64). Like a horizontal, cross-beam across Christ’s back, Santiago has the cord tightened, taught across his back (Backman 10; Old Man Sea

67). Santiago carries the burdensome weight of the fish on his back and he is even burned by the cord because of it (Old Man Sea 82). The wood, the suffering, and

Santiago’s gentleness, according to Melvin Backman, blends “magically into an image of

Christ on the cross” (10). Three other Christ-like qualities that Santiago has are his compassion, his humility, and his natural piety (Baker 299-300). Santiago has compassion on certain animals that he encounters and of some fish that he catches—like the giant marlin. In his struggle with the marlin, Santiago says. “I love you and respect you very much. But I will kill you dead before this day ends” (Old Man Sea 54). After he has killed the fish, Santiago thinks: “You loved him when he was alive and you loved him after. If you love him, it is not a sin to kill him” (105). Before killing the fish,

Santiago ponders: “I wish I could feed the fish . . . He is my brother. But I must kill him and keep strong to do it” (59). Santiago thinks of his humility: “He was too simple to wonder when he had attained humility. But he knew he had attained it and he knew it was not disgraceful and it carried no loss of true pride” (13-14). Santiago demonstrates his pride when his disciple, Manolo, touts him as the best fisherman, and he plays it down by saying that he knows of better ones (23). Manolo claims: “Qué va [No way] . . . But

68 there is only you” (23). Santiago’s piety is observed in that he prays when he feels and senses the need and that his prayers are never oaths. For example, in trying to catch the giant marlin, Santiago says aloud, “Now that I have him coming so beautifully, God help me endure. I’ll say a hundred Our Fathers and a hundred Hail Marys. But I cannot say them now” (87). Santiago’s prayers are never careless nor does he make them profane.

He is reverent.

As Christ had disciples, so Santiago has his disciple, Manolo. Like Christ,

Santiago is a teacher in that he was taught Manolo how to fish. Christ was a fisher of men. Santiago is a traditional fisherman. Manolo loves Santiago because of his teaching

Manolo how to fish, and he admires and looks up to Santiago as a second, father figure.

Before Santiago goes out on his big marlin hunt, Manolo says to him: “If I cannot fish with you, I would like to serve in some way” (12). Manolo wants to be loyal to Santiago.

Before his big marlin catch, Santiago had had two, previous eighty-seven day periods where he went without a fish. After the first period, Santiago and Manolo had caught big fish every day for three weeks. G.R. Wilson, Jr. likens these three weeks to Christ’s three years of ministry where he fished for men and taught his disciples to fish for men (370).

At the start of Old Man, Santiago had not caught a fish for eighty-four days. The Old

Man and the Sea takes place over three days, so this makes the second eighty-seven day period. In the Bible, Christ demonstrated his divine authority by performing miracles.

Wilson notes that Manolo has faith in the old man, stemming from the miracle of the three weeks’ bounty that he and Santiago had caught. In addition, according to Isabelle,

Santiago “hooks the fish at noon, and at noon of third day he kills it” (77). This is just

69 like Christ, who died and in three days, rose again. Isabelle adds that the marlin was

“landed on the seventh attempt” and that “seven sharks were killed” in the fish’s defense

(78). The number seven is a sacred and significant number, recurring in the Bible. After the seventh day of creation, God rested; there are seven days in a week, et cetera.

(Easton). The number seven is also seen as symbolizing perfection and rest.

Another similarity of Santiago with Christ are the wounds that he receives on his hands. On the cross, Christ was pierced in each hand to help keep him pinned to the cross. In his battle with the fish, Santiago receives bad cuts—stigmata—on his hands.

Santiago sees his hands as brothers and he often talks to them. Carlos Baker explains that

Santiago, “speaks to them [his hands] as to fellow-sufferers, wills them to do the work they must do, and makes due allowances for them as if they were, what he once calls them, ‘my brothers’” (313). Once he says aloud: “He’s [the fish] coming up . . . Come on hand. Please come on” (Old Man Sea 62). The hands also represent good and bad.

The right hand is good and the left hand is bad. Santiago’s hands are compared to the criminals on the crosses to the left and right of Jesus, who was on his own cross in the center. Santiago’s right hand is his good one. Santiago thought that his left hand, “had always been a traitor and would not do what he called on it to do and he did not trust it”

(71). Luke 23:39 reads: “One of the criminals who were hanged railed at him [Jesus], saying, ‘Are you not the Christ? Save yourself and us!’” (English Standard Version). So,

Santiago’s left hand is untrustworthy. Santiago’s right hand is so reliable that he quit arm-wrestling despite being “El Campeón” in order to keep his right hand in good condition as a tool of his trade, fishing (70-71). The thief on Jesus’ right rebukes the

other criminal. Then, in Luke 23:42, the thief on the right of Jesus asks Jesus: “Jesus,

remember me when you come into your kingdom” (English Standard Version). Jesus

assures this repentant thief that that day, the thief will be with him in paradise.

Santiago’s right hand is like the penitent thief on the cross to Jesus’ right. This analogy

can also be applied to the Last Judgment. At the Last Judgment, the saved will be on the

right hand of the Savior, while those who are rejected and damned will be on his left

(Baker 314).

When Santiago sees two sharks approaching, he says, “Ay” (Old Man Sea 107).

Hemingway explains of this exclamation that “There is no translation for this word and

perhaps it is just a noise such as a man might make, involuntarily, feeling the nail go

through his hands and into the wood” (107). Given his affinity and brotherhood with the

marlin, when Santiago sees his prize catch eaten by the sharks, it is a mortifying, terrible,

and crucifying experience for him. Through Santiago’s crucifixion experience, he is

transfigured. Baker says that Santiago’s experience is also a form of martyrdom,

although Santiago doesn’t see himself as a martyr (315). Baker also suggests that

Santiago’s experience also renders to him a form of apotheosis (316). Backman suggests

that Santiago triumphs (11). On his return voyage to Cuba, Santiago, “could hardly

breathe now and he felt a strange taste in his mouth. It was coppery and sweet and he

was afraid of it for a moment. But there was not much of it” (Old Man Sea 119). This can be likened to Christ when he receives and drinks the “sponge filled with vinegar,” or sour wine, in Matthew 27:48 (Baker 319). When Santiago returns to Cuba, he has dried blood on his face, reminiscent of the blood on Christ’s face because of the crown of

71 thorns. Having arrived back, everybody is asleep and nobody is there to greet or help him. He only sees a meandering cat. Like Christ on the cross when God forsook him because of the load of sin that he was carrying, Santiago is alone in his suffering; “There was no one to help him so he pulled the boat up as far as he could” (Old Man Sea 120).

Removing the mast and sail, Santiago: “shouldered the mast and started to climb” (121).

This is like Christ carrying the heavy cross (Backman 11). Santiago “started to climb again and at the top he fell and lay for some time with the mast across his shoulder. He tried to get up. But it was too difficult and he sat there with the mast on his shoulder and looked at the road” (Old Man Sea 121). This is similar to Christ stumbling and falling as he carried his cross on the Via Dolorosa on the way to his crucifixion at Golgotha. Like

Christ, Santiago falls under the burden he is bearing.

Back at his shack, Santiago lays down to sleep: “He pulled the blanket over his shoulders and then over his back and legs and he slept face down on the newspapers with his arms out straight and the palms of his hands up” (121-22). Baker notes that Santiago sleeps in a cruciform position that sums up: “the symbolic position, naturally assumed, all the suffering through which he has passed” (320). In his return, Santiago also brings evidence of his epic battle/good work to increase the faith of his disciple, Manolo

(Wilson 371). Wilson asserts that Santiago is on his death-bed when Manolo finds him

(372). The eighty-seventh day of this second period ends on Ascension Day as it began on Ash Wednesday and “constitutes all but the last ten days of the Easter Cycle from

Lent through Paschal tide” (369-70). As Mary cried over Christ at the tomb, Manolo returns to Santiago’s shanty, sees the old man’s hands and starts to cry (Old Man Sea

122). Wilson also asserts that Santiago matches up with Joseph Campbell’s archetypal model for a “hero with a thousand faces” (372). For example, Santiago starts out on his journey, or calling, with the aid of the helper, Manolo. Santiago “crosses the threshold of adventure . . . and meets a trial that can take many forms including the brother-battle, dragon-battle, crucifixion, and a night-sea journey, all of which can be seen as applying in some way to the old fisherman” (372). The mythic-like story culminates in a “sacred marriage” between Santiago and his prize marlin (372). Fellow writer, William Although

Hemingway was not a good, nor a professing Christian and for most of his life claimed to be Catholic, he was not a reformed believer. Hemingway still continued to be

Hemingway. Despite all this, according to Carlos Baker: “The consciousness of God is in his books” (328).

CHAPTER 5

CONCLUSION

Hemingway wanted to be a good man and a great writer, but, unfortunately, he did not turn out to be a good man—although he had his moments of goodness. Although he did some good things, Hemingway’s Catholic faith did not transform him. He did not have a salvation experience, nor was his faith life-altering. As a Catholic, Hemingway continued to live the way he had before he had been a Catholic. Hemingway’s religious life was one solely of Catholic rituals. He did not overcome his problems. In the end, his problems overcame him. Hemingway himself said of his heart: “Actually in regard to the innermost contents of my heart, probably a most foul place, I would rather have a good cardiograph report” (Hemingway in White 459). Hemingway added: “No one of us lives by as rigid standards nor has a good ethics as we planned but an attempt is made” (461).

Hemingway was vindictive against his critics. Hemingway viewed most fellow writers as enemies; if they were not officially his enemy, he eventually went about to convert them into his enemies. Hemingway wanted to be the top dog of everything— especially the writing scene—and he didn’t want to share the spotlight with anyone else.

Ernest felt “that anyone else’s success diminished his own” (Hawkins 61). Hemingway’s writer friend, Sherwood Anderson, was the one in Chicago, to suggest that Hemingway and his newly-married first wife, Hadley Richardson, go to Paris instead of their planned destination of Italy. Anderson told the young Hemingway that Paris was where the literary world was at that time and that it was also the place to get published. This advice

was instrumental into turning Hemingway into the famed writer that he became. Had it

not been for Anderson and his encouragement and faith in Hemingway, Hemingway may

have never became a Nobel Prize winning writer. Anderson gave Hemingway letters of

introduction to Gertrude Stein, Sylvia Beach, Ezra Pound, and F. Scott Fitzgerald. Like

Harold Loeb, Anderson also helped in getting Hemingway’s In Our Time, published, stressing its importance to Boni & Liveright (Dearborn 177). Since Anderson pushed In

Our Time, Boni & Liveright did not want to upset it’s star writer, so they agreed to publish it (Hawkins 39).

However, after all was said and done, Hemingway wrote his satire, Torrents of

Spring, mocking Anderson’s writing style in order to try to get laughs and in order to get out of his contract with his publisher, Boni & Liveright. It worked. Torrents of Spring was rejected by Boni & Liveright because Anderson was the company’s star writer. So, in lieu of this, Hemingway was able to sign with Max Perkins and the publisher,

Scribner’s and Sons. Yet, in the process, Hemingway had burned his bridge of friendship with Anderson, who had been so generous and helpful with the young, budding writer.

Others who knew of Anderson’s graciousness and kindness to Hemingway were appalled by Torrents of Spring (Hawkins 44).

Hemingway was anti-Semitic, mean, and demeaning to people; he berated them and belittled them. He thought that all guys should be macho. Hemingway was not pure evil, but the evil produced by his unpredictable and uncontrollable temper pushed a lot of people—even one-time friends—away from him. Archibald MacLeish said of

Hemingway: “He was wonderful, irreplaceable, but an impossible friend; a man you

76 couldn't get along with, a man you couldn't get along without” (qtd. in Hawkins 167).

Robert Capa once told Leicester Hemingway: “Papa can be more severe . . . than God on a rough day when the whole human race is misbehaving” (192). Hemingway was his own worst enemy.

Hemingway was not a good Catholic. He was married four times and even divorced a Catholic woman, whom he later called his best wife (L. Hemingway 271). It is speculated that Hemingway had affairs with multiple women. Hemingway would have affairs before marrying his last, two or three wives. Hemingway’s son, Jack “Bumby”

Hemingway surmised that Hemingway had an affair with the beautiful blond, Jane

Mason in 1933 (Hawkins 152). According to Jack, “Ernest bragged to him that Jane liked climbing through the transom to his [Hemingway’s] room at the Ambos Mundos

Hotel” (153). Moreover, a prostitute was known to have visited the Finca Vigía.

Although Hemingway was Catholic, he didn’t really change his behavior to live in sync with the Bible or all Catholic teachings. He followed the rituals of the Church, not so much a personal transformative side. Yet, claiming to be Catholic, Hemingway lived by his own code. In the end, although Hemingway was not a good person, he had some good memories of a childhood growing up and some good experiences as an adult.

Even with his bad experiences, Hemingway was able to incorporate them into his literature. Hemingway’s keen insight, his precise powers of observation, his absorption of the knowledge gained from others, and the Protestant work ethic of his youth paid off as Hemingway put all of his being into trying to be an honest writer, writing one true sentence at a time and helping his audience to see the world through open and honest

77 eyes; to help his readers, see, feel, and almost literally experience first-hand what he was writing about—the good, the bad, and the ugly. Though a flawed human being,

Hemingway was a brilliant writer, and his brilliance lives on through his works of literature.

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