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Abstract: Hemingway creates a variety of women images in his novels. Some women are canorous but changeable, some are faithful and constant; some are ideal and even divine. These images reflect his complex view on women. This paper tries to analyze Lady Brett in The Sun Also Rises to reveal his complex feelings mapped on women.
Key Words: Hemingway; complex mapping; view on women
Introduction
Much has been written regarding Hemingway’s portrayal of female characters. With the advent of feminist criticism, readers have become more vocal about their dissatisfaction with Hemingway’s description of women, which, according to critics such as Leslie A Fiedler, tends to fall into two categories: One is the overly-dominant shrews like Lady Brett in The Sun Also Rises and overly submissive confections like Catherine Barkley in A Farewell to Arms. Suspecting that Hemingway’s instinct to get the women down grows out of “a fear that the woman will get the men down” (Wilson,236-257)Hemingway, as Fiedler argues, was at his best dealing with men without women; when he started to involve female characters in his writing, he reverted to uncomplicated stereotypes. Edmund Wilson’s observation in 1939 of a “split attitude”and “growing antagonism” toward women in Hemingway’s work has provided a basic premise of Hemingway criticism. While Hemingway’s viewpoint on women has been so defined, this seems to be overly simple, his attitude toward women is rather complicated and ambivalent. However, he is rather sensitive toward the people around him especially the women who has appeared in his lives. In general, he shows his sympathies and appreciation toward the women around him. It is undoubted that his portal of women in his fiction has been greatly influenced by all the women at his side. In this paper, the author tries to probe into Hemingway’s outlook on women by means of studying the female protagonists in his well-known novel: Lady Brett in The Sun Also Rises.
Nothing was ever the same after The Sun Also Rises. With the appearance of Hemingway’s first novel on October 22, 1926, Ernest Hemingway’s life was forever altered. He was no longer an aspiring young writer, no longer the promising writer of a slim volume of short stories. This book made him, almost instantly, an international celebrity identified with an entire generation, torn by war and grieving throughout the Roaring Twenties for their lost romantic idealism. On a more subtle level, the novel also evoked a lot of commentaries and criticism from critics. What is more, the female protagonist, Brett Ashley, has long been targeted as the Enemy Number One by various critics. It seems odd that critics have taken Brett Ashley; the novel’s other major character, at face value for so long. Brett is one of Hemingway’s richest female characters; her personality gradually emerges as an intriguing mix of femininity and masculinity, strength and vulnerability, morality and dissolution. Yet after Edmund Wilson first tagged her as “an exclusively destructive force,” his perception, for the most part, remained unchallenged for decades. Following Wilson’s lead, critics quickly labeled Brett as a “bitch.” Members of what Roger Whitlow terms the “Brett-the-bitch” school of criticism include Leslie Fiedler who describes Brett as a “demi-bitch”, John Aldridge who calls her a “compulsive bitch” and more recently, Mimi Gladstein, who labels her as part “bitch-goddess.” Even those who stay away from the actual term “bitch” tend to delineate Brett in other destructive ways. All these critical reactions have mirrored traditional values. Thus Brett remains one of the “Hemingway women most often maligned and misread.” By resisting different critical charges against Brett and re-examining the basis for those charges within the text we can begin to uncover concealed aspects of her character. Whenever referring to Brett Ashley, most critics tend to believe Hemingway’s misogynistic description of Brett. However, all these comments mentioned above go against the intention of Hemingway, who tries to portray and show his appreciation of New Women of the times. With the progress of modernization, the household nurturer was becoming the modern woman of unprecedented mobility and visibility. Traditionally, women have inhabited in private spaces, which are simultaneously protected and invisible. Public space is defined as male-dominated. Frequently a woman who left the sanctity of home and intruded into the public space was automatically defined as dangerous and disreputable. But the culture of the 1920s was something new, the new women rebelled against patriarchal marriage and, protesting against a social order that was rooted in female biology, they refused to play the role of ethereal other. Since their demands for personal fulfillment suggested a need for new emotional arrangements, they were seen as threatening the social order. In addition, the war had given a generation of women an opportunity to test their abilities. To the advanced young man of the time, this New Women must have seemed the perfect companion--fearless, bright, and eager to participate in work, in play, in martial sex (Schneider148). We know that Hemingway welcomed and praised tomboyish qualities in his four wives-Hadley’s hiking and skinning, Pauline’s riding and shooting, Martha’s hunting, and Mary’s expertise as a deep-sea fisherwoman. Quite clearly, the New Women contributes heavily to Hemingway’s own image of ideal woman (Sanderson173). His intimate relationship with them obviously manifests his appreciation of the New Woman.
The New Woman’s radical challenge to the traditional social structure is seen in Lady Brett Ashley, who has stepped off the domestic life and got involved in the masculine world. Entering the world without fear, she dares to frequent places and events previously off limits to her, such as the bar and the bullfight ring. Her appearance is the manifestation of the modern woman in the 1920s. The traditional women wears are gone with the progression of modernization, its place has been taken by the short skirts and light fabrics of new fashions. Obviously, Hemingway could not afford to ignore this dramatically changed women image. Therefore, he has implanted his complex feelings on his portrayal of Brett. His attitude toward this kind of New Women can be delineated into two parts: one part is his appreciation and the other is his fear .Some critics attribute the bitterness and despair of the men to Brett, and describe her as “an exclusively destructive force” (Wilson 238). As a matter of fact, the men in the book have been overwhelmed by despair long before they meet Brett. They are representatives of “the Lost Generation.” Bearing the physical and psychological legacy of bitter experience in the war, all the prewar values have been damaged, they turn toward escape through all possible violent diversion and attempted to get rid of the internal void and despair through self-indulgence. This is just what Hemingway wants to state in the book: the war has ruined everything. Some critics ignore Hemingway’s sympathetic treatment of Brett. Although she has been described by Hemingway as a woman without a traditional womanhood expected by critics, she is also a lady with strong individuality and charm. She could make all the men around her get infatuated with her. Hemingway confirms her charm and shining beauty by the words of Cohn’s description of Brett as Circe, the goddess who turns men into a swine. Moreover, Brett’s actions prove that she attempts to nurture others, not destroy them. Gladstein acknowledges Brett’s “mothering qualities” and feels that these traits keep Brett from becoming a “pure bitch-goddess.” Brett mothers those around her in an attempt to provide some sort of sexual healing; her actions certainly satisfy something within herself as well. She frequently chastises Mike and patronizes him almost as she would a small child. When she attempts to placate him after he first confronts Cohn she says, “Don’t spoil the fiesta” in much the same way she might say “play nicely” to a toddler (Hermingway148). As she leaves the group to nurse Romero after his fight with Cohn, she charges Jake with the task of watching out for Mike, but she still “look[s] in” on Mike herself on at least one other occasion. Furthermore, readers know that Brett nurses Jake through his recovery in a military hospital, and Mike says that his relationship with Brett also began because she “was looking after me.” Some readers do not read between the lines to feel more than they understand. Some readers miss the underlying emotional complexity which inheres in Hemingway’s art and in his heroines. To some extent Hemingway shows his appreciation to this kind of New Women like Lady Brett. While on the other part, he also believes that Lady Brett exerts some destructive force upon the men alongside. In most occasions in this novel the men cry while she swears. As a New Woman, Brett will not submit to the authority or the direction of men. She breaks up her relationship when her lovers attempted to claim her, that is to exercise authority over her. Brett expresses her sexual desires, while her lovers wait to be chosen; she keeps her options open and enjoys the game like bullfighting which some men also feel is fearful and unbearable. Just like her life prototype of Lady Duff Twysden., one of the most attractive women he had ever met who is fun, sexy, good-looking, also the best of drinking companions. Hemingway often has suffered an emotional complexity in his attitude toward such women. He is always afraid that this kind of woman will deprive his macho and makes the men unman. Maybe his childhood has a great influence on his descriptions of heroines in his fiction. His overly-dominant mother and relatively coward father leave him a feeling of insecurity of his manhood and always being aware of his dominant position in his courtship with different women in his lives. Therefore, he dispraises these qualities possessed by women. It is inevitable that he would be critical about Brett’s such qualities in her character. In a word, his attitude toward the New Women like Lady Brett is rather ambivalent and complex, which combines his appreciation and hatred. Conclusion
Overall, it is in the description of the female protagonist Brett Ashley in The Sun Also Rises that Hemingway’s female consciousness is fully displayed. Brett Ashley, with her charm and destructive force to possess a dominant position in her courtship with all the men alongside becomes a signifier of Hemingway’s complex and ambivalent feelings on women. He has also displayed a keen sense of female consciousness and to those New Women he also shows his appreciation. Therefore, Hemingway is compared to acknowledged “greats” of American literature and to leading lights of his own generation.
Works Cited
1.Ernest, Hemingway.The Sun Also Rises.New York: Scribner’s, 1926.
2.Fetterley,Judith. The Resisting Reader:A Feminist Approach to American Fiction.Bloomington: Indiana University Press,1978.
3.Martin, Wendy.“Brett Ashley as New Woman in The Sun Also Rises.” New Essays on The Sun Also Rises. Ed. Linda Wagner-Martin. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987.
4.Schneider,American Women in the Progressive Era,1990-1920. New York: Facts on file, 1993
5.Wilson,Edmund.The Wound and the Bow. Cambridge, Mass: Houghton Mifflin, 1941.
6.Waldhorn,Arthur.A Reader’s Guide to Ernest Hemingway.New York: Octagon Books, 1975.
作者简介：陈丽芳，1984年9月，江西省九江市，女，研究生，助教，东莞理工学院城市学院，研究方向：英美文学和翻译实践研究。
Key Words: Hemingway; complex mapping; view on women
Introduction
Much has been written regarding Hemingway’s portrayal of female characters. With the advent of feminist criticism, readers have become more vocal about their dissatisfaction with Hemingway’s description of women, which, according to critics such as Leslie A Fiedler, tends to fall into two categories: One is the overly-dominant shrews like Lady Brett in The Sun Also Rises and overly submissive confections like Catherine Barkley in A Farewell to Arms. Suspecting that Hemingway’s instinct to get the women down grows out of “a fear that the woman will get the men down” (Wilson,236-257)Hemingway, as Fiedler argues, was at his best dealing with men without women; when he started to involve female characters in his writing, he reverted to uncomplicated stereotypes. Edmund Wilson’s observation in 1939 of a “split attitude”and “growing antagonism” toward women in Hemingway’s work has provided a basic premise of Hemingway criticism. While Hemingway’s viewpoint on women has been so defined, this seems to be overly simple, his attitude toward women is rather complicated and ambivalent. However, he is rather sensitive toward the people around him especially the women who has appeared in his lives. In general, he shows his sympathies and appreciation toward the women around him. It is undoubted that his portal of women in his fiction has been greatly influenced by all the women at his side. In this paper, the author tries to probe into Hemingway’s outlook on women by means of studying the female protagonists in his well-known novel: Lady Brett in The Sun Also Rises.
Nothing was ever the same after The Sun Also Rises. With the appearance of Hemingway’s first novel on October 22, 1926, Ernest Hemingway’s life was forever altered. He was no longer an aspiring young writer, no longer the promising writer of a slim volume of short stories. This book made him, almost instantly, an international celebrity identified with an entire generation, torn by war and grieving throughout the Roaring Twenties for their lost romantic idealism. On a more subtle level, the novel also evoked a lot of commentaries and criticism from critics. What is more, the female protagonist, Brett Ashley, has long been targeted as the Enemy Number One by various critics. It seems odd that critics have taken Brett Ashley; the novel’s other major character, at face value for so long. Brett is one of Hemingway’s richest female characters; her personality gradually emerges as an intriguing mix of femininity and masculinity, strength and vulnerability, morality and dissolution. Yet after Edmund Wilson first tagged her as “an exclusively destructive force,” his perception, for the most part, remained unchallenged for decades. Following Wilson’s lead, critics quickly labeled Brett as a “bitch.” Members of what Roger Whitlow terms the “Brett-the-bitch” school of criticism include Leslie Fiedler who describes Brett as a “demi-bitch”, John Aldridge who calls her a “compulsive bitch” and more recently, Mimi Gladstein, who labels her as part “bitch-goddess.” Even those who stay away from the actual term “bitch” tend to delineate Brett in other destructive ways. All these critical reactions have mirrored traditional values. Thus Brett remains one of the “Hemingway women most often maligned and misread.” By resisting different critical charges against Brett and re-examining the basis for those charges within the text we can begin to uncover concealed aspects of her character. Whenever referring to Brett Ashley, most critics tend to believe Hemingway’s misogynistic description of Brett. However, all these comments mentioned above go against the intention of Hemingway, who tries to portray and show his appreciation of New Women of the times. With the progress of modernization, the household nurturer was becoming the modern woman of unprecedented mobility and visibility. Traditionally, women have inhabited in private spaces, which are simultaneously protected and invisible. Public space is defined as male-dominated. Frequently a woman who left the sanctity of home and intruded into the public space was automatically defined as dangerous and disreputable. But the culture of the 1920s was something new, the new women rebelled against patriarchal marriage and, protesting against a social order that was rooted in female biology, they refused to play the role of ethereal other. Since their demands for personal fulfillment suggested a need for new emotional arrangements, they were seen as threatening the social order. In addition, the war had given a generation of women an opportunity to test their abilities. To the advanced young man of the time, this New Women must have seemed the perfect companion--fearless, bright, and eager to participate in work, in play, in martial sex (Schneider148). We know that Hemingway welcomed and praised tomboyish qualities in his four wives-Hadley’s hiking and skinning, Pauline’s riding and shooting, Martha’s hunting, and Mary’s expertise as a deep-sea fisherwoman. Quite clearly, the New Women contributes heavily to Hemingway’s own image of ideal woman (Sanderson173). His intimate relationship with them obviously manifests his appreciation of the New Woman.
The New Woman’s radical challenge to the traditional social structure is seen in Lady Brett Ashley, who has stepped off the domestic life and got involved in the masculine world. Entering the world without fear, she dares to frequent places and events previously off limits to her, such as the bar and the bullfight ring. Her appearance is the manifestation of the modern woman in the 1920s. The traditional women wears are gone with the progression of modernization, its place has been taken by the short skirts and light fabrics of new fashions. Obviously, Hemingway could not afford to ignore this dramatically changed women image. Therefore, he has implanted his complex feelings on his portrayal of Brett. His attitude toward this kind of New Women can be delineated into two parts: one part is his appreciation and the other is his fear .Some critics attribute the bitterness and despair of the men to Brett, and describe her as “an exclusively destructive force” (Wilson 238). As a matter of fact, the men in the book have been overwhelmed by despair long before they meet Brett. They are representatives of “the Lost Generation.” Bearing the physical and psychological legacy of bitter experience in the war, all the prewar values have been damaged, they turn toward escape through all possible violent diversion and attempted to get rid of the internal void and despair through self-indulgence. This is just what Hemingway wants to state in the book: the war has ruined everything. Some critics ignore Hemingway’s sympathetic treatment of Brett. Although she has been described by Hemingway as a woman without a traditional womanhood expected by critics, she is also a lady with strong individuality and charm. She could make all the men around her get infatuated with her. Hemingway confirms her charm and shining beauty by the words of Cohn’s description of Brett as Circe, the goddess who turns men into a swine. Moreover, Brett’s actions prove that she attempts to nurture others, not destroy them. Gladstein acknowledges Brett’s “mothering qualities” and feels that these traits keep Brett from becoming a “pure bitch-goddess.” Brett mothers those around her in an attempt to provide some sort of sexual healing; her actions certainly satisfy something within herself as well. She frequently chastises Mike and patronizes him almost as she would a small child. When she attempts to placate him after he first confronts Cohn she says, “Don’t spoil the fiesta” in much the same way she might say “play nicely” to a toddler (Hermingway148). As she leaves the group to nurse Romero after his fight with Cohn, she charges Jake with the task of watching out for Mike, but she still “look[s] in” on Mike herself on at least one other occasion. Furthermore, readers know that Brett nurses Jake through his recovery in a military hospital, and Mike says that his relationship with Brett also began because she “was looking after me.” Some readers do not read between the lines to feel more than they understand. Some readers miss the underlying emotional complexity which inheres in Hemingway’s art and in his heroines. To some extent Hemingway shows his appreciation to this kind of New Women like Lady Brett. While on the other part, he also believes that Lady Brett exerts some destructive force upon the men alongside. In most occasions in this novel the men cry while she swears. As a New Woman, Brett will not submit to the authority or the direction of men. She breaks up her relationship when her lovers attempted to claim her, that is to exercise authority over her. Brett expresses her sexual desires, while her lovers wait to be chosen; she keeps her options open and enjoys the game like bullfighting which some men also feel is fearful and unbearable. Just like her life prototype of Lady Duff Twysden., one of the most attractive women he had ever met who is fun, sexy, good-looking, also the best of drinking companions. Hemingway often has suffered an emotional complexity in his attitude toward such women. He is always afraid that this kind of woman will deprive his macho and makes the men unman. Maybe his childhood has a great influence on his descriptions of heroines in his fiction. His overly-dominant mother and relatively coward father leave him a feeling of insecurity of his manhood and always being aware of his dominant position in his courtship with different women in his lives. Therefore, he dispraises these qualities possessed by women. It is inevitable that he would be critical about Brett’s such qualities in her character. In a word, his attitude toward the New Women like Lady Brett is rather ambivalent and complex, which combines his appreciation and hatred. Conclusion
Overall, it is in the description of the female protagonist Brett Ashley in The Sun Also Rises that Hemingway’s female consciousness is fully displayed. Brett Ashley, with her charm and destructive force to possess a dominant position in her courtship with all the men alongside becomes a signifier of Hemingway’s complex and ambivalent feelings on women. He has also displayed a keen sense of female consciousness and to those New Women he also shows his appreciation. Therefore, Hemingway is compared to acknowledged “greats” of American literature and to leading lights of his own generation.
Works Cited
1.Ernest, Hemingway.The Sun Also Rises.New York: Scribner’s, 1926.
2.Fetterley,Judith. The Resisting Reader:A Feminist Approach to American Fiction.Bloomington: Indiana University Press,1978.
3.Martin, Wendy.“Brett Ashley as New Woman in The Sun Also Rises.” New Essays on The Sun Also Rises. Ed. Linda Wagner-Martin. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987.
4.Schneider,American Women in the Progressive Era,1990-1920. New York: Facts on file, 1993
5.Wilson,Edmund.The Wound and the Bow. Cambridge, Mass: Houghton Mifflin, 1941.
6.Waldhorn,Arthur.A Reader’s Guide to Ernest Hemingway.New York: Octagon Books, 1975.
作者简介：陈丽芳，1984年9月，江西省九江市，女，研究生，助教，东莞理工学院城市学院，研究方向：英美文学和翻译实践研究。