Ernest Hemingway: Degeneration through violence.
Item
-
Title
-
Ernest Hemingway: Degeneration through violence.
-
Identifier
-
AAI9946186
-
identifier
-
9946186
-
Creator
-
Kwon, Seokwoo.
-
Contributor
-
Adviser: David S. Reynolds
-
Date
-
1999
-
Language
-
English
-
Publisher
-
City University of New York.
-
Subject
-
Literature, American | Biography
-
Abstract
-
Hemingway is famous for his involvement in numerous forms of violence. However, Hemingway's violent acts did not always make him feel strong and powerful, as is generally thought. His hypermasculine pose has been seen variously as a defense mechanism and an overreaction to his androgynous or effeminate quality. The real Hemingway was not as strong and powerful as is generally believed. Even Hemingway could not be Hemingway, the figure not only he himself but also the age fabricated. Hemingway's later life is an example of how one can degenerate through violence.;A close reading of Hemingway's works, contrary to the popular belief about the masculine Hemingway, shows the adverse relationship between violence and masculinity. Hemingway the artist tells a different story than Hemingway the man. His mal-aise with the demanded/idealized self is expressed in his artistic works of irony and understatement. The themes of degeneration are implied in his works consistently from the start of his writing career. No wonder we have many Hemingway figures who are represented as emasculated (Jake), effeminate (Frederic), and degenerated (Colonel Cantwell, Hudson), to name a few. However, my emphasis is not upon the analysis of the soft masculinity of his wounded heroes but upon the hypermasculinity of his so-called tough heroes: notably, Harry Morgan, Pablo vis-a-vis Robert Jordan, Santiago, and many other protagonists of Hemingway's short stories. They become depersonalized and dehumanized, after all, through their involvement in various forms of violence. They are dismembered, hystericized, traumatized, castrated, homosexualized, and even schizophrenic, at times. The greatness of Hemingway lies in the fact that he is criticizing the values he pursues, revealing the western man's ambivalent and paradoxical mode of thinking. For example, Santiago attains "a symbol perfected in death," but for Hemingway the symbol can be "[n]othing," or "just garbage.";The argument of Hemingway as a prototype of the vulnerable masculinist in my project is that it can demystify the Hemingway myth, especially within the contexts of new Men's Studies and new Men's Movement. What Hemingway's works propose is not trite "regeneration through violence," but a new demythologized mythos: that is, "degeneration through/of violence."
-
Type
-
dissertation
-
Source
-
PQT Legacy CUNY.xlsx
-
degree
-
Ph.D.
