The Forgotten Female in the Works of Ernest Hemingway Essay -- Biograp

The Forgotten Female in the Works of Hemingway Ernest Hemingway has often been accuse of misogyny in his treatment of female characters (and, perhaps, in his treatment of women in his own life). It is not fashionable these days to praise the work of Ernest Hemingway, says Frederick Busch. His women in addition often seem to be projections of male needfulness (1). Many of his stories are seen as prototypical bildungsroman stories--stories, usually, of young men coming of age. There are few, if any, stories in the canon of women coming of age, however, and Hemingway is not the first to suffer the wrath of womens liberationist critics. But is this wrath justified? In his dissertation, Mark G. cuttington reviews well-nigh of the critical literature that places Hemingway within the misogynist genre. Cliches sic abound, he says. Hemingway was in wait of his manhood (an ignoble quest?) he hated women he had a death wish and a thin persona he was the high priest of violen ce, etc. (6). However, Newton sees women in Hemingways works as the positive life-directed pinch which transports the male Hemingway hero away from a debilitating wound (2), and he places them into the roles manifested by Hemingways women in aiding the hero Ideal Women, Sister Guides, Icons and Dream Visions, impish Women Who Also Serve, Feminine Points of View, and Full Cycle. My problem with Newtons approach to the feminine in Hemingway is that Newton seems to accept that, in presenting women as archetypal Eves, the woman as help-meet-type image, that Hemingway is somehow presenting women favorably. A somewhat similar view is presented by Jeryl J. Prescott in Liberty for Just(Us) sexual urge and Race in ... ... of Melville, Twain, and Hemingway. New York Peter Lang, 1984. Kennedy, J. Gerald. Hemingways Gender Trouble. American Literature 632 (1991) 187-207. Miller, Linda Patterson. Hemingways Women A Reassessment. Hemingway in Italy and some other Essays. Ed. Robert W,. Lewis. Praeger, 1990. Newton, Mark G. Beyond the Wound The Role of Women in Aiding the Hemingway Hero. Dissertation U of S. Florida, 1985. Penn Warren, Robert. Ernest Hemingway, Introduction to Modern Standard Authors edition of A Farewell to Arms. New York Charles Scribners Sons, 1949. Prescott, Jeryl J. Liberty for Just(us) Gender and Race in Hemingways To Have and Have Not. College wording Association Journal 372 (1993) 176-88. Willingham, Kathy. Hemingways The Garden of Eden paternity with the Body. The Hemingway Review 122 (1993) 46-61.