The Development of Hemingway and His Heroes Through Para

Home , John Hemingway, Pilar (boat), The Spanish Earth, The Sun Also Rises

THE DEVELOPMENT OF HEMINGWAY AND HIS HEROES THROUGH PARA-

RATIONAL DISCOVERY: MATADORS, MYSTICS, AND MADNESS

______

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

______

Joelle Bruce Swenning

Fall 2018 Copyright by

JOELLE BRUCE SWENNING

2018

iii PREFACE

I was a fifteen-year-old junior in high school when English teacher Willetta Fritz dropped a copy of Ernest Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises on my desk. It was the first time a teacher had given me, what I considered, a piece of adult fiction, and reading it made me feel worldly and beyond my years. In the six weeks that followed, class discussions regarding “Code Heroes,” love, isolation, and disillusionment resonated with the awkward teenager I once was. I remember being impressed with Lady Brett Ashley’s strength and free spirit. Soon after, I devoured all that was Hemingway.

Five years later when I boarded my first plane to Europe, I do not recall if

Hemingway or even Brett had consciously crossed my mind, but their influence had certainly followed me. First to Italy, then to Africa where I lived and worked for years as an expatriate hoping to always make my life abroad. I believe there are several generations of us, lost or not, who read something in The Sun Also Rises that resonates with us and connects us to Hemingway’s world view. His need to expand his experience outside of his inherent homeland is, for me, a searching that goes beyond geography and into the realm of understanding the soul.

iv ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I would like to express my deepest appreciation to my thesis mentor, Dr. Lyle Smith, who

was always quick to provide me with valuable feedback and guidance. His

encouragement and the generosity he showed by gifting me with so much of his time made this daunting task seem less intimidating. In addition, my experience in his courses

peaked my curiosity and focused my path.

My appreciation also extends to all of my professors at California State University

Dominguez Hills, and the HUX Department. Dr. Debra Best and Dr. Patricia Cherin

deserve special thanks for their rewarding courses, for serving on my thesis committee,

and for their quick response to participate in my academic journey.

I would like to express much appreciation to the many students I have encountered over

the years. Their wide eyes and fresh perspectives continue to remind me every day that my passion for teaching began with wild curiosity. Additional thanks to Laura Vallenari

for sharing her expertise. The Literature Matrix technique provided clarity to an

overwhelming task.

Finally, to my best friend, biggest fan, and adoring husband, John Swenning, I am in awe

of your calming patience, generous spirit, and capacity for encouragement. Thank you.

v T ABLE OF CONTENTS

PAGE

TITLE PAGE…………………………………………………………………….……...... i

DEDICATION……………………………………………………………...………...... iii

PREFACE…………………………………………………………………………...... iv

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS…………………………………………………………...... v

TABLE OF CONTENTS………………………………………………...……...... vi

ABSTRACT……………………………………………………………………………..vii

CHAPTER

1. INTRODUCTION…………………….……………………………………………...... 1

2. JAKE BARNES…………………….…………………………………………………..9

3. ROBERT JORDAN………………….………………………………………………..27

4. SANTIAGO…………………………………...……………………………...... 45

5. CONCLUSION………………………………………………………………………..65

WORKS CITED…………………………………………………………………………69

vi ABSTRACT

This thesis explores the artistic and personal development of Ernest Hemingway

through the portrayal of three of his most compelling heroes: Jake Barnes in The Sun Also

Rises, Robert Jordan in For Whom the Bell Tolls, and Santiago in The Old Man and the

Sea. These heroes help present a chronological analysis of both Hemingway’s work and his persona that distinguishes him among other writers of his time. The existential crisis that World War I and modernization imposed on Hemingway accounts for his lifetime struggle to resolve his disillusionment through his work. There is a distinct intensification in the remedies Hemingway employs throughout his life that point to various para- rational influences. His reverence for the aesthetic beauty found in nature, Catholicism, and mysticism dominate the growth and worlds of his heroes, while also revealing insight into his personal struggle to reconcile the heart-head dilemma. 1

CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION

Ernest Hemingway’s writing has garnered him world-wide respect as one of the greatest American authors of the twentieth century. His crisp, staccato style is recognized for its precision in shaping the characters and heroes of his novels through narratives that abandon self-indulgent commentary in order to propel his storylines through methods that employ rich dialogue and favor action over exposition. His modernist techniques provide the reader with a depth of understanding and insight into the often tragic nature of his subjects without infusing unnecessary flourishes.

Hemingway called it the “iceberg” technique, the dignity of which exposes only one- eighth of the entire picture yet still provides the reader with all that is needed to delve deeply into the world of the code hero (Hemingway, Death in the Afternoon 192). While

Hemingway’s heroes range from the disillusioned Jake Barnes in The Sun Also Rises to

the resolute Robert Jordan in For Whom the Bell Tolls and finally to the persistent

Santiago in The Old Man and the Sea, they all share a code that promotes living an

impassioned life despite the detrimental influence and repercussions that war and tragedy

have infused upon them and modern humanity. In fact, if examined as a progressive

composite, Hemingway’s heroes also tell a deeper story exposing the life of the artist

plagued by his own spiritual dilemmas. There is a yearning found within Hemingway and

his greatest heroes that is constantly striving to attain a deeper understanding or purpose

through his art. Whether it be fishing, bullfighting, writing, or blowing up a bridge, these 2

individuals seek to transform the chaos of the modern world through dedication to

individual skill and integrity, which empowers them to remain faithful to their personal

art and code.

Despite a celebrated individualism, the Hemingway hero often encounters outside

forces including chance, spiritualism and faith. In fact, by analyzing the development of

some of Hemingway’s most notable heroes throughout his career, an evolution can be

traced that coincides with the author’s own para-rational1 discoveries. The sterile and

stoic narration of Barnes and the young Hemingway imply a repressed and discarded

romantic notion of the world that must be approached by other means. Certainly, that

Hemingway rejected his traditional Oak Park, Illinois, upbringing in 1920, shortly after

he returned from World War I, holds its own significance. While most American writers,

like Steinbeck and Faulkner, spent their careers revisiting and recreating their hometowns

in their fiction, Hemingway repudiated his, abandoning Oak Park and the traditional

ideologies it represented for the life of an expatriate living out most of his days in foreign

lands. It is no surprise that Hemingway himself was consumed by insecurities and self-

doubt his entire life, which is a reflection of the sentiment of an entire generation

regarding the human condition and the heroes he constructed within it.

Gertrude Stein famously stated, “You are all a lost generation,” and no better

quote can illuminate the disillusionment that the Hemingway hero faces in reconciling

1 “Para-rational” refers to Michael Mahon’s coining of the term that forms the basis for the course HUX 542, The Para-rational Perspective. In his essay, Mahon defines “para-rational” to encompass three perspectives: the non-rational, the visionary, and the mystical/religious. These perspectives are explained as tendencies towards interpretations of the world that favor the heart over the head, emotion over thought, and the para-rational over the rational.

3 himself among a society where war has destroyed the myths and identity of humans through the context of the World War I. His own Oak Park upbringing sent conflicting messages to the youth of Hemingway’s generation. First, young men were criticized for their perceived apathy, and then they were extolled when they were sent off to war.

Those at home had very little understanding of the predicament of the soldiers who returned damaged and maimed by confronting the violence of death. Today, almost one hundred years later, the Hemingway hero, his code, his successes and his failings still resonate with readers because these themes and this searching possess continued relevance that has reverberated throughout successive decades and conflicts. “Without a commonly accepted myth all members of the community are turned in upon themselves by Prufrockian anxiety over the ‘overwhelming question’ of apparently purposeless human endeavor, and no one else is of any use to anyone else” (Sylvester 73). It is the familiar internal struggle that Jake Barnes, Robert Jordan, and Santiago contend with that continues to draw audiences to Hemingway and the mythology of his heroes.

What’s more, because the Hemingway hero is often characterized as someone who has developed a stoic and practical nature that is often marked by self-absorption and a detachment from mainstream society, the inherent theme of isolation is both frightening and relatable, especially for today’s audiences who are brought closer together by technology and torn further apart by it as well. As a remedy, the Hemingway hero emphasizes a reverence for the natural world that implies the necessity to reconnect with a God who must have seemed to have abandoned men and women through the horror of war. His heroes seem to struggle with faith and question once accepted spiritual

truths by instead seeking purpose in the present through life’s passions and loves. While

such temporal pursuits sometimes resemble a nihilistic approach to vice and pleasure-

seeking, the hero in Hemingway’s writing is able to temper his indulgence with self-

control, discipline and commitment to his personal ideology. This character also

possesses a resignation towards life’s innate tragedy in relation to death; however, this does not inflict a defeatist attitude on the part of the hero, but rather encourages a sense a realism and personal freedom for the individual because, after all, an individual in

Hemingway’s world can be destroyed, but not defeated. In fact, when analyzing these

elements of Hemingway’s code, the evolution and maturation of his writing reveal much

about the twentieth century and humanity’s struggle to reconcile its purpose and art

within a world where the destruction and violence of war emphasize the insecure nature

of life.

Through the analysis of three of his most consequential works, I argue that there

is a strong connection between the Hemingway hero and their struggle to reconcile the

heart-head dilemma. In fact, Hemingway’s protagonists also provide much insight into

his own evolution as a writer who favors the ultimate supremacy of the heart. Though

often destructive to many of his characters, the “heart” is a revered asset in the construct

of his heroes. In fact, the Hemingway “code heroes” are visionaries in the sense that their

passion for living and their temporal pursuits of the flesh go beyond superficial or

hedonistic tendencies. In fact, their approach to life reveals they possess another level of

awareness that could be interpreted as a spiritual cognizance. There is a distinct cynicism

in many of his heroes. However, their embrace of circumstances related to chance, grace,

5 and fate reveal an interesting paradox, that by adhering to a distinct moral code, these heroes can achieve meaning in life despite tragedy. In fact, such conditions provide an extraordinary opportunity for growth in Hemingway’s characters because their writhing commitment to conflicting ideals has the power to transcend rational thought. When these characteristics are examined to coincide with Hemingway’s own conservative, Protestant upbringing and experience in the great wars, the presence and intensity of para-rational thought emerges to reveal the artist’s own lifelong pursuits through his continued reexamination of the themes of love, death and heroism.

I trace the para-rational development of Hemingway’s heroes starting with the narrator Jake Barnes in his first novel The Sun Also Rises (1926). Much like Hemingway himself, Jake is a visionary because his wartime experience has created a crisis that forces him to shed the puritanical traditions and beliefs of the previous generation in favor of a more accessible faith. In fact, Jake’s appreciation for the natural world helps him gain an edge over his companions who sink helplessly into self-absorption and the debauchery of drinking and excess throughout their journey from Paris to Pamplona. His narration of the days spent fishing helps the reader identify with the value Jake holds for the beauty of the natural world and his ability to escape society to find solace and peace in something greater than himself. It also implies that Jake possesses a sense of spirituality that helps him cope more effectively with the destruction war has made on his life and society as a whole. Although he certainly possesses a distinct cynicism resulting from his physical predicament and impotence, the importance Jake places on being an

“aficionado” is an abstract concept and yet so important to his code. For such a rational

6 thinker, Jake’s aficion is an experience of the heart that cannot be learned or adopted.

While Jake’s restlessness causes him to struggle with finding satisfaction in the traditional means of spiritual fulfillment like the Catholic church, his life as an expatriate and his pilgrimage throughout Europe help him to achieve a more existential satisfaction.

Even though Jake ultimately betrays his own sensibilities, he does so for love, and his narration of the events connects him to the greater humanity.

By the time Hemingway develops Robert Jordan in For Whom the Bell Tolls

(1940), his experience working as a reporter during the Spanish Civil War from 1937-

1938 compels him to explore variations of familiar themes regarding love and war, but in this account his hero moves further from isolation and disillusionment and closer towards psychological wholeness. Hemingway’s personal efforts to aid the Spanish Republic evolved from his love of Spain and was first translated into modest financial support and then to work on Joris Ivens’ production of the pro-Republican documentary The Spanish

Earth. His campaign was an effort to preserve the country he loved. In his own right,

Hemingway shared Jordan’s commitment to fighting a war against Fascism in a country that is not his own, which speaks to his conviction and resolve for the cause. Initially,

Jordan is such a controlled and focused tactician that criticism of his flat character is not unwarranted, yet over his three-day education, his restraint transforms to highly acute human awareness for the band of loyalists he joins to complete the mission. He is not empty because his own likely death is given meaning. The employment of para-rational elements like the mysticism of Pilar and the often referenced superstitions of Spanish

Catholicism become more frequently encountered in Hemingway’s storytelling in this 7 novel and emphasize Jordan’s development. Jordan might try to deny belief or acceptance of these elements, but the fact they give him frequent pause provides a significant contradiction. Jordan’s confrontations with mystical elements force him to question everything he thought he knew to be true, especially when his chance meeting with Maria is described in terms of “earthmoving.” Jordan also experiences an epiphany in his last days that moves him from lonely and isolated to a man who has a deeper understanding for his connection to a greater humanity. It can be said that Hemingway’s characters often prefer rational means; however, they also continue to strive toward spiritual growth and connectedness.

Finally, Santiago in The Old Man and the Sea (1952) provides some of the richest discussion related to the para-rational perspective in all of Hemingway’s work. There are countless critiques of the novel that describe Santiago as a Christ-hero and note references to the crucifixion. That the novel can be read as a vivid allegory of the Passion of Christ and the Resurrection, or more simply, as the struggle of a single man’s intense spiritual struggle are both significant considerations. In addition, Hemingway reveals an intense paradox relating to Santiago’s suffering that is his alone to endure, and yet it is also the vehicle that connects him to a universal consciousness. The defining of a single man’s journey is by nature his ability to achieve meaning and relation to the whole.

Specifically, because the old man has been cursed by eighty-four days of bad luck at sea, he achieves oneness in his fight with the marlin. Only through personal fight can he test and exercise his honor, which also includes recognizing his own limitations while deferring to a higher power. 8

Whether motivated by maturity or a type of spiritual evolution, Hemingway’s use of para-rational devices intensifies so distinctly in The Old Man and the Sea from his early grappling with visionary elements, that Santiago’s experience can be seen as a vivid epiphany on the human experience. Further examination of Hemingway’s personal life during these years reveals distinct parallels to the novel’s hero. Much like Santiago,

Hemingway was lonely and isolated during these years, and critics often speculated that the best work of his career was behind him. Giving in to bouts of depression and paranoia, Hemingway’s psychological battles intensified. Still, his fiction is a means of continued reassurance for many of the themes he valued all his life, including love, death and heroism. The remaining chapters examine the progression of the code hero through three different periods of Hemingway’s career represented by The Sun Also Rises (1926),

For Whom the Bell Tolls (1940), and The Old Man and the Sea (1952). I argue that the development of Hemingway’s heroes coincides with his own personal evolution regarding para-rational tendencies. Chapter 2 analyzes the narrator Jake Barnes and the catalysts that propel his spiritual crisis. Chapter 3 is dedicated to the transformation of

Robert Jordan from rational-minded soldier to visionary, and finally, Chapter 4 demonstrates the layered religious and mystical symbolism employed to portray the struggles of Santiago. 9

CHAPTER 2

JAKE BARNES

Ernest Hemingway did not wholeheartedly accept Gertrude Stein’s declaration regarding the “lost generation,” though he understood it was a provocative statement to include in the epigraph of his first novel. In fact, he found the assertion almost offensive because he was confident his career path was fixed long before the publishing of The Sun

Also Rises. He had always been certain he would be a successful writer, and from his certainty he derived a sense of purpose and drive that contradicted any sense of loss. As

Carlos Baker explains, “He could not agree with her at all. He himself did not feel lost.

His reason for adding the quotation from Ecclesiastes was to indicate his own belief that

‘there was no such thing as a lost generation”’ (80):

One generation passeth away, and another generation cometh; but the earth

abideth forever . . . The sun also ariseth, and the sun goeth down, and hasteth to

the place where he arose . . . The wind goeth toward the south, and turneth about

unto the north; it whirleth about continually, and the wind returneth again

according to its circuits . . . All the rivers run into the sea; yet the sea is not full;

unto the place from whence the rivers come thither they return again. –

Ecclesiastes. (Hemingway, Sun 7)

Even if Hemingway did not agree with her assessment, his choice to include both epigraphs in his first novel reflects the conflict his generation was experiencing and gives further weight to Stein’s observation. In fact, when juxtaposed with a portion of the first 10 chapter of Ecclesiastes, Stein’s comment exposes the societal tensions and spiritual disillusionment the modern generation was experiencing while forming moral codes independent from their predecessors. Whether he was conscious of it or not, young

Hemingway was not immune to the repercussions war and disillusionment had played in his own life. He might have felt professionally determined and oriented, but

Hemingway’s fear of death continued to pose a spiritual crisis for him that bled into his work.

Hemingway later wrote to Maxwell Perkins from Paris on November 19, 1926, explaining, “That the point of the book to me was the earth abideth forever--having a great deal of fondness and admiration for the earth, and not a hell of a lot for my generation and caring little about Vanities” (qtd. in Baker 81). Hemingway’s focus on regeneration, as is present in Ecclesiastes, reflected his feeling that each generation would beat itself up searching to find its own meaning from life. That he was not complacent to accept the truths or even the writing style of the previous generation did not necessarily mean he was lost. It just meant Hemingway could not go back or blindly accept the perspectives of his parents and antecedents. He needed more than sentimental attachment to past innocence to sustain his being and his art. Luckily, his dissatisfaction with the status quo helped define a new generation and drove an entire literary movement. From a para-rational perspective, Hemingway felt no alternative than to rebel against his parents,

American society and his artistic predecessors.

Therefore, Hemingway’s migration to Paris became almost inevitable. The journey was considered a requirement for post-WWI veterans, artists or the affluent, 11 marking a coming of age for those in his generation who sought to live outside of the conservative restraints of mainstream American society. Hemingway felt claustrophobic returning to Oak Park soon after the luster had faded from the adoration he received for being an injured and decorated soldier returning from the Great War. After all, in Italy he had done all the things “Oak Park rallied against” (Reynolds, The Young Hemingway 31).

Still, the initial recognition Hemingway had received for his bravery also made it easier to suppress the terror he had endured. In fact, his mother Grace had expressed her pride in her son when writing, “It’s great to be the mother of a hero” (qtd. in Reynolds 33). Her encouragement and Hemingway’s healthy ego might have temporarily assuaged the need to speak openly of his experience, but there was a tremendous amount of pain and fear that still lingered long after war commendations had faded. Furthermore, the social mores of the time promoted since the era of Teddy Roosevelt placed so much value on masculine physical strength and serving one’s country that there seemed to be no room for weakness or vulnerability in Hemingway’s generation (11). Although early accounts of Hemingway’s war experience have been described as somewhat exaggerated, they do not diminish the impact that his brush with death had on his psyche; it was a transformative experience for the young man. In fact, he would spend his life responding to the internal crisis that war forced upon Hemingway. Because he was confronted with his own mortality, reconciling the experience provided him with constant inspiration and often informed his creative process. Hemingway’s pursuit to capture the writhing and unsated nature of his generation also helped established him as the premiere modernist writer who has since been considered the voice of his generation. 12

Men and boys of Hemingway’s generation eagerly volunteered for war, and

Hemingway was no exception. Prevented from enlisting as a soldier because of weak eyesight, he served as a volunteer ambulance driver for the American Red Cross, arriving in France and then transferring to Italy. The bulk of Hemingway’s active service only spanned three weeks on the front lines from June to July 8, 1918, just days short of his nineteenth birthday. Hemingway held the distinction for being the first wounded

American in Italy after he was struck by Austrian mortar fire while passing out chocolates and cigarettes to Italian troops near the trenches of Fossalta-di-Piave

(Dearborn 59). He was distinguished for bravery after he was hit and for further putting himself in harm's way as he carried a wounded Italian soldier to safety. Hemingway’s experience shook his youthful sense of immortality. In fact, he was left to contemplate his injury for the next six months while recuperating in a Milan hospital bed. Hemingway’s near-death experience would penetrate his fiction his entire career. War made raw

Hemingway’s personal fear of death, and it is apparent his exorcism of that fear found its way into all of his fictional heroes who were designed to confront their personal mortality in one form or another.

Besides his time in the war, the short but poignant affair he initiated with nurse

Agnes Von Kurowsky broadened Hemingway’s views so much so that it is no wonder that he outgrew his childhood home. Symbolically, the moment that mortar shell struck in

Fossalta, the safety and security of Hemingway’s former world began to dissolve. Further compounded by the disappointment he cultivated for his father’s weakening spirit and later manifesting through a turbulent relationship with his overbearing mother, Ernest 13 could no longer be sustained by the environment of his youth. In fact, Hemingway’s plans to return to Europe where he could live modestly and write began to surface almost immediately. Eventually they came to fruition in December 1921, evolving into a transatlantic trip to Paris after the war with his first wife, Hadley Richardson (Reynolds

261). While there was a certain amount of wanderlust that also motivated their trip, the primary motive for their move was to live comfortably among the artists of the Left

Bank, where Hemingway could be free to write and hone his craft. Yet, there was also a distinct element of rebellion that emphasized Hemingway’s overall disillusionment. He had outgrown the false sense of security that Oak Park had represented, and his art would not advance if he continued to live among constraints. Quite simply, Paris represented a freedom and triumph of the heart that his writing and career required. The same spirit of exploration and escape drives the damaged, yet heroic, perspective of Jake Barnes in The

Sun Also Rises.

The paradox is that while Hemingway would never admit to his own sense of loss, Jake Barnes’ narration bears a striking resemblance to the author and has been considered a loose self-portrait. Jake’s predicament causes him a wound so deep that he is forced to reexamine his moral and spiritual orientation. In fact, Jake contemplates several para-rational mechanisms, like chance and spiritual approaches, to cope with his tragic circumstance. As a result, he has designed his expatriate lifestyle on the Left Bank of Paris to allow for liberal attitudes regarding both sexuality and spiritual fulfillment.

Like many veterans of The Great World, Jake’s God eludes him. Jake considers himself a

“rotten Catholic,” but he still clings to the church while he simultaneously searches to 14 achieve spiritual fulfillment through other means, most notably through fishing and bullfighting. Throughout the novel, he remains sentimental about his Catholic upbringing and he continues to seek comfort in its tradition, but the first chinks in Jake’s faith become apparent early in the novel. In fact, he doesn’t even bother trying to go to church in Paris, because Paris comes to symbolize the depravity and debauchery of those made idle by their loss of innocence, preferring instead to escape their pain through excess and avoidance. Instead, Jake seeks refuge in other means. His role as narrator, along with his impotence, separates Jake from the other characters in the novel because he cannot fully participate.

One night after an encounter with Lady Brett Ashley, Jake’s thoughts vacillate between his injury, the church, and his unconsummated love for Brett. These worlds collide leaving him fundamentally depressed and disillusioned. His faith in the Catholic

Church to provide him solace when confronted with his injury and the impossibility of consummating his love for Brett do nothing to alleviate his tension and pain. His thoughts in bed are a swirl of overwhelming emotions that challenge his normally stoic demeanor. In the light of day Jake can hide in work and pleasure, but at night alone, the dark gets to him and he can’t remain “hard-boiled” all the time. Jake and Brett’s encounters are always doomed to be unfulfilling. This irritates Jake and he begins to contemplate “the old grievance” (Hemingway, Sun 38). First, alone in his thoughts, he resorts to humor to cope with the reality that he is impotent. The injury costs Jake his great love, and any promise of experiencing a complete love in the future. Still, Jake sees the irony of being wounded flying on a “joke front like the Italian,” and he muses about 15 the others who had similar injuries like his. He even recounts how they planned to form a society that has a “funny name in Italian” (38). This repeated reference to the comedy of his predicament reflects Jake’s attempt to deflect the pain. Though this coping strategy often suffices in the light of day, joking about his situation does not sustain him when he is alone in the dark.

Jake recalls his time in the hospital when a liaison colonel had visited him, making a “wonderful speech” about how he gave more than his life to the war effort.

“What a speech! I would have like to have it illuminated to hang in the office. He never laughed. He was putting himself in my place, I guess. ‘Che mala fortuna! Che mala fortuna!’” (39). Jake’s initial sarcasm related to the “wonderful speech” draws further attention to his suffering. Even though he does not succumb entirely to self-pity, Jake is reminded that attempts to view his injury through a comedic lens are ultimately futile.

Hemingway brings emphasis to the depth of Jake’s pain through a narrative voice that does not reveal or even directly acknowledge his true suffering. Jake’s self-effacing humor indicates the first heroic glances of his character. Furthermore, though he might not be ready to admit it to himself, Jake senses through the colonel’s reaction that the repercussions of his injury are tragic. In fact, the observation from the colonel that Jake has “given more than his life” implies that his injury amounts to the greatest sacrifice a man can make in battle, especially given early twentieth century views about “manhood” and “masculinity.” It also suggests that the injury leaves Jake with very little that is worth living for. Still, Jake stands it and “plays it along.” He concludes that he “probably never would have had any trouble if he hadn’t run into Brett when they shipped him to

England” to recuperate (39). Brett stirs emotions in Jake of love and lust that erode his stoic armor.

Furthermore, Jake’s recollection of the colonel repeating in Italian “what bad luck” shifts the emphasis of Jake’s existence to chance and circumstance. A case of bad luck has altered the course of Jake’s life, and this realization becomes clearest when he is alone with his thoughts. When Jake is among friends during the light of day, he can laugh about his impotence and shrug it off using self-effacing humor, but at night he fails. The idea that Jake’s fate, and as an extension, all humanity's fate, is reduced to elements of chance and luck presents a difficult perspective for a religious man to accept. To exacerbate his crisis, as Jake considers his circumstance, the recommendations from the

Catholic Church seem completely insipid. “The Catholic Church had an awfully good way of handling all that. Good advice, anyway. Not to think about it. Oh, it was swell advice. Try and take it sometime. Try and take it” (39). Jake is disillusioned by the church’s response to his injury though he is not ready to abandon its rituals and tradition entirely. Having no outlet for his feelings of frustration and unrequited love makes Jake’s feeble attempt to “just not think about it” even more problematic because this technique usually involves heavy drinking. And what if it is Jake’s fate, as the church might argue, to live a celibate life devoid of romantic love? Jake’s loss of innocence in the war makes it impossible for him to ever participate in the vows of monastic tradition. What’s more,

Jake’s bad luck lacks justice so he cannot embrace its purpose or greater meaning.

Both sexually and spiritually, Jake is unfulfilled. Yet, his heroism derives from his deeper need to seek a remedy to fill these substantial and intense voids. Jake attempts

17 over and over again to find solace and comfort in the irony of his injury and his stoic approach. He even concludes that he might have been able to continue in this manner had he not run into Brett when enroute to England. “I never used to realize it, I guess. I try to play it along and just not make trouble for people. Probably I never would have had any trouble if I hadn’t run into Brett when they shipped me to England” (39). Jake insinuates that meeting Brett was the moment his real problems began. Possibly, another case of

“bad luck” for Jake, but this time it reduces him to tears. “I lay awake thinking and my mind jumping around. Then I couldn’t keep away from it, and I started to think about

Brett and all the rest of it went away . . . Then all of a sudden I started to cry” (39). Jake feels broken and humor no longer suffices to alleviate his suffering, so Jake escapes his surroundings to fish in an idyllic retreat for respite.

In Book II, the religious undertones of Jake’s pilgrimage to Spain with Bill

Gorton mark a symbolic attempt to transcend his circumstance by escaping the deprivation of Parisian society to the pastoral refuge of the untainted Basque countryside.

On the train, Jake and Bill are joined by religious pilgrims who occupy the dining car all day preventing them from nourishment. When a neighboring traveler comments, “It’s a pity you boys ain’t Catholics. You could get a meal, then, all right.” Jake’s response indicates his feelings of exclusion and frustration. “‘I am’,” I said. “‘That’s what makes me so sore’” (93). Jake is again left feeling ostracized from receiving the benefits of his religion; that he is literally left hungry emphasizes the spiritual yearning he is experiencing. For Jake, not being able to break bread with the other Catholics is akin to being denied the sacrament of communion, so it is important he initiate his own

18 pilgrimage. Michael Reynolds also points out the irony of Jake’s encounter with the pilgrims going to Lourdes: “Anyway, there was Jake off to a pagan fertility ritual crossing paths with pilgrims going to the shrine at Lourdes where the waters worked miraculous cures. If ever a man needed a miracle, it was Jake. Wrong man, wrong pilgrimage, wrong ritual. It was funny all right” (Reynolds, Paris 312).

Nevertheless, when Jake enters a church in Bayonne, he is once again reminded of his spiritual inadequacies. He attempts to achieve a meaningful, spiritual connection through conventional means; however, he is constantly stymied and left feeling numb.

This time, in the dark of the church, Jake feels like a “rotten Catholic,” yet he still yearns for the religious certainty the church represents. He hopes he might find God in the darkness instead of “the old grievance,” even if his attempts are superficial:

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 I regretted that I

was such a rotten Catholic, but realized 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. (Hemingway, Sun

103)

Jake realizes the church no longer holds the comfort for him that it once did, or at least the very least, what the church provides is not enough. He regrets being a “rotten

Catholic” who can no longer achieve that religious feeling. He wishes he could transcend his wound and situation through Catholicism, and maybe he “would the next time,” but

19 for now it no longer provides solace for him so Jake must find spiritual satisfaction through other means.

It is made apparent that Jake experiences more gratification when fishing in

Burguete than his prayers evoke in church. In fact, on his first morning out, he is quickly satisfied by catching his self-imposed limit of six trout. The achievement counters the earlier failure he felt in the cathedral in Bayonne. In addition, Bill Gorton’s comic preaching along the Irati emphasizes the importance of the natural world to Jake, while also demeaning traditional religious practices:

“Utilize a little, brother,” he handed me the bottle. “Let us not doubt, brother. Let

us not pry into the holy mysteries of the hen-coop with simian fingers. Let us

accept on faith and simply say--I want you to join with me in saying--What shall

we say brother?” he pointed the drumstick at me and went on. (127)

Bill’s irreverent sermon, though exacerbated by wine, portrays a communal ritual of the church as ridiculous and absurd. Conversely, there is an undeniable and harmonious feeling Jake and Bill experience on the river. They are participants in the natural world who are able to achieve momentary transcendence through the art of fishing, and without the need or structure of the church. In fact, they are so satisfied by their environment that they are lulled to sleep along the shore and later swim in a cool stream (130). The uncomplicated camaraderie Jake experiences with Bill and the Englishman Harris provides respite from the inherent difficulties posed by Brett’s presence in Paris and later again in Pamplona. Burguete represents an idyllic and temporary peace much like the

Garden of Eden, and as such the perfection cannot be sustained in his modern world. Jake

20 is thus drawn to Pamplona where the bullfights, invigorated by the festival of San

Fermin, present a more complicated ritual that lies somewhere between pagan and religious ceremony.

Upon their arrival in Pamplona to meet Brett, Mike, and Robert Cohn, the mounting of tension is first observed as Jake observes young children stringing electric lights in the plaza for the fiesta (135). The subtle imagery foreshadows the charged atmosphere. In addition, Jake’s aficion or passion for the bullfights is almost immediately addressed when he arrives in Pamplona at the Hotel Montoya. The hotel’s proprietor,

Montoya, has granted Jake membership into this sacred society of aficionados by vouching for his authenticity:

They were always very polite at first, and it amused them very much that I should

be an American. Somehow it was taken for granted that an American could not

have aficion. He might simulate it or confuse it with excitement, but he could not

really have it. When they saw that I had aficion, and there was no password, no

set questions that could bring it out, rather it was a sort of oral spiritual

examination with the questions always a little on the defensive and never

apparent, there was this same embarrassed putting the hand on the shoulder, or a

“Buen hombre.” But nearly always there was the actual touching. It seemed as

though they wanted to touch you to make it certain. (137)

The “touch” Jake mentions goes beyond acceptance into an elite club. It more closely resembles a benediction or baptism performed by a priest to confirm Jake’s legitimacy as a true believer and ritualize his initiation into the brotherhood. The sacred importance is

21 also emphasized by Jake’s further observation that those who have inclusion in this exclusive society can recognize one another’s possession of aficion through “a sort of oral spiritual examination.” This undefined knowledge and awareness imply that aficionados speak in a language that is their own and represent a type of communicative transcendence that is somewhat otherworldly.

Though Jake has verified his baptism among the aficionados of Pamplona, he still remains observant of traditional Catholicism; however, his resolve is becoming more and more questionable especially when provoked by Brett. For example, more than once in

Pamplona, Jake enters a church with Brett. On the first attempt, Brett wants to accompany Jake and hear his confession the day before the start of the fiesta. She is fascinated by Jake’s participation in the sacrament for absolution of sins, but because she is not prepared to repent for her own guilt, she is ultimately more comfortable with a pagan experience and having her fortune read in the gypsy camp:

She said she wanted to hear me go to confession, but I told her that not only was it

impossible but it was not as interesting as it sounded, and, besides, it would be in

a language she did not know. We met Cohn as we came out of church, and

although it was obvious he had followed us, yet he was very pleasant and nice,

and we all three went for a walk out to the gypsy camp, and Brett had her fortune

read. (154-55)

Jake explains to Brett that his confession would be in “a language she did not know,” which also indicates her depravity and his own struggle with such ideas. In fact, Brett symbolizes the duality of Jake’s spiritual predicament. Like Brett, there is a part of Jake

that is more comfortable in secular society. The idea is reinforced when Brett enters the

church hoping to pray for Pedro Romero before his bullfight that afternoon. She

immediately “stiffens” and feels uneasy in church because of the role she plays in

Romero’s injuries at the hands of Robert Cohn. As a result, she wants to leave and is

denied even the slightest overture of contrition. Brett remarks she is “damned bad for a

religious atmosphere,” again highlighting her exclusion from achieving conventional

spiritual fulfillment (212). In addition, she is not ready to take a personal inventory that

might expose the guilt she feels for motivating the fight between Cohn and Romero.

Moreover, Brett’s unsuccessful attempts to observe a sacrament and later “pray” mimic

Jake’s earlier regret in the Bayonne cathedral when he “only wished [he] felt religious”

(103).

Jake’s desire to feel “religious” also explains his attraction to the bullfights. The

violence of the corrida2 imitates war and proximity to death, providing a space where

Jake can achieve the most meaningful transcendence available to him. After all, the

Hemingway code requires he possess the courage to confront death because it is the only

means by which he can reconcile his fear by reliving his own brush with mortality. In

fact, Jake never looks away from the bullfights, yet he is a mere observer now, not an

active participant as he was in the war. Still, there is something in his need to revisit

death via the bullfight that helps Jake reconcile and regenerate himself. Most likely, the

experience helps him achieve an earthly epiphany that his Catholic upbringing no longer

2 Corrida is abbreviated from la corrida de toros, literally translated from Spanish as “the running of the bulls,” but more accurately interpreted in English as “the bullfight.”

provides, yet the experience still intertwines spiritual inspiration since the bullfight is also

tied to the religious festival of San Fermin making it more digestible to a lapsed Catholic.

There is an undeniable pageantry of the corrida including ceremonial garb and

implements that closely resemble the artifacts of the church. Therefore, Jake’s tendency

to turn to the church despite his undeniable feelings of alienation are better satisfied by

the corrida, a ritual hybrid that blends spiritual and pagan ideals.

Hemingway’s views on bullfighting mimic similar complexities and are best

expressed in his book Death in the Afternoon. He writes “the faena3 that takes a man out

of himself and makes him feel immortal while it is proceeding, that gives him an ecstasy,

that is, while momentary, as profound as any religious ecstasy” (Hemingway, Death 206-

07). Jake can relate to the bullfight in these terms to “take the man out of himself,”

because he is an aficionado; he therefore recognizes the profound religious implications

of the bullfighting ritual to satisfy the spiritual void in himself. In fact, it provides a

moment of transcendence for Jake on both spiritual and physical levels. In addition, his

injury has emasculated him in the most literal sense, causing his celibacy, and forcing

him to live like a pagan priest of sorts. To reinforce the monastic similarities, Jake also

serves as confessor to many of the misdeeds of his friends, especially those of Brett

whom he is linked to by both love and shared experience in the war.

3 A faena refers to the final stage of the bullfight in which particular attention is placed on the artistry and grace of the matador and his use of cape and sword to perform the remaining passes of the bull before completing the kill.

Beyond the spiritual draw of the corrida, Jake’s sexual frustration also explains his taste for the carnal fascination of bullfighting, and is particularly expressed through his admiration for Pedro Romero:

Pedro Romero had the greatness. He loved bull-fighting, and I think he loved the

bulls, and I think he loved Brett. Everything of which he could control the

locality he did in front of her all that afternoon. Never once did he look up. He

made it stronger that way, and did it for himself, too, as well as for her. Because

he did not look up to ask if it pleased he did it all for himself inside, and it

strengthened him, and yet he did it for her, too. But he did not do it for her at any

loss to himself. He gained by it all through the afternoon. (220)

Jake’s observation that “he did not do it for her at any loss to himself” indicates that Jake recognizes Romero possesses a strength that he does not. Jake’s sacrifices for Brett have forced him to compromise his greatest passion for a hopeless love. In fact, Hemingway conjures sexually charged language to describe a bullfighter’s final moments in the bullring: “the beauty of the moment of killing is that flash when man and bull form one figure as the sword goes all the way in, the man leaning after it, death uniting the two figures in the emotional, aesthetic and artistic climax of the fight” (Hemingway, Death

247). Jake’s narration exposes a similar fascination with sexually charged language to describe the final moments of the bullfight. For example, “The bull wanted it again” seems to express a provocative element of the corrida that attracts the bull and emphasizes its willingness and pleasure to engage in violent exchange (Hemingway, Sun

221). Further imagery conjures the consolidation of both bodily forms unifying man and

25 beast in a death-ecstasy: “Each time he [Romero] let the bull pass so close that the man and the bull and the cape that filled and pivoted ahead of the bull were all one sharply etched mass . . . as the sword went in, and for just an instant he and the bull were one”

(221-22). And while the phallic symbolism of the sword cannot be denied, the more significant elements of Jake’s narration make particular note of the merging of Romero and the bull in the moment of the kill-death experience. The repetition serves to enhance the joining of man and beast in one transcendent act that resembles sexual climax, again something Jake is denied of via conventional means. His fleeting epiphany is further emphasized through Jake’s observations of the audience: “the crowd made him go on . . . and each pass as it reached the summit gave you a sudden ache inside. The crowd did not want it ever to be finished” (223). The bitter-sweet ache Jake interprets among the crowd mimics the sexual pleasure and pain associated with romantic love revealing why he finds the bullfight satisfying on both an emotional and spiritual level. Unfortunately, bullfighting only serves to displace Jake’s longing temporarily.

Though bullfighting and the art of Pedro Romero serve as a way of both momentary spiritual and sexual fulfillment for Jake, even if by proxy, what he really yearns for is love. War has made Jake both impotent and numb to conventional religious comfort, so his search for grace is relegated to non-traditional explorations via fishing and the art of bullfighting. Despite the fact that Jake temporarily finds solace in these pursuits, he remains tragic because he is denied any sustained epiphany due to his inability to consummate love. Still, Jake betrays his passion for bullfighting by helping orchestrate Brett’s affair with Romero. This betrayal underscores the fact that Jake’s 26 romantic love will always remain unfulfilled, and his many attempts to transcend his circumstance merely mask his crisis. Nevertheless, Jake’s triumph is found in his continued search. He is heroic because he is not made feeble or helpless by his impotence. Instead, he refuses to succumb to hopelessness. Jake’s strength is to declare convincingly, “Yes . . . Isn’t it pretty to think so?” and the reader is made to feel both his pleasure and pain (251). And while Hemingway also concedes, “I thought that all generations were lost by something and always had been and always would be,” Jake

Barnes remains relevant because his efforts to transcend his circumstances legitimize an entire generation, a generation that would have been easily forgiven for abandoning hope in the self-destructive temptation of debauchery and excess to render the modern world around them more bearable (Hemingway, Moveable 30). 27

CHAPTER 3

ROBERT JORDAN

Hemingway’s significant development after the success of The Sun Also Rises was marked by the inevitable tension created from his acceleration to fame and his conscious effort to produce writing that was unaffected by politics, lifestyle or sentimentality. His dedication to “writing the truest sentence” continued to drive his art, yet Hemingway encountered experiences within this period of his career that influenced his characteristic detachment and individuality. In fact, an evolution can be traced from

Jake Barnes to Robert Jordan that emphasizes Hemingway’s revelations regarding the heart-head dilemma, specifically as it pertains to his reconciliation of contradicting ideologies that drove him away from politics and yet compelled him to pursue war in some capacity. Throughout his lifetime, Hemingway’s fascination with death and conflict intensified in his writing, but he always remained leery of subscribing to any one political cause that might threaten or too greatly influence and, subsequently, delegitimize the truth of his writing. Hemingway explained, “When I write I try to have no politics nor any religion nor any friends nor any enemies but to be . . . impersonal” (qtd. in Reynolds,

1930s 243). Still, whether he liked it or not, Hemingway developed distinct passions and a magnified persona, both of which could not always be separated from his writing.

Though Hemingway’s preference was to avoid politics, he was often drawn to war. After his involvement in WWI, he returned to Europe as a war correspondent, most memorably reporting on atrocities in Macedonia during the Greco-Turkish War, the 28 displaced refugees the conflict created, and an early 1920s interview with fascist leader

Benito Mussolini, whom Hemingway perceptively dubbed “the biggest bluff in Europe” in an article for The Toronto Star (Dearborn 129). In addition, Hemingway would return to themes of war in his 1929 tragedy, A Farewell to Arms, a novel loosely based on

Hemingway’s own experience in a Milan rehabilitation hospital and his brief affair with

Agnes Von Kurowsky. In his fiction, war was almost always woven into the subtext or helped pave the foundation for all his characters throughout his lifetime. Even if not magnified in the forefront as is the case with For Whom the Bell Tolls, violence and casualties of war almost always impacted his heroes. Luckily, along with war’s ceaseless presence, there is also a restorative compulsion in Hemingway’s writing that exists to heal and reexamine both heroes and themes from the detritus of conflict.

On a personal level, there was also an inclination in Hemingway’s self-destructive nature that caused him to wreck both intimate and professional relationships in order to make room for the new. Hemingway notoriously and cruelly discarded friendships with career mentors like Sherwood Anderson and Gertrude Stein. Another later casualty, F.

Scott Fitzgerald, recognized this trait in Hemingway when voicing the observation that

Hemingway required a new wife for each big book. In fact, Fitzgerald’s remark came to fruition just months after the release of The Sun Also Rises in October 1926, when

Hemingway’s first marriage to Hadley Richardson dissolved. Taking little responsibility for the divorce himself, Hemingway would later posit in A Moveable Feast that he had

“bad luck” in being the target of Pauline Pfeiffer’s determined effort to breakup his marriage and claim Ernest for her own (219). Pauline would come to represent the lavish

29 lifestyle associated with the wealthy he had encountered in post-war Europe, but she also encouraged Ernest’s spiritual conversion to Catholicism. While many argue

Hemingway’s conversion was merely a superficial prerequisite for marrying the staunch

Pfeiffer, his fascination with the Catholic faith predated their introduction and can be traced back to his time in the war. In fact, Michael Reynolds claims Hemingway experienced a spiritual conversion that culminated in his baptism in an Italian field hospital as a result of his war wound. Hemingway wrote many years later of the event, “If

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

1918 and recovered . . . 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 religious seriously” (qtd. in Reynolds, Paris Years 345). Although not an entirely unwavering declaration of faith, Hemingway’s conversion was substantial to his development as a writer because he was drawn to the aesthetic tradition of Catholicism, especially when compared to the stark and austere environment of the Protestant church in which he was raised. Even though it could never be more than conjecture to form conclusive judgments about the sincerity of his devotion to the faith, all that is needed to understand Hemingway’s motivations during this period of his life is that he found the elaborate rituals of the Eucharist and Liturgy both alluring and provocative, so much so that he often wandered into ornate French cathedrals to light candles for friends or to invoke the saints for intercession in his prayers. By the same token, Hemingway’s conversion and the influences of the church crept into his writing.

Hemingway’s Catholic education even further connected him to Spain and the

Spanish people, where the church has made an indelible mark on its collective culture.

Mimicking Robert Jordan who announces early in the novel, “I would rather have been born here,” Hemingway’s passion for Spain had become part of his identity, if not his birthright (Hemingway, For Whom the Bell Tolls 15). The Spanish mystique also seemed to complement his obsession with death through an approach to an alternative means of ritual violence, vís-a-vís the bullfight. As argued in the previous chapter, the corrida had served Hemingway on many levels, appealing to his regard for sportsmanship and aesthetic beauty; however, his reverence for the bullfighter was most significantly connected to an attempt to exorcise his most personal demons through his art.

Hemingway returned to Spain often, as first evidenced through its influence on The Sun

Also Rises, and later emphasized when he returned to research his manifesto on bullfighting, Death in the Afternoon, published in 1932. The non-fiction treatise on bullfighting marked a climax of Hemingway’s lifelong fascination with the grace and pride of the Spanish people, but more importantly, the work elevated his frequently utilized theme that venerated the necessity of maintaining courage in the face of death.

Through Death in the Afternoon, Hemingway made a significant effort to encapsulate the hero as artist incarnate within the realm of the matador whose gravity is felt because of his proximity to death.

First drawn to Spain for its unspoiled nature, the country had touched Hemingway on spiritual levels involving fishing, Catholicism, and the bullfight; therefore, it is no surprise that the Spanish Civil War would be the catalyst that finally provoked him into 31 significant political action. By the 1930s, writers were being prodded to pick a cause and form socially conscious responses to injustice, while those who did not faced harsh criticism. Hemingway continued to return to Spain in his art, and eventually focused his only significant political involvement there. In fact, he contributed to various politically charged projects combating the spread of Fascism, including his work as a war correspondent for the North American Newspaper Alliance (Nilsson 82). After his experience in WWI and before the Spanish Civil War, Hemingway had favored individualism and pacifism in reference to war and politics. Eventually, he could no longer remain an unbiased observer. His hatred of Fascism motivated him to venture into previously unexplored genres including theater and documentary film to provoke support for the Spanish Republican cause.

By the time war broke out in Spain in 1936, Hemingway was moved to respond.

Linda Wagner-Martin would even write that his involvement in the Spanish Civil War was “a true turning point for his life and art” (127). Hemingway’s was involved in and narrated Joris Ivens’ propaganda film The Spanish Earth in June of 1937; it advocated for the Spanish Republic or pro-Loyalist movement against the emerging Fascist regime

(Solow 108). The film was meant to appeal to the American elite and was even screened at the White House for the Roosevelts, to whom Hemingway’s third wife, Martha

Gellhorn, had personal ties. Later that same year, Hemingway completed writing his only play, The Fifth Column, the most propagandistic and partisan work he would complete in his lifetime. 32

Hemingway’s uncharacteristic campaign to support the Republican cause was fervent, but short-lived. Soon Hemingway’s cynicism reemerged as the futility of the

Loyalist cause became more apparent. In fact, he began to acknowledge corruption on both sides in a 1938 letter to his editor Max Perkins, citing their “carnival of treachery and rottenness” (qtd. in Solow 110). Hemingway could not tolerate the communist support of the Republican Army either. While Hemingway had a professional lapse in his philosophy that a writer must remain impervious to political slant in his writing to be faithful to art, his experience in Spain provided a valuable circular journey for the writer that informed his work in For Whom the Bell Tolls in March 1939. Even if Hemingway’s conclusive preference was to remain an individualist and even a pacifist in relation to the politics of war, his instincts always seemed to draw him closer to the heart of conflict.

Apparent in the attitudes and dimensions of his heroes, Hemingway’s interpretations of war shift dramatically within the twenty-year span marking his return from Italy up until the publication of For Whom the Bell Tolls in 1940. First, the isolation and disillusionment of Jake Barnes sharply gives way to the rebellious portrayal of

Frederic Henry, a deserter whose loss of conviction for the cause coincides with a harsh commentary on the futility of war and the death of love. After all, to Frederic Henry,

“abstract words such as glory, honor, courage, or hallow were obscene” when compared to the grave realities war inflicts upon society (Hemingway, Farewell 185). Both Barnes and Henry share reactions to war that portray varying degrees of detachment, contrasting sharply with Robert Jordan’s self-sacrificing conviction. The progression from isolation to abandonment to engagement reveals Hemingway’s own psychological deliberations. 33

The Spanish Civil War and the fight against Fascism became worthy causes for

Hemingway, so much so that he abandoned his own advice to stay away from politics entirely. Eventually, though Hemingway was often criticized for not taking a stronger pro-Loyalist position, he was more determined to approach the conflict from a more balanced stance that portrayed the corrupt realism of war and promoted the moral obligation inherent in the fight for freedom. As a result, in breadth, scope and heroic development, For Whom the Bell Tolls represents a departure from his prior isolationist worldview.

From the start, For Whom the Bell Tolls provides a more compassionate perspective that Hemingway had not previously entertained in his writing. In the epigraph and the book’s title, Hemingway foreshadows the novel’s central theme regarding a collective human experience by citing “No Man is an Island” by John Donne. The allusion is a dramatic shift from the employment of Stein’s quote regarding the “lost generation” in his earlier work, and it reveals Hemingway’s maturity and commitment to a more humanistic approach in his literature. In voice and tone, Hemingway’s construction of For Whom the Bell Tolls is also quickly distinguished from his prior work through his choice to stray from his familiar first person narratives to a more complex third-person omniscient point of view. While the focus of the novel is often centered on the hero Robert Jordan’s self-examining interior monologues, insight is also given into the minds of Jordan’s guerilla allies. The narrative choice illuminates several perspectives while ultimately giving weight to a collective voice that symbolically communicates the importance of the whole over individual desire or pride. In addition, Robert Jordan is an

34 active hero who, unlike Jake Barnes, is a vital participant in the action and not merely a narrative observer. Fundamentally, Robert Jordan’s action drives the story’s plot, while

Jake Barnes merely retells it. In addition, there is substantial growth in Jordan as he progresses from a seemingly mechanical and stoic individual to one who is led by his heart. He is awakened by both romantic and brotherly love as his interior monologues resoundingly contemplate the importance of his mission.

Hemingway makes an even bolder move toward para-rational discovery by enveloping the novel in several mystical elements that deepen the events spanning the course of just three days. First, the circular structure of the novel that begins and ends with Robert Jordan lying on the pine needles of the forest reflects Hemingway’s own journey in approaching the politics of the Spanish Civil War. The device also implies the structural nature of the hero’s journey that guarantees Jordan’s call to adventure will be accompanied by both ordeal and reward, while later leading him to a greater understanding of his original purpose. Next, the juxtaposition of Robert Jordan’s rational and intellectual character with the intuitive and emotive nature of Pilar establishes a perspective of the war that the hero has not contemplated before. Though pragmatic and focused, Jordan is surrounded by gypsies and palm-readers who often rely on superstition to inform their circumstances and decision-making. Jordan’s resolve to blow up the bridge never wavers, but after he falls in love with Maria, he is aware that he has more to lose than he did when first entering the mountain hideout. The characterization of Pilar and Maria reveals a feminine portrayal of uncertainties regarding love and human nature that causes Jordan to frequently contemplate ideologies he claims he does not support. In

35 addition, the employment of the omniscient narrative allows varying perspectives such as

Robert Jordan’s cross-examining interior dialogues, and Pilar’s reflections and retelling of the start of the movement, both of which help create the novel’s sometimes dreamy atmosphere. As a result, some of the mysteries of the world such as love, fate, and death begin to reveal themselves more clearly to Robert Jordan through means he had previously dismissed.

While Jake Barnes struggles towards regaining his faith, Robert Jordan’s experience is marked by denying his. In fact, Jordan has very little patience for either religion or supernatural or mystical explanations. Furthermore, Jordan claims he “did not believe in luck” (393), yet, there is ample evidence throughout the novel that he does. It is also significant that Jordan’s attitudes towards the idea of luck and chance are frequently revisited, because these situations appear more like attempts to try to convince himself that the concept is ridiculous. For example, upon their first meeting, Pilar could see bad luck in the palm of Jordan's hand. He questions Pilar and is curious to learn the specifics of what she sees, but he also reassures her he “does not believe in such things”

(33), insisting what he really believes in is his work. Later, after Pilar makes much of their luck in the “earth moving” experience that Jordan and Maria share during their love- making, he is compelled to defend his disbelief. He declares that Pilar should not be “so mysterious,” continuing, “I do not believe in ogres, soothsayers, fortune tellers, or chicken-crut gypsy witchcraft” and yet, Pilar erupts in laughter when she provokes

Jordan to admit that the earth did move (176). There is a mystical connection between

Jordan and Maria that did not exist in Hemingway's earlier literature. Certainly, the 36 relationship between Jake and Brett cannot be described as mystical, and not just because it has not been consummated. Though Jordan’s rational mind struggles with accepting mysticism, it is nevertheless revealed to him. When questioned by Pilar, he is not ready to admit to himself that there is sometimes a depth in life experience that cannot be explained through rational means, especially when his work relies so heavily on tactical precision and controlled execution. Still, on the eve of his mission to blow up the bridge,

Jordan comments “for tomorrow, with luck, we will kill plenty” (353), revealing his understanding that even if he performs his task perfectly, the success of his mission is also predicated on chance.

As Robert Jordan is acutely aware, the work of war is complicated. In fact, when

Pilar recounts the story of the start of the movement in her small town, Jordan learns from her that the Spanish peasants feel guilty for the brutal killing of Don Guillermo.

Though he was a Fascist, there was too much pleasure taken in his killing, a situation that the peasants believe “will bring bad luck” (119). In addition, because he is a writer,

Jordan is taken by Pilar’s ability to recount the story, and he hopes “if he has luck” he can later “get it down as she told it” (134). Pilar paints a vivid picture for Jordan that “made him see” (134). While the episode reveals the brutality of the slaughter and the corruption war inflicts on men and women, it also confirms that Robert Jordan acknowledges the importance of luck in his work, both as a writer and a soldier. More importantly, Robert

Jordan recognizes his own deficiencies. He is having an awakening of the senses that has been prompted by his relationship with Maria and brought to light by Pilar. Pilar’s gypsy 37 instincts give her a heightened sense of awareness that Robert Jordan is initially both blind and deaf to:

“Because thou art a miracle of deafness,” Pilar said, her big face harsh and broad

in the candlelight. “It is not that thou art stupid. Thou art simply deaf. One who is

deaf cannot hear music. Neither can he hear the radio. So he might say, never

having heard them, that such things do not exist. Que va, Ingles. I saw the death

of that one with the rare name in his face as though it were burned there with a

branding iron.” (251)

As Pilar goes on to describe in gross detail the smell of death that accompanied Kashkin, their comrade who blew up the train, Robert Jordan is skeptical of the “wizardry” she professes, and yet, he has already felt the “earth move.” Consistently, there are things that

Jordan’s rational mind cannot see, hear or smell without Pilar’s guidance. Since he has immense respect for Pilar, she is a constant reminder of the heart-head dilemma he is facing. Jordan is learning quickly that all things cannot be explained by rational means.

As a result, Jordan is actively in the midst of an existential crisis that is refuted by experiences of love that are both romantic and fraternal. Like Hemingway, Jordan is drawn to Spain for the mysteries that encapsulate its people, culture, and spirit. To deny the validity of their esoteric customs may appease Jordan on the basis of his status as a communist soldier, but it is also a mild betrayal of Spain. For this reason, Jordan’s evolution is given substantial meaning during the “earth moving” episode because it is symbolic of a spiritual communion portrayed by what John Clendenning describes as “a sympathetic earth” (500). Even if his growth is sometimes stunted by his rationality, 38

Jordan is moving toward a more spiritual understanding of his life's purpose and motivations than when he began his mission. Furthermore, Jordan’s participation in such an emotive experience reveals a sharp contrast to Jake Barnes’s numbness when attempting to capture the “religious feeling” again as he prayed in church.

The mysteries of life and, ultimately, the Spanish conflict are given even more weight considering Pilar’s narration of her time with the matador Finito de Palencia. She begins with a private reflection on Finito’s grace in the bullring. Though handicapped by his small stature and an irrational fear of bulls outside of the ring, Finito was fearless during the corrida. The story Pilar tells of Finito describes a time when a society of aficionados wished to rename their cafe after him and present him with a stuffed head of a great bull he had killed. It is significant that the imagery of the bull’s head hanging above the banquet and shrouded by a purple cloth resembles the icon of the crucified

Christ that is ritually concealed during the Lenten season in Catholic tradition. Beyond provoking terror in Finito, it also symbolizes the unavoidable horror of war and the complex nature of individual sacrifice for the greater good. In addition, the irony that

Finito possesses Hemingway’s fabled grace under pressure when he is in the ring and closest to death, but is consumed by fear when confronted with the remnants of his kill reveals both the futility and absurdity of war. Pilar reflects, “But neither bull force nor bull courage lasted, she knew now, and what did last? I last, she thought. Yes, I have lasted” (190). What Pilar already understands, and what Jordan will come to know, is that there are no easy battles in war, because the fight for freedom necessitates sacrifice.

Hemingway’s artistic weaving of Pilar’s contemplations on her bullfighter personifies a

39 moment of transcendence and foreshadows Jordan’s fate. Only by facing death with courage can one hope to resolve the dilemma to maintain purpose despite inevitable defeat.

Jordan’s evolution can be further traced by the interior monologue he experiences after it is clear that El Sordo’s camp has been attacked and there is nothing they can do to help him. Jordan contemplates the foundation of communist ideologies. Though he does not waver in his commitment to his mission, he concludes that “afterwards [he] can discard what [he does not] believe in” (305). The only certainty that he establishes is that he considers his affair with Maria “lucky”:

And another thing. Don’t ever kid yourself about loving someone. It is just that

most people are not lucky enough ever to have it . . . [love] is the most important

thing that can happen to a human being. There will always be people who say it

does not exist because they cannot have it. But I tell you it is true and that you

have it and you are lucky even if you die tomorrow. (305)

While the futility of the pro-Loyalist movement becomes more apparent, Jordan has not abandoned his faith in liberty, equality, and fraternity; however, he has given new weight to love by recognizing its scarcity and the luck he has been divined by encountering it.

In regards to Hemingway’s own relationship to luck and chance, his writing of the

1930s reveals his strong belief that the world is not always a fair and righteous place. In fact, in the first pages of Death in the Afternoon, Hemingway explains how hard he was working on his writing, but he also acknowledges “with luck” he could capture “the real thing, the sequence of motion and fact which made the emotion and which would be valid

40 in a year or ten years” (2). After all, the Victorian notion that men like Hemingway once held that the world is governed by justice was destroyed with the First World War.

Hemingway came to understand that hard work alone could not always ensure success, and sometimes good luck is required when attempting human endeavors. In addition, the manner in which Hemingway deals with chance evolves significantly through the attitudes of his heroes. While Robert Jordan’s interactions with luck, both bad and good, manifest in a deeper connection to humanity, Jake Barnes’ bad luck does not lead him to significant humanistic epiphany or redemption, but merely towards individual resignation.

As Jordan simultaneously reflects on what his grandfather could have taught him about courage and condemns his father’s suicide, his attitude towards luck is further complicated. Jordan recognizes that “the worst luck any man could have” was being a coward (339), again reiterating Hemingway’s beliefs on the subject. In fact, the personal parallel that Hemingway establishes with Jordan regarding his own father’s suicide elevates the mythic nature of the hero’s journey, especially when considering

Hemingway’s own tragic suicide decades later. Like the analogy of the merry-go-round

Jordan imagines when reflecting on the difficulties of his mission to blow up the bridge, the nature of the wheel resembles both the futility of war and the generational patterns that govern Hemingway and his hero. Since “nothing is settled” for Jordan, he still has much to learn (225).

In a significant stream of consciousness reflection after the drunk and unpredictable Pablo reveals his treacherous machinations, Jordan must remind himself of 41 his loyalty to the cause. As a result, he begins reminiscing about his work with the

International Brigade in Madrid. It is interesting and ironic that Jordan conjures religious analogies to describe the feeling that participating in the Pro-loyalist movement evokes in him:

At either of those places you felt that you were taking part in a

crusade . . . You felt, in spite of all the bureaucracy and inefficiency and party

strife, something that was like the feeling you expected to have and did not have

when you made your first communion. It was a feeling of consecration to a duty

toward all of the oppressed of the world which would be as difficult and

embarrassing to speak about as religious experience and yet it was authentic as

the feeling you had when you heard Bach, or stood in Chartres Cathedral or the

Cathedral at Leon and saw the light coming through the great windows; or when

you saw Mantegna and Greco and Brueghel in the Prado. It gave you a part in

something that you could believe wholly and completely and in which you felt

an absolute brotherhood with the others who were engaged in it. It was

something that you had never known before but that you had experienced now

and you gave such importance to it and the reasons for it that your own death

seemed of complete unimportance; only a thing to be avoided because it would

interfere with the performance of your duty. But the best thing was that there was

something you could do about this feeling and this necessity too. You could

fight. (235) 42

More than anything, Jordan is committed to the cause because it motivates an “authentic” feeling in him. Though he also likens it to the violence of the crusades, he recognizes the feeling is associated with what great works of art and brotherhood inspire in humanity, and because of that he considers his duty is consecrated. Interestingly enough, standing in a great cathedral stirs the feeling in Jordan, but his first communion did not. The contradiction reveals Jordan’s complicated relationship with irrational ideologies.

Experiencing genius in art, like listening to Bach or viewing the Brueghel paintings in the

Prado, provides concrete sensory experiences to Jordan that are easier to ascertain than any grace that organized religion can provide him. On the other hand, the common fight against Fascism gives Jordan the feeling of purpose because it requires an obligation to his fellow men and women. Since the feeling in his work is consecrated, it is also akin to

Jordan's moving towards a greater epiphany, especially because his own death is not precluded. Furthermore, based on the evidence in this excerpt, it is possible to see the growth Hemingway makes from Jake Barnes to Robert Jordan. Barnes may wish he might have that religious feeling someday again, but Jordan achieves something more.

In fact, Jordan marks a departure for Hemingway from his extreme individualism towards the notion of human solidarity. Unity, brotherhood, and fighting for a cause are all greater than solitary pursuits. Still, Hemingway's characters are often defined by the individual experience inherent in the proximity to death. One of the modernist writer’s greatest tasks is to explore a deeper meaning in a world whose certainties have been destroyed. Those heroes whose certainties have been destroyed are also closer to some greater truth. Soldiers, bullfighters, hunters, and guerillas are all characters who have a 43 more intimate relationship to death, which affords them the opportunity to achieve the famous “moment of truth,” or, in other words, transcendence. As a result, Jordan also moves towards a collective consciousness that he aspires to pass on to successive generations, a concept certainly familiar to Hemingway as well: “He would write a book when he got through with this. But only about the things he knew, truly, and about what he knew. But I will have to be a much better writer than I am now to handle them, he thought. The things he had come to know in this war were not so simple” (248).

Just as Jordan determines war is “not so simple,” the idea also reflects Hemingway’s own personal struggle in supporting one side or another in a political conflict that will ultimately cost so many lives. It is not easy to choose a party when corruption and evil touch both loyalties. Instead, conviction requires a distance from the mission that even

Jordan realizes he must have to fully comprehend that war’s purpose is only justified if it ensures the greater human good. While Hemingway’s hatred of Fascism is often palpable, his true loyalty is to aesthetic detachment and dedication to writing “one true sentence.”

Torn by his loyalties to the Spanish Republic and a preference for political neutrality, a balance of opposites exacerbates the futility of war, and emphasizes Hemingway’s final conclusion that war must be waged when human freedom is in jeopardy.

Just after the bridge is successfully blown and all in Pablo’s camp are in retreat,

Robert Jordan faces his moment of truth. He is crushed under the weight of a rearing horse and must send everyone away, including Maria. Giving importance to the unity they have achieved, Jordan convincingly argues, “As long as there is one of us there is 44

both of us” (463). As a result, Jordan is not only reconciled to his own death, he also

confirms clarity in his purpose:

I have fought for what I believed in for a year now. If we win here we will win

everywhere. The world is a fine place and worth the fighting for and I hate very

much to leave it. And you had a lot of luck, he told himself, to have had such a

good life. You've had just as good a life as grandfather's though not as long.

You've had as good a life as any one because of these last days. You do not want

to complain when you have been so lucky. I wish there was some way to pass on

what I've learned, though, Christ, I was learning fast there at the end. (467)

Jordan remains an active participant in his own crisis, and still manages to see the luck in

his “good life.” Even though he contemplates the nothingness of his inevitable death, by

observing, “It will just be nothing” (470), he finally experiences a significant epiphany

through a better understanding of his place and meaning by not resorting to suicide and

recognizing he could still make a difference in his last moments even as he awaits his

unavoidable death. “And if you wait and hold them up even a little while or just get the

officer that may make all the difference. One thing well done can make” (470). At the heart of For Whom the Bell Tolls is a hero who participates deeply in nature's mysteries, and Jordan's death has value because his courage and valor are dedicated to his individual contribution to the greater good. 45

CHAPTER 4

SANTIAGO

The bulk of Hemingway’s published writing from the 1940s is somewhat limited

to the war correspondence he completed in China and Europe. Immediately following

their marriage in Cuba, Hemingway traveled with third wife Martha Gellhorn to China in

1941 during the Sino-Japanese War, where Martha was employed as a correspondent for

Collier’s Weekly. While in China, Hemingway produced some of his own reporting for

the fledgling New York newspaper, PM. He also cultivated information gathering for the

US Department of Treasury, in an effort some Hemingway biographers have

characterized as a “spy mission” (Dearborn 423). Though he made several attempts at

new fiction that he wrestled with intensely during the 1940s, most of these works became

abandoned projects that would not see publication until after his death. It seems

Hemingway was intellectually exhausted after writing For Whom the Bell Tolls, and he

was instead compelled to enjoy his new home in Cuba, Finca Vigia, while the ambitious

Gellhorn was often off on assignment reporting on world affairs. Hemingway spent much

of his time during this period marlin fishing in the Gulf Stream on his boat, the Pilar. He was always accompanied by a hearty group of dedicated and admiring locals who stroked his ego and accommodated his whims. It was uncharacteristic that Hemingway did not immediately dive back into reporting once the United States declared war on Germany and Japan at the close of 1941, but he was complacent with the fraternity house lifestyle he cultivated at home in Cuba. His days were dominated by fishing and heavy drinking, 46 and Hemingway dedicated very little time, if any, to his writing. In fact, his son Greg recalled his father telling Gellhorn in July 1942, “You’re the writer in the family now,

Marty,” though the sentiment would prove to be more than Hemingway’s ego could ever truly sustain (qtd. in Dearborn 439).

Creatively, Hemingway seemed to lose focus in his career as a writer. Instead, he had become preoccupied with his involvement in intelligence efforts stemming from

American officials he had met in Havana. When German U-boats began sinking U.S. cargo ships at alarming rates in 1942, he was drawn back into a war effort that suited his own design: hunting German submarines off the coast of Cuba from the deck of the Pilar.

From his perspective, Hemingway’s new pursuit must have seemed to embody the hero and the code he had revisited so often in his fiction. Manned with thirty-thousand dollars in equipment, much of that funded by the U.S. Navy, Hemingway and his crew actively patrolled the Gulf Stream waters surrounding Cuba on various sub-hunting expeditions that spanned the summer of 1942 through the end of 1943. Though these missions were long shots, at best, they provided a welcomed distraction to the loneliness Hemingway experienced while Martha was away for long periods on assignment. They also provided a worthy focus for a man whose life purpose of writing was experiencing an unusual hiatus. Even if success was unlikely, Hemingway and company were in search of adventure and the many German U-boats that trafficked the waters off the coast of Cuba.

Since the subs had been responsible for sinking 251 cargo ships that year and completing reconnaissance that was much too close for comfort to the U.S. and its territories, 47

Hemingway’s mission gave him a momentary sense of purpose that his writing was not fulfilling.

Because the work was risky, it provided Hemingway with just enough intrigue and adventure to validate his choice to remain at home, while Gellhorn was most comfortable reporting from the frontlines and closest to the action. The two were very competitive with one another, and their rocky marriage challenged Hemingway’s self- esteem primarily because he was used to his women taking a backseat to his own career, impulses and ego. In fact, when Gellhorn left Hemingway for two months at the beginning of their marriage to pursue her own career, it quickly became clear to him that he had met his match. Gellhorn’s own ambition could not be quieted by Hemingway’s petulant tantrums and selfish demands. In addition, Hemingway’s submarine hunting missions quickly became a point of contention between him and Gellhorn, who felt his efforts were nothing more than a glorified game of cops and robbers and much too far from the action of the frontlines that she revered. Gellhorn’s frequent trips overseas for work left Hemingway lonely and Martha disappointed in his perceived apathy. She could not understand his reluctance to get involved in a meaningful war effort. Though she eventually coaxed Hemingway back to Europe towards the end of WWII, by that time their marriage was essentially over and he was ripe for a new relationship. By 1944,

Hemingway found himself back in the thick of things in Europe and often frighteningly close to the destruction. Still, the Hemingway legend that surfaced from his experience in

WWII is much debated. Whether he can be rightly credited with the liberation of Paris, or 48 even the Ritz, his mythological life continued to grow even though his creative work was virtually stalled.

In fact, it would be a decade before Hemingway completed another book of fiction after the publication of For Whom the Bell Tolls. Unfortunately, when he finally published in 1950, Across the River and into the Trees, it was considered a critical failure and has never been included among his better works. Much of the insight into the circumstances that impeded Hemingway’s writing during the 1940s points to significant lapses in his physical and mental health that several critics hypothesize resulted from the many brain traumas he sustained up until that point in his life. The first such event resulted from the combat injuries he had endured in WWI. That event was followed by a head injury Hemingway suffered after a domestic accident in March of 1928 that occurred when a bathroom skylight came crashing down upon him (Farah 30).

Subsequently, he was involved in two separate automobile accidents during WWII that caused him additional head injuries. The first occurred while Hemingway was stationed in London in 1944 when he was involved in a car accident after a late night party. As a result, he was transferred to the private London Clinic where he was treated for a concussion and released just after four days. Later, his Cuban doctor, Jose Luis Herrera

Sorolongo, felt strongly that Hemingway was misdiagnosed and should have received treatment for a subdural hematoma, which requires much more attention than does mild concussion (Dearborn 449). In recent years, there has been much speculation corroborating Dr. Sorolongo’s medical conclusions about the misdiagnosis of

Hemingway’s injuries and the lax treatment he received in his recovery. In Hemingway’s 49

Brain, forensic psychiatrist Andrew Farah convincingly argues that Hemingway suffered from chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), which now explains many of the symptoms he was beginning to exhibit in these years, including his frequent bouts of depression, narcissism, and the difficulty he was experiencing in concentration and in the completion of his novels. Though Hemingway’s true diagnosis will never be certain, there is evidence in letters and interviews that he continued to suffer from frequent headaches, ringing in the ears and disorientation that could have only been exacerbated by the heavy drinking regimen he maintained in and out of the hospital. All of which was compounded when Hemingway suffered yet another concussion just four months later in

Normandy when his he was forced to jump out of a motorcycle sidecar that was about to collide with a German anti-tank gun. In fact, experts now attribute Hemingway’s worsening mental state after WWII to the many brain injuries he had endured throughout his lifetime. Hemingway’s condition had begun with symptoms of concussion including blurred vision, confusion, and headaches, but eventually developed into manic episodes, fits of paranoia and ultimately suicidal tendencies. While Hemingway’s public persona was growing, his art and creative production was becoming more and more strained:

But the legend took shape at a point when reality, or, as Ernest might have it, the

truth, was getting away from him, when his hold on reality was growing more and

more tenuous, when stories were all he could catch hold of. The severe head

injuries he sustained in the past four months; the enormous amount of alcohol he

was consuming; the trauma of combat in the first war and the trauma ahead of

him in Hurtgenwald, in this one; his growing self-absorption, facilitated by

sycophants--and what we might today call enablers--with whom he increasingly

surrounded himself, made it harder and harder for him to see himself and the way

before him clearly, never mind produce good work. (Dearborn 461)

Though it is reckless to definitively diagnose Hemingway nearly sixty years after his death, it is commonly accepted that his brain injuries, alcohol abuse, and hereditary predisposition to mental illness were factors at play that were beginning to manifest a complex physical and mental state that also affected his writing.

By the time Hemingway’s divorce from Martha Gellhorn was finalized in 1945, he was already committed to fourth wife Mary Walsh, whom he had met in London in

1944 and married in Cuba in March 1946. During their life together, Hemingway’s treatment of Mary would be characterized as a relationship filled with bullying and verbal abuse, another indication of his declining mental state. In fact, many biographers note that the late 1940s represent a manic phase in Hemingway’s life that Carlos Baker forgivingly characterized as expressing a “rough exuberance,” but can be more accurately described through the symptoms of confusion, delusions of grandeur, overspending, irritability and an inflated view of self that Hemingway often displayed. In fact by 1949,

Hemingway’s mental condition was having distinct ramifications for his work.

Professionally, Hemingway seemed lost. He continued to develop lengthy and meandering stories that often indulged previously unexplored sexual taboos, and his own perception of his writing had become skewed and irrational. Both The Garden of Eden and Islands in the Stream, then dubbed the Sea manuscript, were novels Hemingway set aside in his lifetime because he could not bring them to a satisfactory close and only

51 found publication posthumously when publishers had nothing more left to capitalize on the Hemingway name. It has been written that Across the River and into the Trees was a novel that resulted from one of Hemingway’s long manic episodes, which explains

Hemingway’s errors in judgment in constructing the unrealistic affair between the teenaged Renata and the aging Colonel Cantwell. The weakness of the novel is marked by a combination of Hemingway’s heightened sense of immortality and the wish fulfillment that his real life infatuation with the Italian aristocrat Adriana Ivancich had inspired. When Maxwell Geismar wrote in The Saturday Review of Literature, “It is not only Hemingway’s worst novel; it is a synthesis of everything that is bad in his previous work and it throws a doubtful light on the future,” the question of Hemingway’s fate as a writer was tenuous (qtd. in Dearborn 534). He needed a comeback, but the feasibility of recovering from such a setback seemed increasingly unlikely, especially considering his degrading mental state.

Luckily, the idea for The Old Man and the Sea, published in 1952, was a story that had been with Hemingway for some time. He first reported of its inspiration in the

April 1936 issue of Esquire magazine in an article titled, “On the Blue Water: A Gulf

Stream Letter.” The idea that became the foundation for his novel was conceived in part from a recounted tale told to him by one of the Pilar’s crew mates, Carlos Gutierrez. It depicted an old fisherman who fights four days to land a giant marlin, but is thwarted when sharks destroy his catch. By 1950, Hemingway had returned to the story hoping to include it as a coda to the larger and rambling work that would eventually be published posthumously as Islands in the Stream. It seems appropriate that after a decade of 52

creative struggles, Hemingway had gone much longer than eighty-four days without a

“fish.” Not to discount the novel’s artistic significance, The Old Man and the Sea

received immediate acclaim partly because it represented Hemingway’s return to his terse

and precise prose, and partly because the world was not ready for the Hemingway myth

to sink into the demise that Across the River and into the Trees had foreshadowed. In

hindsight, the novel provides significant insight into the aging Hemingway and his

intensifying employment of para-rational elements. These factors emphasize

Hemingway’s continued spiritual connection to Christian values and a mysticism rooted

in the natural world, but they also reveal the growing mental health issues he was

beginning to experience during this period of his life.

When considering the personal, physical and professional struggles Hemingway

endured during the 1940s, the application of the para-rational lens reveals much insight

into the author’s motivations and development. The Old Man and the Sea, marked for its

rich symbolism and focus, can also be viewed as a significant recovery from a disabling

lapse in Hemingway’s ailing mental health and the subsequent suffering of his artistic prowess. In The Old Man and the Sea, Hemingway returns to the infusion of the many para-rational techniques that have often enriched his storytelling and given meaningful depth to his heroes. In fact, the elements of chance, spiritualism and epiphany are not just minor details intended to supplement the story’s purpose, but are instead the controlling forces that drive the plot and communicate the dominating themes in the novel.

Much criticism focuses on the intense religious implications of The Old Man and the Sea. In fact, the Christian influence begins with the old man, Santiago, who is named 53 after Saint James, a fisherman and an Apostle of Christ. Saint James was also one of only three apostles chosen by Christ to witness his Transfiguration, when in prayer he is illuminated and becomes radiant in glory. The biblical allusion also serves as reference to the burial place of Saint James in Santiago de Compostela, a town located in northwest

Spain. The location marks the culmination of the Camino de Santiago, or the pilgrimage of Saint James, that Hemingway mimics in The Sun Also Rises through Jake’s journey from France to the Festival of San Fermin. While the rich symbolic implications of

Santiago’s name help Hemingway establish the controlling themes in The Old Man and the Sea related to suffering and transcendence, they also pay tribute to the triumph of his youth and his first novel.

In the opening pages of the novel, Hemingway references both Christian mythology and the idea of chance when describing his hero’s predicament. Reminiscent of Christ fasting in the desert alone for forty days and forty nights, the young boy’s parents force him to abandon Santiago after forty days without a fish. And while these comparisons are highly visceral to some and mildly offensive to others, no other symbol represents a greater embodiment of the heart-head dilemma than that of the suffering and resolute Christ whose transcendence connects him to both man and God. While the many nuanced allusions to Christianity poetically enhance the gravity of the novel, the most effective references pertain to the Holy Sacraments. For example, Santiago’s success in defeating the great marlin presents imagery that signifies his participation in the sacraments. First, he witnesses the transfiguration of the fish as it hangs in the air above 54

his skiff, and then, he experiences a symbolic baptism as he is splashed with water from

the crashing and dying marlin:

Then the fish came alive, with his death in him, and rose high out of the water

showing all his great length and width and all his power and his beauty. He

seemed to hang in the air above the old man in the skiff. Then he fell into the

water with a crash that sent spray over the old man and over all of the skiff. (94)

Beyond the subtle references to baptism, Hemingway more aggressively asserts the

imagery of the Crucifixion in Santiago’s suffering when the sharks begin to devour his

great marlin: “‘Ay,’ he said aloud. 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 the

hands and into the wood” (107). The portrait of Santiago as Christ is consistent

throughout the novel and culminates as the old man is returning to his home after three

days at sea: “He 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” (121). Santiago is martyred by the loss of his prize to the sharks. His cross to bear results from his defeat and his arrogance

in going beyond his limits alone; however, even if at first, his battle to catch the marlin

and protect the evidence of his triumph from predators appears futile, especially with the

knowledge of his own mortality, his catch can also be seen as a type of resurrection that

has restored his pride by ending his draught. In addition, though he is close to death,

Santiago’s triumph empowers him with further knowledge that he is destined to share

with Manolin. Fundamentally, Hemingway’s reference to the Christ myth evokes the

mysterious nature of faith, linking it to para-rational design as well as the heart and feeling. Because there is significant Christ imagery in the suffering of Santiago, the analogy also serves to elevate his transcendence and his ultimate epiphany that man can be beaten, but not destroyed. The image of the Sacred Heart of Jesus hanging in

Santiago’s hut is a reminder of both Santiago’s and Hemingway’s reliance on the supremacy of heart to drive and inspire their work.

Spirituality is not the only para-rational device Hemingway employs to enhance his tale. Though the motif of luck and chance are familiar ideas in Hemingway’s writing, nowhere has the premise been so frequently referenced and intensely ingrained as it is in the hero’s consciousness of The Old Man and the Sea. At the novel’s start, Santiago is plagued by Salao, “the worst form of unlucky,” because he has not caught a fish for eighty-four days (9). Still, he does not abandon the hope that his luck will turn around.

Since the young boy, Manolin, is forced by his parents to abandon Santiago after forty days without a fish, the circumstance is isolating for the old man, but it is not entirely debilitating to him. Santiago has experienced and endured an even longer span of eighty- seven days without a catch, so he maintains faith in his eventual success. He believes his luck will turn around because he understands the role that chance plays in the world. In fact, Santiago views luck as a natural law which can provide either opportunity or difficulties for a fisherman. Since everyone experiences bad luck once in a while, the old man is also confident that good luck is the only alternative possibility; therefore, he is optimistic when noting that “eighty-five is a lucky number,” and suggests to Manolin that they buy a lottery ticket using that same number (17). Later, after having hooked the

56 great marlin alone at sea, Santiago also observes that man is naturally inclined towards good luck: “Imagine if each day a man must try to kill the moon, he thought. The moon runs away. But imagine if a man each day should have to try to kill the sun? We were born lucky, he thought” (75). The idea reveals the optimism the hero maintains even though there are moments when Santiago considers the idea that he has brought on the bad luck of losing the marlin to the sharks because he had gone too far out at sea. “You violated your luck when you went too far outside. ‘Don’t be silly,’ he said aloud. ‘And keep awake and steer. You may have much luck yet. I’d like to buy some if there’s any place they sell it,’ he said” (116). Even though his internal dialogue quiets the idea,

Santiago recognizes that the luck of catching such a great fish comes at a price. True to

Hemingway’s philosophy, there is always a cost and an exchange of values that cannot be avoided. Luckily, Santiago’s great fortune is the success of having caught the fish.

Through his suffering, he endures. More importantly, the sharks might have mutilated his trophy, but they can never rob him of his triumph. When Manolin remarks that he will return to fishing with Santiago because he still has much to learn from him, it is apparent that he is also aware that luck and chance are fleeting elements and that Santiago’s true worth lies in the wealth of experience and knowledge he possesses: “‘The hell with luck,’ the boy said. ‘I’ll bring the luck with me’” (125). Though bad luck shapes Jake Barnes and Robert Jordan, Santiago is more keenly attuned to the duality inherent in the nature of chance. Santiago’s understanding also indicates Hemingway’s own evolving attitudes regarding chance, which are best communicated through the author’s optimistic faith in own struggles and his art. 57

Beyond his exalted reverence for chance, Hemingway employs significant elements of mysticism within The Old Man and the Sea that serve to emphasize

Santiago’s mortality and imply his understanding of a greater truth. Throughout the novel, Santiago is described as “a strange old man” (15) who even has “strange shoulders” (19). And unlike the normal people in the novel who, like Manolin’s father, haven’t “much faith,” Santiago’s connection to the natural world elevates his

“strangeness” and greater understanding (10). As he is pulled for three days by the great marlin who will not tire, Santiago recognizes that he too “must be very strange,” which links the old man to the fish both literally and metaphorically (67). Santiago’s

“strangeness” makes him unique and different as Manolin attests: “‘There are many good fishermen and some great ones. But there is only you.’” The connection he has with his natural environment also emphasizes his greater transcendence (25). In fact, when the old man dreams of lions on the beach, the recurring memory from his youth symbolizes the strength of his resolve despite the loneliness of his existence. “He no longer dreamed of storms, nor of women, nor of great occurrences, nor of great fish, nor fights, nor contests of strength, nor of his wife. He only dreamed of places now and of the lions on the beach.

They played like young cats in the dusk and he loved them as he loved the boy. He never dreamed about the boy” (25). Santiago’s dreams also elevate his connection to a universal life force marked by virility and strength. Because he is closer to death, he no longer dreams of human relationships, nor of great challenges, but instead he dreams of the lions, which stir in him the same feelings of love that he experiences when considering the boy. Certainly there is also a sentimental desire to recapture his own youth in his 58 linking of the lions through the projection of his love for the boy, but Santiago’s dreams should also be viewed as a vivid communication of his emotions. Dreams by definition are often surreal and confound the mind, yet they also speak clearly of Santiago’s heart and his unusual capacity to endure.

In addition to the lions, Santiago exerts intense compassion and reverence for other elements of the natural world. For example, he does not need a compass because the stars guide him and give him orientation. Also, before hooking the great marlin,

Santiago reads the nuanced language of his environment, ascertaining knowledge from the elements that surround him. He understands that “the strange light the sun made in the water” means there will be good weather. He also acknowledges the attractions and deceptions of the ocean, like the man of war that is beautiful, but “the falsest thing in the sea” (36). Santiago observes the birds that are of “great help” alerting him to the fish, and he describes the dolphins and flying as his brothers. Santiago’s ability to communicate successfully with his surroundings without speaking further emphasizes his strangeness by revealing that he possesses extraordinary qualities that transcend ordinary human senses:

He did not remember when he had first started to talk aloud when he was by

himself . . . When he and the boy fished together they usually spoke only when it

was necessary . . . It was considered a virtue not to talk unnecessarily at sea and

the old man had always considered it so and respected it. But now he said his

thoughts aloud many times since there was no one that they could annoy. “If the

others heard me talking out loud they would think that I am crazy,” he said aloud.

“But since I am not crazy, I do not care.” (39)

Since Santiago respects the fisherman’s tradition that speech should not be indulgent or unnecessary, his beginning to talk to himself reveals his vulnerability and loneliness. He is caught between worlds, and not just between those related to the land and sea. His age also implies that he resides in a realm that lies somewhere between the living and the dead. In addition, Santiago recognizes that other fisherman would consider him crazy if they ever overheard him talking to himself. Even if he believes it would be a misconception on their part, acknowledging this notion is also a subtle form of self- deprecation that serves to justify Santiago’s competence. He feels compelled to defend his mental health, which is more relevant when considering the psychological crisis

Hemingway himself was negotiating. Like Santiago, Hemingway was at a period in his life when writing The Old Man and the Sea required he assert his prowess both professionally and mentally.

Santiago’s reverence for the sea continues with the observation that he “loved green turtles” (36). While the lions remind Santiago of his youth, the turtles also present an interesting parallel, especially when coupled with a description of their death:

He had no mysticism about turtles although he had gone in turtle boats for many

years. He was sorry for them all, even the great trunk backs that were as long as

the skiff and weighed a ton. Most people are heartless about turtles because a

turtle’s heart will beat for hours after he has been cut up and butchered. But the

old man thought, I have such a heart too and my feet and hands are like theirs. He

ate the white eggs to give himself strength. He ate them all through May to be

strong in September and October for the truly big fish. (37)

Despite the contradicting language, Santiago does possess “mysticism about turtles,” who

happen to have a heart like his that beat long after their defeat. Although “most people”

do not empathize with the turtles or Santiago, for that matter, his physical resemblance to

the turtle unites them. While Santiago identifies with the turtle because they have similar

hearts, the idea also suggests that the heart is the most enduring characteristic of both the

“strange” man and the beast. In addition, there is a symbiotic harmony involved in the

relationship of the turtles and Santiago, who derives his strength “for the truly big fish”

from eating their eggs. The comparison of Santiago and the turtle also reveals similarities

in their feet and hands, elements that both ground him to the earth and connect him to the

sea. In addition, the feet and the hands are extremities of the body that do not function

without the heart. In fact, to defeat the marlin Santiago decides that “I must get him close,

close, close . . . I mustn’t try for the head. I must get the heart” (91). Hemingway is simply stating that the power of any noble animal, whether man or beast, exists within the heart and not the head. Furthermore, Santiago recognizes that the great value he can ascertain from the fish is not monetary, but instead involves what he can learn from

“feeling” his heart. “He is my fortune, he thought. But that is not why I wish to feel him.

I think I felt his heart, he thought” (95). As a result, both the old man and Hemingway, albeit through autobiographical displacement, elevate the supremacy of the heart when establishing their place and purpose in the world.

Furthermore, Hemingway’s attention to the heart-head dilemma can also be examined through Santiago’s frequent references to the head when describing his own confusion. Though Santiago’s disorientation can be easily attributed to a lack of sleep and the physical exhaustion he experiences after three days at sea, it is also important to acknowledge the comment Hemingway is making regarding rational thought. The mind is not always reliable, and Santiago must often defer to the heart when seeking guidance that reveals his true course. “Now you are getting confused in the head, he thought. You must keep your head clear. Keep your head clear and know how to suffer like a man. Or a fish, he thought” (92). In addition, Santiago must repeatedly remind himself to clear his head, because his perception is faltering so intensely that even his senses are beginning to fail:

. . . he had thought perhaps it was a dream. Then when he had seen the fish come

out of the water and hang motionless in the sky before he fell, he was sure there

was some great strangeness and he could not believe it. Then he could not see

well, although now he saw as well as ever . . . Then his head started to become a

little unclear and he thought, is he bringing me in or am I bringing him in? (98-

99)

While at first he felt he was in a dream, the surreal image of the fish “hanging motionless in the sky” initially confounds Santiago and later provides him clarity. Its “great strangeness” is hard to believe, but that is because Santiago is trying to comprehend it with his mind. The confession that “now he saw as well as ever,” indicates the transcendence Santiago achieves though it cannot be explained in terms related to clear or

rational thought. Santiago’s perception is illuminated by the beauty of the marlin and its

noble death, both of which reflect his own mortality and connect him to the laws of

nature.

Further indication of Hemingway’s reverence for the heart over the head can be

viewed through a comparison of the death of the marlin with that of the sharks. In his

1955 article “Hemingway: The Matador and the Crucified,” Melvin Backman posits that

Santiago is a perfect portrayal of the familiar archetypes that penetrate Hemingway’s

fiction and artistic design. He compares Santiago’s fishing to a matador’s execution of a

bull. In fact, after two days at sea fighting the impressive fish, Santiago finally harpoons

the marlin and the imagery evokes one of Hemingway’s favorite icons, the matador, at

the moment of the final faena:

He felt the iron go in and he leaned on it and drove it further and then pushed all

his weight after it. Then the fish came alive, with his death in him, and rose high

out of the water showing all his great length and width and all his power and his

beauty. He seemed to hang in the air above the old man in the skiff . . . The shaft

of the harpoon was projecting at an angle from the fish’s shoulder and the sea was

discolouring with the red of the blood from his heart. (94)

While Santiago’s triumph is reminiscent of the matador’s, it also reflects Hemingway’s

preference for characters and subjects that maintain a proximity to death and killing. In

fact, Hemingway’s work is most relevant when focused on the aesthetic beauty inspired by his heroes and their “grace under pressure.” What is even more interesting is that

Santiago kills his “brother” fish by penetrating his heart. The gesture reveals that the

fish’s passion and resolve are too strong to die by any other means. Because the man and

the fish are brothers, defeat for both is the same and can only result from the loss of heart;

however, death for the sharks is much different. Santiago must kill the menacing sharks

by striking them in the head. “But that was the location of the brain and the old man hit it.

He hit it with his blood mushed hands driving a good harpoon with all his strength. He hit

it without hope but with resolution and complete malignancy” (102). There is

intentionally no beauty in Santiago’s killing of the shark because the shark represents a

senseless, heartless void. Similarly, there is no moment of transcendence or greater

redemption in the shark’s death. Unlike the marlin, the shark is a heartless machine

inclined to destruction. Also the comparison of the death of the marlin to that of the shark

can also be seen as Hemingway’s sharp commentary on the limited insight purely rational

thought can provide into the human condition. As a result, Hemingway’s famous “one

true sentence” is not derived from his acute observations or careful construction of fact,

but rather, it emerges from his intuitive gift to feel and communicate the heart.

In the strongest sense, The Old Man and the Sea creates a biographical and highly metaphorical portrayal of Hemingway as artist in the latter part of his life. It also depicts a revealing composite of the Hemingway hero in his most evolved form, where the achievement of reconciliation is not the primary goal, as is the case with Jake Barnes and

Robert Jordan, but rather an inherent starting point. Certainly, the depiction that encompasses Santiago’s complexity combines the seemingly contradictory elements of previous Hemingway heroes. For example, the old man embraces the isolation Jake

Barnes struggles to reconcile, while he also conveys an understanding of the epiphany

Robert Jordan experiences when realizing that unity and the greater good often rely on individual sacrifice. In fact, Santiago assumes a para-rational enlightenment amid the harmonious influence of the natural world that Hemingway’s past heroes struggle to maintain.

CHAPTER 5

CONCLUSION

At their root, the struggles of Hemingway’s greatest heroes expose his own existential crisis initiated by the horrors of war and his loss of innocence. Since he found no single or definitive remedy to alleviate his resulting disillusionment, Hemingway spent a lifetime exorcising his trauma through his art:

It has been emphasized that I have sought death all my life. If you have spent your

life avoiding death as cagily as possible, but on the other hand taking no backchat

from her and studying her as you would a beautiful harlot who could put you

soundly to sleep forever with no problems and no necessity to work, you could be

said to have studied her, but you have not sought her. Because you know among

one or two other things that if you sought her, you would possess her, and from

her reputation you know that she would present you with an incurable disease. So

much for the constant pursuit of death. She’s just another whore. (qtd. in Hotchner

159)

The imagery Hemingway conjures comparing death to a diseased prostitute that one

studies but does not possess is misleading. On the contrary, Hemingway was seduced by

the idea that life was best lived and more authentically experienced when one was closest

to death. He spent his entire career pursuing it. The notion consumed his work and, in his

later years, his own death dominated his thoughts. Therefore, if themes related to a

proximity to death sometimes seem a maddening compulsion in Hemingway’s writing, it 66 is because they were. As a result, the process helped him produce rich and complex heroes who, reflecting the greatest plight of modern humanity, are unsatisfied by tradition and are left to writhe and wrestle with the strain of unfulfilled expectations imposed upon them by their predecessors. His heroes are driven by a need to exert a moral code that is grounded in individualism and fortified by faith. In fact, the enduring power of

Hemingway’s prose can be attributed to the strength of his heroes. Jake Barnes, Robert

Jordan and Santiago never lack conviction or shy away from defending the personal ideals that motivate their hearts. Though disillusioned by war, Jake’s detachment is tempered by his passion for bullfighting; Jordan’s pragmatism is challenged by an epiphany connecting him to a greater humanity; and Santiago’s suffering propels him toward spiritual transcendence and universal consciousness. Similarly, Hemingway’s artistic development resembles that of his most memorable heroes in both purpose and understanding, while also revealing biographical insight into his constant searching. More importantly, though Hemingway eventually succumbed to an “incurable disease” that succeeded in diminishing his sanity and infecting his head, his disillusionment never penetrated the convictions of his heart. Both literally and figuratively, Hemingway’s heart always remained healthy and intact, even though his head showed symptoms of betrayal.

By the time Hemingway took his own life in 1961, his mind had been failing him for more than two decades. Two airplane crashes in Africa in 1954, increasing alcohol abuse, and a predisposition to suicidal tendencies proved more than Hemingway could endure. Though he had experienced moments of lucidity during the last years of his life, 67 he also suffered from debilitating mental illness that was marked by increasing paranoia and delusions. As a result, Hemingway was losing the ability to effectively communicate through spoken words or his writing. During his entire life, Hemingway had relied on his strength of memory to inform his art, but he was eventually forced to abandon the completion of at least three novels that spun out of control in repetitive disarray. To exacerbate his physical and mental deterioration, Hemingway surrounded himself with adoring acolytes who encouraged his hard drinking and constant retelling of past experiences as if stuck on a loop. Hemingway was becoming a caricature of himself; although he was aware of his own worsening condition, he could not grasp hold of his failing mind. When he finally agreed to electroconvulsive therapy with doctors from the

Mayo clinic in 1960, the treatments destroyed Hemingway’s memory and any possibility of returning to his life’s work. “What is the sense of ruining my head and erasing my memory, which is my capital, and putting me out of business? It was a brilliant cure but we lost the patient” (qtd. in Farah 111). Without the ability to sufficiently express his art and passion, suicide must have seemed an honorable and dignified conclusion for a man who could no longer control his own mind.

Despite his mental decline and resulting suicide, Hemingway’s art remains. His heroes have aged well because they subscribe to a worthy humanistic notion: they refuse to abandon hope and, like Santiago, “believe it is a sin” to do so (Hemingway, Old Man

105). Quite simply, Hemingway’s heroes maintain heart. In fact, Carlos Baker attributes

Hemingway’s treatment of the heart-head dilemma among his greatest successes: “His two-handed grasp on the actual, with the right hand of the head and the left hand of the 68 heart, is the chief of many reasons why his work is likely to last when that of most of his contemporaries in fiction and poetry have been forgotten” (292). The complexity that defines Hemingway’s code is layered within the struggles his heroes endure. They maintain a unique reliance on a personal spirituality that is derived from their preferred proximity to death as they encounter influences relating to both Christian mythology and the natural world. While these para-rational elements focus heavily on the mysteries of faith, there is also a maddening creative drive that overtakes and inspires any hero worthy of translating his art into vision. In his life and subtle madness, the evolution of Ernest

Hemingway’s art and heroes reflects a lifetime struggle towards enlightenment and should be regarded as a magnificent triumph of the heart. WORKS CITED 70

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