Hemingway's View On Gender

Ernest Hemingway(1899-1961),one of the most important writers in modern contemporary American literature,has long been known for his stoic,understated masculine style and his vivid description of male traits and values.His name is often connected with such activities as bullfighting,hunting and fishing which are considered as masculine activities and has become the synonym for "dauntless men".In the past,most of the comments on Hemingway in the academic circles touch upon his "spirit of dauntless men",his nihilistic thoughts,his artistic achievements,his symbolism and irony,and his theme of death and immortality.But in recent years,theses on his view of gender and its reflection in his fictions become more and more numerous.People gradually divert their attention to the completely new field of the diversity and complexity of gender issues and explore its relationship with the reconstruction of gender.Female is the window through which we gain perspective of the transformation of gender.For years,comments on the female characters of Hemingway from the commentary circle has been two sides:the affirmative side and the negative one.Some critics think Hemingway ignores women,feeling hostility towards them.Other critics hold the view that Hemingway simply cannot depict female.Conversely,he is better at depicting men without woman.Still other critics simply divide the female characters of Hemingway into stereotypes either of bitches or of angels.With the rise of feminist literary criticism of the 1970s,Hemingway has been attacked by some feminist critics who accuse him of vindicating traditional pattern of gender and ridiculed some of the "passive" heroines in his works as sexual pawns for Hemingway's heroes or foils who are designed to stress the masculinity of Hemingway's males.However,there are still other critics who think the female characters of Hemingway are true to life and authentic individuals who occupy an important place in Hemingway's novels.These female chaxacters who have diversified and complex personalities reflect Hemingway's thoughts on gender and his observing and learning of female emotion.They can be divided into three types roughly.The first type are those women who are marginalized by male egocentricity.They are also called traditional women.The second type are those women who discard conventional restrictions of gender rule.These women are also called powerful modern women.The third type are those women who are considered to be ideal by Hemingway.Endowed with peculiar femininity,they possess male's firmness and persistence and modern women's independence and competence. Through the portrayal of these female characters,Hemingway has truly reproduced the gender condition in his time,and unswervingly pursuits a reciprocal gender relationship between male and female.He has tried hard to offer a satisfactory approach to the settlement of gender issues through his presentation of the tensions and the ideals of male and female relationships.In fact,Hemingway's exploration of the gender issues is diversified and complex.During the artistic creation of his whole life,Hemingway is manifesting the theme of the womanizing of males and the masculinizing of women unswervingly and is showing great fascination with androgyny and sexual transposition. This perhaps is closely connected with the fact that the writer once lived in an environment of sexual uncertainty is his youth.The themes of homosexuality,unconventional sexual practice in Hemingway's works make us deeply experience the diversity and complexity of gender condition in his time, and realize the extensiveness and profoundness of the writer's depiction of gender. Through these themes,we can reread and reevaluate Hemingway's view on gender and the male and female characters he portrays from a totally new perspective.The thesis is composed of three chapters.The first chapter "Contributing Factors to Hemingway's View on Gender" mainly expounds social and biographical elements which influence the formation of Hemingway's view on gender.Around the First World War, gender role is experiencing transformation in America as well as in the whole western world.The social status of women is rising and women's voice for freedom and equality is becoming more powerful.The first grand feminist movement ends in American Women's acquiring of suffrage during the years of 1920 to 1928.With the triumph of feminist movement,the traditional gender pattern which treats the male as the main body is being challenged.Hemingway,with his keen insight,notices the great transformation of the culture and will undoubtedly writes into his works his reflection on gender role and sexual identity.Hemingway was reared in an environment of loosening gender distinctions.When he was a young boy,his mother,through many strategies which included identical clothing, toys and haircuts,to convince herself and others that Emest and Marceline,his older sister by eighteen months,were twins of the same sex.Consequently,Hemingway was at bottom unsure of whether he was male or some blend of male and female.This perhaps is the reason why he longs so must for macho images and does his utmost to depict numerous "dauntless men".Hemingway's mother was fond of feminist movement when she was young.In the family,she is also the "leader".Although Hemingway was discontented with his mother's imperiousness and his father's weakness,he admires his mother's artistic talent very much.The family environment of loosening gender distinctions facilitates Hemingway's androgynous perspective and is also the reason why he shows ambivalent attitude and fear of castration while depicting modern women.Chapter two analyzes the two different types of female characters Hemingway portrays.Section One discusses the type of women who are repressed by gender discrimination and tries to illustrate that although Hemingway is an expert in depicting man facing life and death with wisdom and courage,he is also following with interest with different categories of women.In his depiction of traditional women,Hemingway shows his capacity to sympathize with the plight of women and to understand how women are neglected and marginalized by male egocentricity.In the short stories like "Up the Michigan" and "Cat in the Rain",Hemingway consistently sides with the women victims of insensitive males who consider themselves always in the right by lending a sympathetic ear to them and letting them unfold their desires and psychological yearning and recount their suffering,perplexity and frustration.If we reread these works from gendered perspective,we can more deeply understand the decisive status of female characters in Hemingway's novels.Section Two illustrates the powerful modern women who are in the forward position of the era,those who discard conventional restrictions of gender role.Brett Ashley in The Sun Also Rises and Catherine Bourne in The Garden of Eden are all representatives of modern new women in Hemingway's eye.On one hand,Hemingway regards women's independence and openness as the compatible phenomenon with the conditions of modernity.On the other hand,he shows his anxiety about male's weakness and incompetence in the competition with women.In depicting this type of women Hemingway reveals his ambivalent attitude.He advocates women's liberation and emancipation and admires New Woman's spirit of active and bold in making innovations.Meanwhile,Hemingway is afraid of these daring New Woman who may threaten the man-centered world.These female characters are beautiful,charming,complex in character and tragic.They incline to treat gender blurring as a way of discarding conventional restrictions of gender role.They are usually active and subjective,doing all they can to gain liberty and emancipation and realize their pursuit and value.Hemingway recognizes the insufficiency of traditional gender pattern and the need to change it.However,he also worries that the transformation of gender pattern will lead to the excessive rising of female power and authority,and will eventually result in the reversal of the traditional gender role——female chauvinism.This will cause the masculinizing of the female and hence weaken the peculiar femininity and the peculiar difference between male and female.The result will be damaging to both male and female.This perhaps is another reason why Hemingway pays more attention to masculinity and "the spirit of dauntless men."Chapter Three explores Hemingway's ideal women and the ideal reciprocal relationship between the sexes.Section One analyzes the female character Maria in For Whom the Bell Tolls,and the love affair between Maria and Jordan.The harmonious relationship between Renata and Cantwell in Across the River and into the Trees is also analyzed in this section.Section Two centers on discussion about the ideal female character Catherine Barkley in A Farewell to Arms and her reciprocal relationship with Frederic Henry.This section also discusses how Frederic Henry,under the influence of the ideal heroine,gradually changes from male egocentricity to the respect of women and how he pursues the reciprocal relationship between the sexes and faithful love and how he transforms from a dissipated irresponsible fellow to a unswervingly loyal young men. Through the discussion of the ideal women and the ideal reciprocal relationship between male and female,the chapter tries to illustrate that the ideal women images that Hemingway portrays are those women who are deeply loved by men and are men's soul mates and mentors.They are a restoration of traditional women endowed with courage and intelligence.As a result,these women are gentle,kind,virtuous and unselfish;at the same time,they are brave,clever,competent and independent.They long for union with men by giving and loving without the features that may cause intimidation,conflict and the threat of emasculation.Hemingway emphasizes the reciprocity between the sexes based on mutual love,mutual trust,mutual tolerance and mutual understanding.This notion of reciprocity between men and women is not only a challenge to the traditional dividing lines between subject and object,and self and other,but also one to the eradication and subversion of gender stereotypes which the feminist advocates in the feminist movement. In other words,Hemingway affirms sexual difference but advocates the equal interaction between male and female.He maintains that contradiction and conflict should be replaced by equality and dialogue.Hemingway's ideal women are neither demons nor angels.On the contrary,they are authentic and true to life.They initiates their men into the authentic emotional commitment grounded in faith in each other and make them realize that men and woman should love each other instead of living in solitude.To live is a good thing,to love is a even better thing.Whatever price we may have to pay for these things is not too high. Hemingway's ideal women images find sustenance in the writer's ideal of reciprocity between sexes.