Well one of the biggest misconceptions about
Earnest Hemingway is that his personality
and his writing kind of mirrored the public
perception that he had for decades.
Typically, when we think of Hemingway we think
of a magazine cover; Life Magazine from the
1940s or 50s, something like Look Magazine
from the 1950s. We've got the great conquering
hero with the gun in hand or we've got the
fisherman with the four or five foot marlin,
but that's usually where the conception stops.
Or we have in talking about his writing we
have the image or conception of the writer
who seems to go out of his way to exclude
women. And I would suggest that not only is
that wrong but I think there is also a falsity
to the claims that he didn't consider minorities
as he wrote.
His interest with minority figures, in particular
with African Americans begins probably around
the same time, I would argue, that we see
the rise of Jack Johnson. He wrote a story,
when he was sixteen or seventeen years old,
before he graduated. A boxing story that features
a black fighter and a white fighter. And there
is master plan hatched by the white camp that
would involve the knocking out of the minority
figure in the ring. Well, the corner man is
colorblind and the black man ends up winning.
I would argue that it's no accident that Hemingway
had things turn out that way.
That Hemingway's greater lesson at the end
of the day also included this, that the color
line was not always something that was discernable.
And that bothered a lot of White Americans
at this time. Hemingway could have been of
that camp. To those that have suggested racial
epithets or racial epithets, period, case
closed. I would suggest that that makes the
argument all too easy.
He was looking at Nick. "I spoke to you, Mister
Francis," the nigger said softly.
His seemingly infinite use of the n-word in
particular short stories for instance, to
my mind doesn't undercut the greater message
that's being propagated by Hemingway. I would
suggest simply this, he was a man of his times.
And I think there were so many instances where
Hemingway found himself needing to be that
person that everyone expected him to be; a
man speaking as a mouthpiece of the twenties
or of the thirties. A great example of Hemingway
going to that racial epithet, kind of like
a crutch, and again this is always the first
thing that a nay-sayer or a critic is going
to point to would be a story like "The Battler"
And this is based on a true story. Hemingway
sort of mining true facts, that he knew of
and read about and saving them for later.
Basically, it's about a former champion fighter
who has degenerated to the point of near lunacy
and is roving the woods and the countryside
with a caretaker, who happens to be African
American. Well, at the end of the day, the
greater lesson for us is, or one of the greater
lessons for us is that again, the color line
and racial construction ends up being an very
arbitrary thing because the hero of the story,
if we want to label him as such isn't the
former white champion, it's the black caretaker,
proving the point that he is hyper conscious
of race as he is constructing these narratives.
People always like to confuse biography with
literature and the craft. This is just a great
stark example of this not being the case.
If we start counting the use of the n-word
it's easy to kind of indict Hemingway as the
racist and put a period at the end of the
statement. But again it's about peeling away
the layers and looking at the story for what
it is and it's a story about a white loss
of primacy and control and a black assumption
of control and somehow at the end of the day
it's interesting and it's okay.
So, I guess if I had to summarize the persona
that we all know and love or love to hate
is only the tip of the iceberg. And Hemingway
had this whole metaphor of the iceberg in
terms of or in relation of his writing. That
what he gives you is only the tip of what
you're actually supposed to glean or take
away from it. So I have suggested so many
of his stories, not just one or two, these
aren't aberrations. The collective body suggests
that when it comes to matters of race, especially
in America, his stories are just as telling
as any other historical narrative that you
would want to pick up.
