As I'm flipping through the novels again, I found something interesting we've touched on in class but didn't get to directly compare. If anyone is still using this (ha!), I've pulled two similar quotes on writing from Feast and David's inner-monologue in TGoE. It almost sounds like the one from Feast is the beginning of the thought, and the quote from TGoE is Hemingway finishing it (which is even more odd when you consider that they both were published posthumously):
“But sometimes when I was starting a new story and I could not get it going, I would sit in front of the fire and squeeze the peel of the little oranges into the edge of the flame and watch the sputter of blue that they made. I would stand and look out over the roofs of Paris and think, 'Do not worry. You have always written before and you will write now. All you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence that you know.' So finally I would write one true sentence, and then go on from there.” (Feast)
“There is nothing you can do except try to write it the way that it was. So you must write each day better than you possibly can and use the sorrow that you have now to make you know how the early sorrow came. And you must always remember the things you believed because if you know them they will be there in the writing and you won’t betray them. The writing is the only progress you make.” (The Garden of Eden)
In A Moveable Feast, Hemingway writes Fitzgerald as weak and "unmanly." Contrastingly, Hemingway writes himself (as we would expect) as a real man's man, owning hunger and imbibing throughout most of the pages of the memoir. The difference between the two men is the women behind them. Fitzgerald has Zelda, the nut-job, jealous, unsupportive, alcoholic wife. Hemingway portrays Hadley romantically, giving her fanciful dialogue and apologizing to her on more than one occassion through the text. While we have usually seen Hemingway for a mysognistic and independent individual, the way he juxtaposes his relationship with Hadley with that of Zelda and Scott suggests the way in which Hemingway credits his transition into prolific writing and the success that followed as a direct product of his relationship with Hadley.
Fitzgerald is almost always shown to be a whiny, immature writer, and not only does his personality differ drastically from that of Hemingway's, but so does the way he projects his character onto those around him. At the start of Chapter 17: "Scott Fitzgerald," Hemingway anecdotes Scott's speech as fairly insufferable. He mentions several times how he ignored what Scott was saying and thought, "to hell with it" and continued to size up Fitzgerald physically. Later in the same chapter, Hemingway retells the story of Scott whining for a thermometer, claiming to have a "true congestion of the lungs." Though Hemingway insists Scott is not dying several times, Scott is not calmed until Hemingway has proven that his temperature is normal. Fitzgerald also has trouble holding his alcohol, a characteristic we know is vital to the survival of the members of the expats. Hemingway refers to the first moment he realized this as "a very strange thing" at the start of the chapter, and later on decides that he needs to limit the amount the two drink together "to the minimum," noting how he drinks heavily around the times he's writing. Hemingway truly does not understand what it looks like to be obviously affected by alcohol, nor what it looks like to whine for someone else to take care of you. Hemingway portrays Scott as meager and helpless.
Soon after we are introduced to the annoying tendencies of Scott, we are introduced to Zelda; Hemingway also paints a very unattractive picture of her. He tells us at the end of Scott's chapter that once he met Zelda, and so he did not "know the terrible odds that were against" Scott, foreshadowing the tragic downfall of Scott as a writer. In Chapter 18: "Hawks Do Not Share," Hemingway portrays Zelda as instigative and as a bad influence on Scott's work. Throughout this chapter, Zelda is seen as the sole reason Scott drinks and thus the reason for his fall from glory as a writer. Hemingway tells us that Zelsa "was treating him as though he were a kill-joy." He even goes so far as to say that Zelda forced Scott into drinking because it "meant that she knew Scott would not be able to write." Hemingway also notes that though Scott was very in love with Zelda, "he was very jealous of her" and her former loves. Zelda's mental health is clearly linked with Scott's writing, as Hemingway notes that when Zelda "was well again," Scott's writing greatly improved. At the end of the chapter when he remembers the first time he realized that Zelda truly was crazy, he mentions how Scott's writing suffererd again. This chapter suggests the way in which Fitzgerald's writing fluctuates with his relationship and the mental state of his wife Zelda. If Zelda was out of control, Fitzgerald's work was useless.
Hemingway subtly and neatly juxtaposes his relationship with Hadley with that of Scott and Zelda. From the first time we meet Scott in the novel, we know he is nothing like Hemingway, in his character, his values, his writing strategies, but most specifically, in his marriage. Hadley is greatly romanticized in Feast. She is always agreeing with Hemingway or expressing her love or showcasing distaste for the same people as Hemingway. At the end of Chapter 1: "A Good Cafe on the Place St.-Michel," after Hemingway suggests the two move away to the place below Les Avants, Hadley supports the decision, telling him that he was "good to think of going." As we know Hemingway loves to discuss debts and what has to be paid for, Hadley is the one to remind him to pay the Shakespeare and Company bookstore to settle his debt, mentioning it twice in one conversation. He notes that the two saw themselves as above others and "rightly mistrusted" the rich, and that aspects of their lives would have seemed odd to rich people, but that they were always happy, as if in an eternal Eden. In Chapter 7: "Un Generation Perdue," Hadley explains to Hemingway that she doesn't hear what Stein talks about because "I'm a wife. It's her friend that talks to me," solidifying her place as the perfect Hemingway wife, who sits around in intellectual company with her intelligent husband and keeps to the matters of a good wife, not interrupting or interjecting her own opinion into the conversation (the "question mark" portion of the wife we realized these writers need). It becomes increasingly clear that Hadley meant a lot to Hemingway--in hindsight, anyway--and he writes her as the perfect wife to his great writing. She knows her place and reminds him of what needs "to be paid for," always agreeing with his likes and dislikes and ideas.
The more Hemingway discusses his writing in the novel and his process of becoming a much better writer, the more attention he pays to Hadley and the more credit he gives her for the success of their relationship. After discussing his writing during the family's trip to Schruns in Chapter 16: "Winter in Schruns," Hemingway apologizes to Hadley for the first time in the work and even mentions how Hadley's next husband was a better man than he. He says that they had "become too confident in each other and careless in our confidence and pride." At the end of Chatper 17: "Scott Fitzgerald," we have just learned that the reason for Fitzgerald's downfall as a writer was because of his wife. Sandwiched in between the description of Scott and the foreshadowing of Zelda's character, Hemingway mentions Hadley again, noting that what they wanted at the time was unrealized by them and that they "were very happy." Hadley is a world apart from Zelda. If Hadley was the perfect wife for a to-be prolific writer, Zelda was poison to Fitzgerald's writing. Hadley supported Hemingway in his ideals and his guilt for pushing her away to be with Pauline shines through in the final few chapters.
By juxtaposing his relationship with Hadley with the Fitzgerald couple, Hemingway suggests true and successful writers are built by the strength of their marriages, or more accurately, the women they are married to. Zelda suffers and directly impacts Scott's writing, and so Hemingway writes Scott as a tragic character. At the same time, he continues to mention Hadley's adherence to traditional female roles as a wife, always agreeing, talking to the right people, reminding him of what he has to pay off so that he can better focus on what's important (i.e. writing). Instead of the misogynist asshole we have come to see Hemingway as (or just me?), Feast transforms him into a writer with flaws, whose only solace was found in the early success of his marriage to Hadley, while Fitzgerald suffered because he absolutely could not depend on his wife.
*No word count as my tablet doesn't display that. Also my tablet allows for poor editing and I apologize.*
Unrequited Love as a Metaphor for Southern Slavery
by Danielle Falcone
“The South” by Langston Hughes personifies the geographical Southern states as a cruel and wicked woman. This Southern woman creates an almost inescapable boundary of hatred for African Americans, specifically black men. The land has the same virtues and vices as a woman might have, and even has some of her physical characteristics and personality traits. Manifest in this Southern woman is the devastating racial climate of the time, where black men suffer the consequences of situations that are out of their control. In this way, Hughes highlights the way in which black men have suffered greatly from the complaints of the white women of the South—they cruelly accuse these black men of heinous crimes and the black men face death because of it. As a result, both the geographical South and the Southern woman are the cause of the suffering of the black men; the metaphor of the woman as the South helps a larger readership sympathize with the suffering of not slavery or lynching but unrequited love.
The south-personified-into-woman is at first glance appealing, with some good characteristics and some awful. The South is “laughing,” “sunny-faced,” “magnolia-scented,” and “beautiful, like a woman.” At the same time, it has “blood on its mouth,” is “beast-strong,” “child-minded,” “idiot brained,” “syphilitic” even. To the speaker, this woman –the South—is danger. She is demonic with blood on her mouth and she is ignorant and thinks like a child; the danger is that she is also smiling and smells sweet. In effect, the South sounds inviting and seductive, preying on the black men and then searching “for a negro’s bones” in the fire. In this way, Hughes portrays the South as the ultimate temptress, one who distracts the black people with the good qualities but becomes evil up close. Not only has the South as a geographical location made the black people suffer, but so have the women of the South.
The speaker uses unrequited love for the South as a metaphor for black suffering. Much like slaves and sharecroppers of the time working hard days and long hours for little or no repayment, so is the speaker of the novel rejected by the South after giving “her many rare gifts.” This South “turns her back” upon the speaker or “spits in [his] face,” and she’s “seductive and a dark-eyed whore.” The speaker claims the South lures in the black people, taking their harvests or gifts or free labor and giving nothing in return. The South as a whole as well as the people living in it selfishly hoard what the black people give them. With this representation of a selfish and greedy South, Hughes uses the common experience of unrequited love to suggest the ways in which the South has acted as seductive woman who uses the men around, allowing more people to identify with the suffering of the black men in the South.
Hughes draws an important comparison between the women of the Southern states and the entire racial climate of the Southern states propagated by the “child-minded” people living there. As a geographical region, the Southern states oppress and exploit the black people; as a woman, the South tempts, seduces, and exploits the black men. By doing this he calls to mind the important relationship between black men and white women in the South, fueled by power and disgust and greed. Hughes turns the suffering of slavery and lynches into a more relatable story of the suffering of unrequited love and thus draws in some readerships that would otherwise not be able to understand the climate of the South.
The character of Nonnie in Strange Fruit is that of the unconventional African American female. Nonnie is seemingly light-skinned, college educated, and in a relationship with a white man from a prominent white family. Exceedingly curious and most definitely important in these first few chapters is the physical representation of Nonnie.
In Smith's novel, Nonnie is consistently compared or tied in to something white. When we see her standing at the white picket gate at the start of the novel (arguably a white American dream-type scene), we soon learn she is also college educated, more expected of a white woman if any woman at all. She is "slim and white in the dusk" (1), and later her thoughts run away with a hymn that we learn a few lyrics to: "Whiter than snow…oh wash me and I shall be whiter than snow" (3). The more tidbits of gossip we receive from unnamed townspeople, we also learn that she has a face that "God knows by right should have belonged to a white girl" (2). While later conversing with her brother, in the fading sunlight he "was dark, Non's startlingly white" (14). Her own sister notes Non's face as "bleached white against dark walls" (16). Non was perhaps born into the wrong race. With her white skin, she represents the desire of some African American women to be part of the more widely accepted and unquestioned race. Her pale skin juxtaposed with the almost-rape by a white man suggest that no matter the color of one's skin, the South abided strictly by the one drop rule. In this way, skin color was no longer the issue, but rather lineage.
Its not just the description of Non's skin that is curious, though. Her nickname throughout the novel is "Non"--as in, nothing, empty, void? If so, then her skin being described as white is more complex than assuming that she is supposed to be white at heart or was perhaps born into the wrong race. The character of Non might represent the empty feeling of the inferior races of the early 1900s. As we saw in Passing, there are marginalized characters that are out to prove themselves or make a name for themselves by pretending to be something they are not (I use that phrase loosely). Non, on the other hand, seems to perhaps fade into the background. She does seem to blend in with the white skin of those in the White Town, but her representation of a void or a nothingness is further solidified by Trey's confusion on the matter, admitting in his narrative that Non is not in fact the woman he loves: "Thirty minutes ago he had been with the woman he loved. Now there was a colored girl named Nonnie. That was all there was to it" (59).
Ed's begging for Non to join him in the north and his defense that, "You can't get things straight down here!" (14) ring more ominous now that we understand that Non, by remaining in the South, could very well become the definition of her nickname--a see-through nothingness.
I can't argue that Jason is in any way likable but I would like to defend him in his collection of Quentin's money.
We've already learned that Quentin, much like her mother, is flighty and occasionally promiscuous. Jason constantly butting heads with Quentin reveals even further the similarities between the two women--almost as if Jason is being forced to relive an already mangled childhood, but the second time around his illegitimate niece is not necessarily the cause of his contempt but rather a reminder of it (arguably creating the vicious cycle of Jason's malice).
Thus far, then, we know that Quentin is a fairly bratty 17-year-old. In that fact alone I would support Jason's decision to keep the checks she gets from her mother a secret from Quentin. In the scene where she begs for the money, Jason notes that Quentin has no real excuse or use for the money and she fumbles to come up with something. Could Jason not be seen as a responsible guardian for Quentin? If she was given the $50 checks as they came, would she have any money left at all? Or can we suspect that, due to her character, she would have spent it riding around town with boys?
I defend Jason's actions in keeping the money from Quentin because we don't really know what he is keeping it for. We can assume that because of Jason's personality, he could very well be taking the money from his niece. At the same time though, are all of his actions not driven by reconstructing what is left of his dysfunctional family, even if that means being the strong-handed, rude uncle that Quentin must answer to?
POSSIBLY UNRELATED: Does the sexual imagery that weaves in and out of the narration of Jason's chapter have an effect on his and Quentin's relationship (i.e. the first scene where he drags her into the other room, her robe begins to slip off and he acutely notices)? Perhaps Jason is mean to Quentin because he, like his brother Quentin, is unable to accept the sexuality of the women around him and so he restrains her instead?
