Sunday, October 25, 2009

Ernest Hemingway- Anti-Semitic?

This past week in class, we had our second Literature Circle discussions about different books and their relation to gender roles; in my case it was The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway. The first thing that caught my interest when reading through the book up until the fifteenth chapter is Hemingway's style. In my mind, I had held Ernest Hemingway up to be an author of epic proportions. I expected his novels to be profound with a deep meaning starting from the first couple of pages. I expected an author whose writing was so difficult to understand that it would feel like a foreign language to me. Frankly, I was intimidated to even try to read the novel, especially after my mom told me I might have to read the novel six times to even scrape the surface of understanding it. The LAST thing I expected was to find humor in the first pages of the novel. He actually seemed to be making fun of Jews and their stereotypically long noses. Robert Cohn, one of the characters in the book, was a Jew without a characteristically long nose, but the reason for this was that his nose was permanently flattened by a punch according to the book. Because this stereotype occurred in the beginning of the novel, it can be seen as merely an attempt to insert humor into the beginning of the novel. But, it is not just limited to the beginning of the novel as I learned through closely looking at the rest of the novel. The Jewish character, Robert Cohn, is repeated referred to as a "Jew" in a derogatory way, and whenever he does something wrong, it is because of his "Jewish" nature. He is clearly portrayed as an extremely different character than the rest in the novel and seems almost like an outcast. He is extremely weak, as shown when he turns green when he sees a bull fight, and is the only character not to participate in WWI, a fact that Hemingway feels is not very thing. Also, if you look at it from a gender roles perspective, he is constantly controlled by women. Whether it be his first girlfriend as presented in the book named Frances, who has him wrapped around her finger, or Brett, his later interest whose looks have enraptured Robert's mind, Robert is always chasing after the skirt tails of one women or another. All of this points to Hemingway trying to point to Robert Cohn being a weak character mainly due to his Jewish nature. This brings about the question of whether or not Hemingway is trying to portray his hate of Jews in the novel because it is accepted that Hemingway did not particularly like Jews. Granted, the early 1900s were a time when a decidedly Anti-Semitic sentiment was widely prevalent, and Hemingway could just be trying to show this through the animosity towards Jews in the novel. But, there is likely a specific reason for this. What that reason is, I don't know yet, but hopefully the end of the novel will enlighten me.

1 comment:

  1. I see that Ernest Hemmingway can be extremely intimidating. From the speeches that all our teachers give us about "his" gift of transforming images to words. We can only conjecture that his diction would be as complex and insightful as everyone says. However, many novels actually do not use the 'intimidating' language that we expect.
    Additionally, i saw your comment on the Jewish stereotype. I cannot help but laugh for we all know the one person that caused this stereotype to grow. But i believe that the flattening of his nose is a significant event. It probably symbolizes that he will either break a great conformist belief or overcome an overwhelming obstacle in the novel. Hopefully, this will help you in searching for what it means. Of course, I know that you will laugh and snicker along the way, but look for someone that may look similar or breaks another stereotype in the novel. It may help you in searching for its meaning.

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