Hemingway acknowledged that Stein taught him to write simply, clearly, and sparely. He also felt the influence went the other way. He wrote of her, to a friend, "You know a funny thing, she never could write dialogue. It was terrible. She learned to do it from my stuff."
Bellow's Eugene Henderson has the initials E.H., the novel about him is set in Africa, and he is the same type of hard-drinking, brawling, bullying personality as Hemingway.
"There isn't any symbolism. The sea is the sea. The old man is an old man. The boy is a boy and the fish is a fish. The sharks are all sharks, no better and no worse. All the symbolism that people say is shit."
"Writing, at its best, is a lonely life. For he does his work alone and if he is a good enough writer he must face eternity, or the lack of it, each day. For a true writer each book should be a new beginning where he tries again for something that is beyond attainment."
"All good books are alike in that they are truer than if they had really happened and after you are finished reading one you will feel that all that happened to you and afterwards it all belongs to you: the good and the bad, the ecstasy, the remorse and sorrow, the people and the places and how the weather was. If you can get so that you can give that to people, then you are a writer."
"The only thing for me to do is write good books. I may be a no good son of a bitch and lead a highly criticizable life. But I am a good and conscientious writer, and they ought to give you that....I love my work more than I love any woman or anything else."
Hemingway played football in high school and was a lifelong sportsman, obsessed from his youth with hunting and fishing, but had no formal education after Oak Park High. He drove an ambulance in France in World War I and also served (and was wounded) in the Italian army. After the war, he was a reporter for the "Toronto Star". In the 1920s, he settled in Paris as part of the group of American expatriates who formed Gertrude Stein's circle. She was an enormous influence on his writing, teaching t more...
Hemingway played football in high school and was a lifelong sportsman, obsessed from his youth with hunting and fishing, but had no formal education after Oak Park High. He drove an ambulance in France in World War I and also served (and was wounded) in the Italian army. After the war, he was a reporter for the "Toronto Star". In the 1920s, he settled in Paris as part of the group of American expatriates who formed Gertrude Stein's circle. She was an enormous influence on his writing, teaching the virtue of the simple declarative sentence. He was also influenced by Ezra Pound, whom he revered, and became friends with F. Scott Fitzgerald (a stormy friendship, which did not endure). His first American publication was the group of stories, "In Our Time" (1925), in which the concerns and values of the so-called "lost generation" were articulated for the first time: their postwar disillusionment; their cynical, stoic endurance in the face of pain; their brutal honesty; and their distance from emotional involvement. Hemingway moved back to the U.S. in the later '20s, and began to write novels; his first great success was "The Sun Also Rises" in 1926. He moved to Key West in 1928; from that base, he often visited Spain, where he became an aficionado of bullfighting, and went on safari in Africa. He covered the Spanish Civil War as a reporter, then moved to Cuba in the 1940s, where he kept an estate until a group of revolutionaries killed his beloved dog. Hemingway had four wives and fathered three sons. He became one of the century's most influential writers. (Nabokov once commented that Hemingway wrote about "bells, bulls, and balls.") His fame culminated in a 1952 Pulitzer Prize for "The Old Man and the Sea", and the Nobel Prize in literature in 1954. All his life, he had phobias about taxes, telephones, and speaking in public: He accepted the Nobel Prize in absentia. ("A writer should write what he has to say, not speak it.") A heavy drinker, Hemingway was ill, both physically and mentally, for several years at the end of his life; his debilitated physical state was worsened after a plane crash en route to his fifth African safari, in which he was seriously injured, including a ruptured liver and kidney, broken bones, a concussion, first-degree burns, and vision and hearing loss. Delusional and unable to write, he endured a variety of treatments, including shock therapy at the Mayo Clinic. Finally, depressed and frustrated, he committed suicide by shooting himself in the head with a double-barreled shotgun weeks before his 62nd birthday.less...
Michelle Fernandez
Seminar: 20thce Lit & Culture
April 3, 2006
The Lost Woman in The Sun Also Rises
Ernest Hemmingway’s novel The Sun Also Rises dramatizes the personalities and relationships of a group of American expatriates and their friends in Paris during the post-war period. They are embodiments of what Gertrude Stein refers to as “the lost generation,†a generation of wanderers, a generation that lacks purpose, direction, and growth. The world of Paris and all its pleasures become a haven for these characters, a place where it is acceptable, and encouraged for them to remain as wanderers. However, when they are placed within the “natural†setting of Spain, their identities erupt and collapse. Because the lost generation rejects morality, truth, and honor, which are highly valued by the Spaniards,they disrupt the natural order in Spain. Therefore, their characterization as a lost generation, not only emerges while they are in Spain, but is also heightened because Spain is in such stark contrast with the Parisian way of life. One such character, Lady Brett Ashley, becomes one of the major disruptors of Spain’s code of morality, truth, and honor and also of the lives of other characters. Her beauty, which lured many men in Paris, becomes a successful tool in her seduction of the talented matador, Pedro Romero. While Brett disrupted Spain’s natural setting, Spain in turn affected Brett’s own character, causing her identity as an amoral woman to rupture and collapse. However, because of the cyclical nature of life and self, Brett was not able to hold on to the morality offered by Spain, and remains a lost woman in Paris.
Lady Brett Ashley represents the lost generation through her amorality and directionless life. Brett is not interested in a purposeful life of love or religion, but rather in a life of wandering from one man's affection to another. Even though she is engaged to Mike Campbell, she had various trysts with other men, which she attributed to her own nature. One such engagement was with the main protagonist, Jake Barnes, whose attempts to make her a virtuous partner never succeeded. Jake states, “‘Couldn’t we just live together, Brett? Couldn’t we just live together?’ / ‘I don’t think so. I’d just tromper you with everybody. You couldn’t stand it.’ / ‘I stand it now.’ / ‘That would be different. It’s my fault, Jake. It’s the way I’m made’†(Hemmingway 69). Even though Brett genuinely loves Jake, she denies a life of love with him, partially because Jake is impotent from the war, but more so because she believes having multiple trysts are a natural part of her character’s behavior. She is fully conscious of her character, seen through her ability to identify that it is her fault and through her statement “It’s the way I’m made.†Interestingly, she is also aware that her behavior causes pain. It is this awareness that classifies her as an amoral character, because she does not put a stop to her behavior, but merely verbalizes a warning. Hemmingway’s italicization of the word “tromper,†which derives its origin from the verb tramp, reinforces the idea that Brett is aware she will “tread heavily [,] ‘come down upon’ with injurious effect [or] take undue advantage of†Jake through her infidelity (OED v.1.2). It is also possible to associate the verb tramp with the noun tramp, which not only means “one who travels from place to place on foot, in search of employment, or as a vagrant†but was also a slang term for “a sexually promiscuous woman†since in 1922 (OED n.1.4.a,b). The word vagrant evokes an image of the lost generation and characterizes Brett as a woman who is lost and wandering in her promiscuity.
Brett is unable to comprehend the degree to which her behavior impacts the lives of other characters, but when her amoral values are juxtaposed with Spain’s tradition and honor, we see that her behavior damages and disrupts lives. It pains Robert Cohn that Brett does not consider their tryst in San Sebastian meaningful. He states:
I just couldn’t stand it about Brett. I’ve been through hell, Jake. It’s been simply hell. When I met her down here Brett treated me as though I were a perfect stranger. I just couldn’t stand it. We lived together in San Sebastian. I suppose you know it. I can’t stand it any more... I felt so terribly. I’ve been through such hell, Jake. Now everything’s gone. Everything. (Hemmingway 198)
Cohn, a romantic who believes in the sanctity of love, is unable to come to terms with Brett's nonchalance. He is pained by the fact that Brett treated him “as though [he] were a perfect stranger.†We recognize that he is in agony and despair because he associates his experience of Brett’s rejection with hell. In many ways, even though Cohn belongs to the lost generation, his adhesion to the laws of love and virtue could classify him into the old generation. However, his interaction with Brett breaks that tie with the old, causing him to lose “everything:†Brett, his fiance Frances, his friendship with Jake, and possibly his romantic, albeit naive, perspective on love.
Similarly, Brett’s infidelity deeply pains her fiance Mike Campbell, who finally expresses his anguish and insecurity, by ridiculing one of Brett’s past lovers, Robert Cohn. In a drunken state, Mike says, “Do you think you amount to something, Cohn? Do you think you belong here among us?... I’m not clever. But I do know when I’m not wanted. Why don’t you see when you’re not wanted, Cohn? Go away, for God’s sake. Take that sad Jewish face away†(Hemmingway 181). Not only does Mike insult Cohn, his religion, and his manners, he also clearly makes Cohn feel rejected and unwanted, something he is already experiencing from Brett. To experience it from another character, especially from his friend Jake later on in the scene, must be damaging to his self worth. Mike, on the other hand, channels all his insecurities to alcohol and to Cohn. As readers, we could very well apply the words he directs to Cohn back to Mike himself. His disparaging comments are misplaced, because they also represent Mike’s role in Brett’s life. Brett does not always want Mike’s company and easily replaces him with other men, yet he continues to stay as her fiance. While Mike’s behavior is unfavorable, it is certainly warranted, yet Brett expects her men to merely accept and tolerate her infidelity. Jake states, “It’s been damned hard on Mike, having Cohn around and seeing him with you†(Hemmingway 185). Brett responds, “Yes. But he needn’t be a swine... Don’t I know it darling? Please don’t make me feel any worse than I do†(Hemmingway 185). She known that Mike is hurt by Cohn’s presence because he is a reminder of Brett’s infidelity, yet she takes no responsibility. Instead, she directs the conversation elsewhere because her own feelings will be at stake, which truly portrays her as character without conscience, and thus devoid of morality. Her behavior disrupts the married life that Mike most likely has planned for the two of them. And while the two are engaged, they are a vagrant couple, lost and wandering in and out of one another’s lives.
Brett’s tryst with the young handsome matador Pedro Romero, perhaps represented the possible damage and disruption that the lost generation can have on a culture founded on traditions of honor. When Cohn discovers of Brett’s and Romero’s tryst, his jealousy, anger, and pain drives him to strike in a violent manner. He strikes at Mike, Jake, and Romero, the latter being severely affected by Cohn’s violence. Cohn’s punches left Romero bruised and sore for the last day of the fiesta, for the final bull fight. Before the fight began, Jake sees Cohn’s damage, “Close below us we saw Romero’s lips were puffed, both eyes were discolored. His face was discolored and swollen†(Hemmingway 217).
Brett responds “He feels very badly... He should be in bed†(Hemmingway 217). Romero was not in his prime physical condition to fight. While Romero killed the bull successfully, Romero was still placing himself at great risk for participating in the fight. Had Romero been gored, a promising matador in the history of Spanish bullfighting would have been wasted because of the lost generation of Parisians: Cohn would have been responsible because the marks on Romero were from his hand. Jake would also have been partly to blame, because he initiared and fostered the relationship between Romero and Brett, in an attempt to clarify that he was a man who could stand and put up with Brett’s infidelity. Most of all, Brett would have been responsible because her amorality disrupted the purity of this young matador, and thus the honor of Spanish bullfighting.
While Brett's character disrupted and damaged Spain, Spain also unearthed morality within Brett. At the end of the novel, Brett realizes, too late, that the relationship she was carrying on with Romero was damaging to him. She states:
I made him go... He shouldn’t be living with anyone. I realized that right away... He really wanted to marry me. So I couldn’t go away from him, he said. He wanted to make it sure I could never go away from him. After I’d gotten more womanly, ofcourse... You know I’d have lived with him if I hadn’t seen it was that bad for him. We got along damned well... I’m thirty-four, you know. I’m not going to be one of these bitches that ruins children... I feel rather good, you know. I feel rather set up. (Hemmingway 247)
We see Brett’s conscience and morality guide her to the realization that her relationship to Romero could be damaging. Romero was still a very young boy, whose only passion at the time was for bull-fighting. Because he was such a promising matador, carrying on a relationship with Brett may have redirected his passion, resulting in a loss for one of Spain’s highly revered traditions. One could also interpret Brett’s rejection of Romero as an amoral act, as characteristic of Brett’s flighty nature. However, her realization that she could “ruin†this boy and her actual response in making him leave, is in contrast with how Brett previously dealt with her past lovers’pain. The amoral Brett would have warned Romero of her nature, but would not have taken any action to end the relationship. However, Brett does not hold onto that morality. The moment she realizes her good deed, she quickly takes credit for it. Her remorse, her morality is only temporary, and she quickly circles back to her original nature as a member of the lost generation.
While Brett rejects her amorality at the end of the novel, she remains a lost woman, because she reverts to her old ways. She calls on Jake to be her savior once more and she decides to go “back to Mike... He’s so damned nice and he’s so awful. He’s my sort of thing†(Hemmingway 247).
Her return, her circle back to her true nature, reveals the essence of what it means to belong to the lost generation. In the epigraph of the novel, Hemmingway includes a passage from Ecclesiastes, “The sun also ariseth, and the sun goeth down, and hasteth to the place where he arose.†Those of the lost generation are not lost among society, but rather are lost amongst themselves, their own identities. Brett found direction when Spain unravelled the morality that existed within her, but her fate as a member of the lost generation meant that she would lose that morality and wander before she should find it once more. Like the sun,.her morality rose and fell in a cyclical nature. As Gertrude Stein states, “You are all a lost generation†she was not refering to those living in the 20th century, but rather refering to us all and to our jouney through the cyclical life, the rises and the falls, of our lost selves.
Michelle Fernandez
Seminar: 20thce Lit & Culture
April 3, 2006
The Lost Woman in The Sun Also Rises
Ernest Hemmingway’s novel The Sun Also Rises dramatizes the personalities and relationships of a group of American expatriates and their friends in Paris during the post-war period. They are embodiments of what Gertrude Stein refers to as “the lost generation,†a generation of wanderers, a generation that lacks purpose, direction, and growth. The world of Paris and all its pleasures become a haven for these characters, a place where it is acceptable, and encouraged for them to remain as wanderers. However, when they are placed within the “natural†setting of Spain, their identities erupt and collapse. Because the lost generation rejects morality, truth, and honor, which are highly valued by the Spaniards,they disrupt the natural order in Spain. Therefore, their characterization as a lost generation, not only emerges while they are in Spain, but is also heightened because Spain is in such stark contrast with the Parisian way of life. One such character, Lady Brett Ashley, becomes one of the major disruptors of Spain’s code of morality, truth, and honor and also of the lives of other characters. Her beauty, which lured many men in Paris, becomes a successful tool in her seduction of the talented matador, Pedro Romero. While Brett disrupted Spain’s natural setting, Spain in turn affected Brett’s own character, causing her identity as an amoral woman to rupture and collapse. However, because of the cyclical nature of life and self, Brett was not able to hold on to the morality offered by Spain, and remains a lost woman in Paris.
Lady Brett Ashley represents the lost generation through her amorality and directionless life. Brett is not interested in a purposeful life of love or religion, but rather in a life of wandering from one man's affection to another. Even though she is engaged to Mike Campbell, she had various trysts with other men, which she attributed to her own nature. One such engagement was with the main protagonist, Jake Barnes, whose attempts to make her a virtuous partner never succeeded. Jake states, “‘Couldn’t we just live together, Brett? Couldn’t we just live together?’ / ‘I don’t think so. I’d just tromper you with everybody. You couldn’t stand it.’ / ‘I stand it now.’ / ‘That would be different. It’s my fault, Jake. It’s the way I’m made’†(Hemmingway 69). Even though Brett genuinely loves Jake, she denies a life of love with him, partially because Jake is impotent from the war, but more so because she believes having multiple trysts are a natural part of her character’s behavior. She is fully conscious of her character, seen through her ability to identify that it is her fault and through her statement “It’s the way I’m made.†Interestingly, she is also aware that her behavior causes pain. It is this awareness that classifies her as an amoral character, because she does not put a stop to her behavior, but merely verbalizes a warning. Hemmingway’s italicization of the word “tromper,†which derives its origin from the verb tramp, reinforces the idea that Brett is aware she will “tread heavily [,] ‘come down upon’ with injurious effect [or] take undue advantage of†Jake through her infidelity (OED v.1.2). It is also possible to associate the verb tramp with the noun tramp, which not only means “one who travels from place to place on foot, in search of employment, or as a vagrant†but was also a slang term for “a sexually promiscuous woman†since in 1922 (OED n.1.4.a,b). The word vagrant evokes an image of the lost generation and characterizes Brett as a woman who is lost and wandering in her promiscuity.
Brett is unable to comprehend the degree to which her behavior impacts the lives of other characters, but when her amoral values are juxtaposed with Spain’s tradition and honor, we see that her behavior damages and disrupts lives. It pains Robert Cohn that Brett does not consider their tryst in San Sebastian meaningful. He states:
I just couldn’t stand it about Brett. I’ve been through hell, Jake. It’s been simply hell. When I met her down here Brett treated me as though I were a perfect stranger. I just couldn’t stand it. We lived together in San Sebastian. I suppose you know it. I can’t stand it any more... I felt so terribly. I’ve been through such hell, Jake. Now everything’s gone. Everything. (Hemmingway 198)
Cohn, a romantic who believes in the sanctity of love, is unable to come to terms with Brett's nonchalance. He is pained by the fact that Brett treated him “as though [he] were a perfect stranger.†We recognize that he is in agony and despair because he associates his experience of Brett’s rejection with hell. In many ways, even though Cohn belongs to the lost generation, his adhesion to the laws of love and virtue could classify him into the old generation. However, his interaction with Brett breaks that tie with the old, causing him to lose “everything:†Brett, his fiance Frances, his friendship with Jake, and possibly his romantic, albeit naive, perspective on love.
Similarly, Brett’s infidelity deeply pains her fiance Mike Campbell, who finally expresses his anguish and insecurity, by ridiculing one of Brett’s past lovers, Robert Cohn. In a drunken state, Mike says, “Do you think you amount to something, Cohn? Do you think you belong here among us?... I’m not clever. But I do know when I’m not wanted. Why don’t you see when you’re not wanted, Cohn? Go away, for God’s sake. Take that sad Jewish face away†(Hemmingway 181). Not only does Mike insult Cohn, his religion, and his manners, he also clearly makes Cohn feel rejected and unwanted, something he is already experiencing from Brett. To experience it from another character, especially from his friend Jake later on in the scene, must be damaging to his self worth. Mike, on the other hand, channels all his insecurities to alcohol and to Cohn. As readers, we could very well apply the words he directs to Cohn back to Mike himself. His disparaging comments are misplaced, because they also represent Mike’s role in Brett’s life. Brett does not always want Mike’s company and easily replaces him with other men, yet he continues to stay as her fiance. While Mike’s behavior is unfavorable, it is certainly warranted, yet Brett expects her men to merely accept and tolerate her infidelity. Jake states, “It’s been damned hard on Mike, having Cohn around and seeing him with you†(Hemmingway 185). Brett responds, “Yes. But he needn’t be a swine... Don’t I know it darling? Please don’t make me feel any worse than I do†(Hemmingway 185). She known that Mike is hurt by Cohn’s presence because he is a reminder of Brett’s infidelity, yet she takes no responsibility. Instead, she directs the conversation elsewhere because her own feelings will be at stake, which truly portrays her as character without conscience, and thus devoid of morality. Her behavior disrupts the married life that Mike most likely has planned for the two of them. And while the two are engaged, they are a vagrant couple, lost and wandering in and out of one another’s lives.
Brett’s tryst with the young handsome matador Pedro Romero, perhaps represented the possible damage and disruption that the lost generation can have on a culture founded on traditions of honor. When Cohn discovers of Brett’s and Romero’s tryst, his jealousy, anger, and pain drives him to strike in a violent manner. He strikes at Mike, Jake, and Romero, the latter being severely affected by Cohn’s violence. Cohn’s punches left Romero bruised and sore for the last day of the fiesta, for the final bull fight. Before the fight began, Jake sees Cohn’s damage, “Close below us we saw Romero’s lips were puffed, both eyes were discolored. His face was discolored and swollen†(Hemmingway 217).
Brett responds “He feels very badly... He should be in bed†(Hemmingway 217). Romero was not in his prime physical condition to fight. While Romero killed the bull successfully, Romero was still placing himself at great risk for participating in the fight. Had Romero been gored, a promising matador in the history of Spanish bullfighting would have been wasted because of the lost generation of Parisians: Cohn would have been responsible because the marks on Romero were from his hand. Jake would also have been partly to blame, because he initiared and fostered the relationship between Romero and Brett, in an attempt to clarify that he was a man who could stand and put up with Brett’s infidelity. Most of all, Brett would have been responsible because her amorality disrupted the purity of this young matador, and thus the honor of Spanish bullfighting.
While Brett's character disrupted and damaged Spain, Spain also unearthed morality within Brett. At the end of the novel, Brett realizes, too late, that the relationship she was carrying on with Romero was damaging to him. She states:
I made him go... He shouldn’t be living with anyone. I realized that right away... He really wanted to marry me. So I couldn’t go away from him, he said. He wanted to make it sure I could never go away from him. After I’d gotten more womanly, ofcourse... You know I’d have lived with him if I hadn’t seen it was that bad for him. We got along damned well... I’m thirty-four, you know. I’m not going to be one of these bitches that ruins children... I feel rather good, you know. I feel rather set up. (Hemmingway 247)
We see Brett’s conscience and morality guide her to the realization that her relationship to Romero could be damaging. Romero was still a very young boy, whose only passion at the time was for bull-fighting. Because he was such a promising matador, carrying on a relationship with Brett may have redirected his passion, resulting in a loss for one of Spain’s highly revered traditions. One could also interpret Brett’s rejection of Romero as an amoral act, as characteristic of Brett’s flighty nature. However, her realization that she could “ruin†this boy and her actual response in making him leave, is in contrast with how Brett previously dealt with her past lovers’pain. The amoral Brett would have warned Romero of her nature, but would not have taken any action to end the relationship. However, Brett does not hold onto that morality. The moment she realizes her good deed, she quickly takes credit for it. Her remorse, her morality is only temporary, and she quickly circles back to her original nature as a member of the lost generation.
While Brett rejects her amorality at the end of the novel, she remains a lost woman, because she reverts to her old ways. She calls on Jake to be her savior once more and she decides to go “back to Mike... He’s so damned nice and he’s so awful. He’s my sort of thing†(Hemmingway 247).
Her return, her circle back to her true nature, reveals the essence of what it means to belong to the lost generation. In the epigraph of the novel, Hemmingway includes a passage from Ecclesiastes, “The sun also ariseth, and the sun goeth down, and hasteth to the place where he arose.†Those of the lost generation are not lost among society, but rather are lost amongst themselves, their own identities. Brett found direction when Spain unravelled the morality that existed within her, but her fate as a member of the lost generation meant that she would lose that morality and wander before she should find it once more. Like the sun,.her morality rose and fell in a cyclical nature. As Gertrude Stein states, “You are all a lost generation†she was not refering to those living in the 20th century, but rather refering to us all and to our jouney through the cyclical life, the rises and the falls, of our lost selves.