Ernest Hemingway Masculinity

Ernest Hemingway is known for his sparse prose style, distinguished by his ability to typify the complex quandaries of life with a simple but meaningful story. Many experts recognize that Hemingway’s stories are reflections of his own life, with his characters representing himself at different points in his life. Ernest Hemingway carries this even further, and uses the strong male characters in his stories to show the role of masculinity in modern society, confronting the complex reality of male character, examining both its pitfalls and consequences. Hemingway’s ideas about the origin of masculinity as a societal norm, is best seen in the recurring character of Nick Adams. In “Indian Camp”, Nick goes with his father, who is a doctor, to …show more content…
Members of the ‘lost generation’ often characterized manliness as acts of outward bravery. Hemingway experiences this rift in “A Moveable Feast” through his interactions with Jean, a waiter that he met while on holiday in Switzerland. Hemingway gained a new admiration of Jeane when he learned that Jean had earned “the other sort of Medaille Militaire…[the one awarded] for gallantry” (122). From Jean’s previous acts of bravery, he was put on a pedestal as a man by Hemingway. Of course, the management at Jean’s restaurant did not hold the past of in such high esteem as they asked him to shave his “dragoon’s mustache, [from when] he served in a heavy cavalry regiment” (121). This reveals the divide between the two generations and their perception of what forms and gives value to a man's character. The older generation’s perception of manliness, one defined by silent internal strength, is exemplified in another short story, “A Clean, Well Lighted Place”. In it, an old and a young waiter debate kicking out an old patron who is staying at the cafe past closing time. The old waiter argues that “each night [he is] reluctant to close up because there is someone who needs the cafe” (290). He recognizes that the old man is struggling with an internal battle, having recently attempted to kill himself. Instead of offering help, he allows the old man to fight his own battles. Opting to let the old man deal with his sorrows in the back of a cafe, offering a chance to find real, permanent, internal healing that is a pillar of the older generation’s perception of strength as relayed by Hemingway. These differences being noted, Hemingway did exhibit manliness in both facets, through his outward acts of bravery in World War I and his time spent in cafes in Paris, writing about his internal struggle. His personal past