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After a Republican decree was issued that forbade women from fighting at the front, the “''miliciana'' icon” reappeared, now a “symbol of Republican resistance” rather than a celebration of military heroines, which was used “to inspire men to serve their patriotic duty” (Coleman 50). The balance between the female home front and the male war front was thus reestablished, at least as a useful fiction. | After a Republican decree was issued that forbade women from fighting at the front, the “''miliciana'' icon” reappeared, now a “symbol of Republican resistance” rather than a celebration of military heroines, which was used “to inspire men to serve their patriotic duty” (Coleman 50). The balance between the female home front and the male war front was thus reestablished, at least as a useful fiction. | ||
But in point of fact, the “total war” strategy that Nazi Germany was practicing in Spain meant that besieged Madrid (and later Barcelona, as well as the infamous Guernica and other less famous towns) was itself a war front where women died daily without the opportunity to fight for the Cause or even to defend themselves. Martha Gellhorn observes in ''The Face of War'', a collection of her war correspondence, that “what was new and prophetic about the war in Spain was the life of the civilians, who stayed at home and had war brought to them The people of the Republic of Spain were the first to suffer the relentless totality of modern war” (22). Gellhorn describes her arrival in Madrid as follows: “I had not felt as if I were at a war until now | But in point of fact, the “total war” strategy that Nazi Germany was practicing in Spain meant that besieged Madrid (and later Barcelona, as well as the infamous Guernica and other less famous towns) was itself a war front where women died daily without the opportunity to fight for the Cause or even to defend themselves. Martha Gellhorn observes in ''The Face of War'', a collection of her war correspondence, that “what was new and prophetic about the war in Spain was the life of the civilians, who stayed at home and had war brought to them The people of the Republic of Spain were the first to suffer the relentless totality of modern war” (22). Gellhorn describes her arrival in Madrid as follows: “I had not felt as if I were at a war until now. [The] whole city was a battlefield” (20-21). Marion Merriman describes the combination of terror and frustration engendered by her own trip to Madrid: “In the trenches I had been nervous but not afraid. That was war. In the city I felt defenseless, trapped. In the city the bombing was a deep personal affront, with no reprisals except a soul-shaking hatred There was no way to fight back”(139). Gellhorn similarly describes “this helpless war in the city,” where women cannot fight back but can only scatter for cover “professionally, like soldiers” (Face 32, 43). | ||
Though the ''milicianas'' were banned from the battle front, ''guerrillerinas'' continued to work behind the fascist lines, as Maria Teresa Toral describes in her historical account, providing at great personal risk “aid to the {{pg|379|380}} wounded, to the hungry, to the sick guerrilla, who had descended from the sierra to the village” (308). In ''For Whom the Bell Tolls'', Hemingway creates an unforgettable portrait of a ''guerrillerina'' in the sympathetic and psychologically complex character of Pilar. A ''miliciana'' like many other women at the start of the war, she participated in her lover Pablo’s takeover of their village for the Republicans. When the fascists retook the village, she fled into the mountains as the only female member of Pablo’s guerrilla band, not providing food and nursing care to guerrillas who had descended to the village, as Toral describes, but participating in sabotage activities like Robert Jordan’s blowing of the bridge. Though General Golz had noted that “the more irregular the service, the more irregular the life” (8), Pilar is a most irregular figure indeed. She announces, “Here I command” as she accepts “the allegiance. . . given [by the guerrillas]” once they lose confidence in the increasingly unstable Pablo (55, 53). She is admired as a model of courage by Robert Jordan: “You’re shaking, like a Goddamn woman. What the hell is the matter with you? . . . I’ll bet that Goddamn woman up above isn’t shaking. That Pilar” (437). | Though the ''milicianas'' were banned from the battle front, ''guerrillerinas'' continued to work behind the fascist lines, as Maria Teresa Toral describes in her historical account, providing at great personal risk “aid to the {{pg|379|380}} wounded, to the hungry, to the sick guerrilla, who had descended from the sierra to the village” (308). In ''For Whom the Bell Tolls'', Hemingway creates an unforgettable portrait of a ''guerrillerina'' in the sympathetic and psychologically complex character of Pilar. A ''miliciana'' like many other women at the start of the war, she participated in her lover Pablo’s takeover of their village for the Republicans. When the fascists retook the village, she fled into the mountains as the only female member of Pablo’s guerrilla band, not providing food and nursing care to guerrillas who had descended to the village, as Toral describes, but participating in sabotage activities like Robert Jordan’s blowing of the bridge. Though General Golz had noted that “the more irregular the service, the more irregular the life” (8), Pilar is a most irregular figure indeed. She announces, “Here I command” as she accepts “the allegiance. . . given [by the guerrillas]” once they lose confidence in the increasingly unstable Pablo (55, 53). She is admired as a model of courage by Robert Jordan: “You’re shaking, like a Goddamn woman. What the hell is the matter with you? . . . I’ll bet that Goddamn woman up above isn’t shaking. That Pilar” (437). | ||
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(290–91). | (290–91). | ||
In one sense, Hemingway presents in Pilar a revolutionary portrait of a woman active as a soldier at the front, indeed behind enemy lines. Yet in another sense he invokes the familiar stereotype of the female at the battle front as whore (indeed, whore with a heart of gold), while invoking in his portrait of Maria the other familiar stereotype of rape victim. These two women in the otherwise male guerrilla band thus represent the only two historically visible roles for women at war. Moreover, even Pilar is restricted dramatically to the domestic sphere, as Maria always is (to the degree that is possible given the constraints of her environment). Paradoxically, Hemingway participates by these strategies in the historical erasure of women other than the whore and the rape victim from the war front, despite his seemingly revolutionary portrait of Pilar as guerrilla leader.< | In one sense, Hemingway presents in Pilar a revolutionary portrait of a woman active as a soldier at the front, indeed behind enemy lines. Yet in another sense he invokes the familiar stereotype of the female at the battle front as whore (indeed, whore with a heart of gold), while invoking in his portrait of Maria the other familiar stereotype of rape victim. These two women in the otherwise male guerrilla band thus represent the only two historically visible roles for women at war. Moreover, even Pilar is restricted dramatically to the domestic sphere, as Maria always is (to the degree that is possible given the constraints of her environment). Paradoxically, Hemingway participates by these strategies in the historical erasure of women other than the whore and the rape victim from the war front, despite his seemingly revolutionary portrait of Pilar as guerrilla leader.<ref> See Weitz for a brilliant discussion of the often overlooked military roles that women in Occupied France played, including as guerrillas. Weitz candidly discusses not only their contributions but also the difficulties they encountered; for example, they were often “assigned traditional feminine support roles, for the customary view was that ‘War is a man’s affair’” (147).</ref> | ||
But this ongoing historical erasure was countered, beginning in the mid-nineteenth century, by the emergence of new professional roles for women at war. The New Woman was first incarnated on the battlefield as the female war nurse.< | But this ongoing historical erasure was countered, beginning in the mid-nineteenth century, by the emergence of new professional roles for women at war. The New Woman was first incarnated on the battlefield as the female war nurse.<ref> See Reeves for an overview of the role female nurses have played in American wars from the Revolution to the Persian Gulf War. For a discussion of their role in the American Civil War, see Garrison, Maher, Oates, Pryor, and Wormeley; in World War I, see Gavin 43–76; and as camp followers in the American Revolution, see Mayer 17, 142–43, and 219–23. </ref> This new development was marked in England by the Crimean {{pg|382|383}} War (1853–56) and in the United States by the American Civil War (1861–1865). In part, this new female identity developed in response to the actions of men who were themselves creating a new male identity, that of the war correspondent. William Howard Russell of the ''London Times'' is most often cited as the first war correspondent, though other challengers inevitably exist. It was the reporting of Russell and several others, for example Edwin Lawrence Godkin and especially Thomas Chenery, that roused the English public to outrage over the despicable conditions of the British army in the Crimea, especially regarding medical care.<ref> This new male identity was initially suspect, the military deriding war correspondents as camp followers. For a discussion of the vexed question of the identity of the first war correspondent, see Mathews 31–78. For a description of the role of the Crimean war correspondents, their treatment by the military, and their role in the introduction of female nurses to the war theater, see Knightley 6–17. For a discussion of William Howard Russell’s actions in the Crimea, see Bullard 31–48. </ref> Florence Nightingale responded to the request for nursing aid (female nurses from France were already on scene), and her “aristocratic background” and “social and political connections” enabled her to overcome the prejudice against sending female nurses to the field (Garrison 12). But the nurses nonetheless suffered under public charges of immodesty and worse—that is, sexual promiscuity and prostitution—because they breached the boundary between home front and war front. They left the private for the public sphere, even though they did so while practicing the traditionally female actions of nurturing and caretaking, often fulfilling specifically domestic functions such as cooking and cleaning. In this regard, Hemingway’s Pilar is ironically like them. | ||
Nightingale and her party of thirty-eight women constituted “an historic deputation which established a precedent for women determined to serve as nurses in military hospitals, and became the model for respectable female Sanitarians [members of the US Sanitary Commission, a volunteer organization established during the American Civil War] as they entered a male environment previously forbidden to them”(Garrison 13). In fact, the precedent was class-inflected, concerning middle- and upper-class women, since female camp-followers had long functioned as nurses in earlier wars, though their actions went unremarked (Mayer 219-23). | Nightingale and her party of thirty-eight women constituted “an historic deputation which established a precedent for women determined to serve as nurses in military hospitals, and became the model for respectable female Sanitarians [members of the US Sanitary Commission, a volunteer organization established during the American Civil War] as they entered a male environment previously forbidden to them”(Garrison 13). In fact, the precedent was class-inflected, concerning middle- and upper-class women, since female camp-followers had long functioned as nurses in earlier wars, though their actions went unremarked (Mayer 219-23). | ||
Like the female war nurses of the Crimea, those led by Dorothea Dix in the American Civil War largely remained behind the lines, though more often near the battle front. Katherine Prescott Wormely wrote of her experiences, “I see the worst, short of the actual battle-field, that there is to see” (131). Clara Barton responded yet more radically, providing independent nursing and relief services on the battle front itself. The middle- or upper- class status of these “ladies” rendered their wartime actions surprising on the one hand (why weren’t they satisfied rolling bandages in ladies’ aid societies?) yet also protected them to some degree from sexual gossip. As a {{pg|383|384}} mark of over-compensation, they were apostrophized as saints and angels, Nightingale known as “The Angel of the Crimea” and “The Lady with the Lamp,” and Barton as “The Angel of the Battlefield.” They were also apostrophized more domestically as mothers and sisters, which was especially appropriate for the many Roman Catholic nuns who served as nurses in the American Civil War.< | Like the female war nurses of the Crimea, those led by Dorothea Dix in the American Civil War largely remained behind the lines, though more often near the battle front. Katherine Prescott Wormely wrote of her experiences, “I see the worst, short of the actual battle-field, that there is to see” (131). Clara Barton responded yet more radically, providing independent nursing and relief services on the battle front itself. The middle- or upper- class status of these “ladies” rendered their wartime actions surprising on the one hand (why weren’t they satisfied rolling bandages in ladies’ aid societies?) yet also protected them to some degree from sexual gossip. As a {{pg|383|384}} mark of over-compensation, they were apostrophized as saints and angels, Nightingale known as “The Angel of the Crimea” and “The Lady with the Lamp,” and Barton as “The Angel of the Battlefield.” They were also apostrophized more domestically as mothers and sisters, which was especially appropriate for the many Roman Catholic nuns who served as nurses in the American Civil War.<ref> See Maher for a discussion of the role of Roman Catholic nuns as nurses in the American Civil War. </ref> Their vows of chastity and obedience rendered them particularly appealing to male authorities, notably doctors; female doctors were forbidden from serving—a situation that also obtained in World War I, though many female doctors found their way around American Expeditionary Force regulations by attaching themselves to volunteer organizations.<ref> See Hawks for a first-hand account of a female doctor in the American Civil War. For a discussion of the role of female doctors in World War I, see Gavin 157–78.</ref> | ||
Nightingale, Dix, and Barton are the direct ancestors of later female war nurses, among whom are the VADs (that is, the Voluntary Aid Detachment, a British service auxiliary) like Hemingway’s Lady Brett Ashley in ''The Sun Also Rises'' and Catherine Barkley in ''A Farewell to Arms'', and also like American Red Cross nurse Agnes von Kurowsky. To combat the potentially salacious reputation of female war nurses, they labored under strict rules of appearance and behavior. Dix required her nurses to be middle-aged and “plain to the point of ugliness” (Garrison 18). American Red Cross nurses serving in World War I were “forbidden to carry on serious romances, even to be alone with a gentleman caller” (Villard and Nagel 239). | Nightingale, Dix, and Barton are the direct ancestors of later female war nurses, among whom are the VADs (that is, the Voluntary Aid Detachment, a British service auxiliary) like Hemingway’s Lady Brett Ashley in ''The Sun Also Rises'' and Catherine Barkley in ''A Farewell to Arms'', and also like American Red Cross nurse Agnes von Kurowsky. To combat the potentially salacious reputation of female war nurses, they labored under strict rules of appearance and behavior. Dix required her nurses to be middle-aged and “plain to the point of ugliness” (Garrison 18). American Red Cross nurses serving in World War I were “forbidden to carry on serious romances, even to be alone with a gentleman caller” (Villard and Nagel 239). | ||
Hemingway reflects these rules in ''A Farewell to Arms'' when Catherine de- scribes the restrictions on the nurses’ behavior at the hospital in Gorizia, only a mile from the front: “The Italians didn’t want women so near the front. So we’re all on very special behavior. We don’t go out”(25). Though the rules are more relaxed at the American Red Cross Hospital in Milan, Frederic notes that “they would not let us go out together when I was off crutches because it was unseemly for a nurse to be seen unchaperoned with a patient who did not look as though he needed attendance” (117-18). Increased personal freedom resulted inevitably, however, in increased sexual freedom, as represented in the actions of Catherine Barkley and Brett Ashley; indeed, Clara Barton’s intimate relationship with the married Colonel John Elwell, quartermaster for the Department of the South, is illustrative in this regard.< | Hemingway reflects these rules in ''A Farewell to Arms'' when Catherine de- scribes the restrictions on the nurses’ behavior at the hospital in Gorizia, only a mile from the front: “The Italians didn’t want women so near the front. So we’re all on very special behavior. We don’t go out”(25). Though the rules are more relaxed at the American Red Cross Hospital in Milan, Frederic notes that “they would not let us go out together when I was off crutches because it was unseemly for a nurse to be seen unchaperoned with a patient who did not look as though he needed attendance” (117-18). Increased personal freedom resulted inevitably, however, in increased sexual freedom, as represented in the actions of Catherine Barkley and Brett Ashley; indeed, Clara Barton’s intimate relationship with the married Colonel John Elwell, quartermaster for the Department of the South, is illustrative in this regard.<ref>For discussions of the relationship between Clara Barton and John Elwell, see Oates 148–58 and Pryor 112–17.</ref> Of course, the same point about increased sexual freedom might be made about male soldiers. But only the female nurses labored under moral opprobrium, whether external or introjected, as Hemingway represents. It is no accident that the name of the sexually promiscuous Brett rhymes with that {{pg|384|385}} of the prostitute Georgette, nor that Jake Barnes confuses their voices. Similarly, Catherine Barkley voices the internal anxiety surrounding the new female role of wartime nurse when she says, “I never felt like a whore before” (152) to her patient-lover. Of course, he is more truly her impatient lover, whose return to the battle front results in her agreeing to a sexual encounter as atonement for her sexual refusal of her now-dead soldier-fiancé. | ||
The type of position that Hemingway held with the American Red Cross as ambulance driver and canteen operator would be appropriated by women once America fully entered World War I. His volunteer service soon became an unwitting escape from the combatant role then urged upon healthy young American men; women were now encouraged to take on the non-combatant roles supervised by volunteer organizations like the Red Cross and YMCA, whose famous “doughnut dollies” operated canteens for the American doughboys fighting the war. By the end of the war, Hemingway’s Red Cross activities would have allied him more with the role of American women than men—hence, perhaps, his public exaggerations of his role on the Italian front and supposedly in the Italian army. | The type of position that Hemingway held with the American Red Cross as ambulance driver and canteen operator would be appropriated by women once America fully entered World War I. His volunteer service soon became an unwitting escape from the combatant role then urged upon healthy young American men; women were now encouraged to take on the non-combatant roles supervised by volunteer organizations like the Red Cross and YMCA, whose famous “doughnut dollies” operated canteens for the American doughboys fighting the war. By the end of the war, Hemingway’s Red Cross activities would have allied him more with the role of American women than men—hence, perhaps, his public exaggerations of his role on the Italian front and supposedly in the Italian army. | ||
During the early twentieth century, another female figure publicly emerged at the battle front, one yet more troubling in terms of the prevailing paradigm since her activities could not be redefined as appropriately female because domestic: the female war correspondent. The first American woman to win accreditation from the War Department as an official war correspondent was Peggy Hull on 17 September 1918, but she was restricted from access to the battlefields of World War I (as were the few free-lance female correspondents); when the male correspondents realized the popularity of Hull’s stories about “the lives of the common soldier” away from battle, they “demanded her removal” (Sorel xviii) and she was “forced to spend the rest of the war in Paris” (Knightley 127). Some eighteen years later, the women who covered the Spanish Civil War were still small in number but free of official regulations governing their behavior. Outsiders in Spain creating a new professional role, they were little regulated as to dress or behavior (as were the later female correspondents of World War II, who were required to wear uniforms and forbidden access to the front lines,< | During the early twentieth century, another female figure publicly emerged at the battle front, one yet more troubling in terms of the prevailing paradigm since her activities could not be redefined as appropriately female because domestic: the female war correspondent. The first American woman to win accreditation from the War Department as an official war correspondent was Peggy Hull on 17 September 1918, but she was restricted from access to the battlefields of World War I (as were the few free-lance female correspondents); when the male correspondents realized the popularity of Hull’s stories about “the lives of the common soldier” away from battle, they “demanded her removal” (Sorel xviii) and she was “forced to spend the rest of the war in Paris” (Knightley 127). Some eighteen years later, the women who covered the Spanish Civil War were still small in number but free of official regulations governing their behavior. Outsiders in Spain creating a new professional role, they were little regulated as to dress or behavior (as were the later female correspondents of World War II, who were required to wear uniforms and forbidden access to the front lines,<ref> Gellhorn wrote in 1944 “a formal letter of protest to the military authorities about the ‘curiously condescending’ treatment of women war correspondents which, she said, was as ridiculous as it was undignified, and was preventing professional woman [sic] reporters, with many years’ experience, from carrying out their responsibilities to their editors and to ‘millions of people in America who are desperately in need of seeing, but cannot see for themselves’” (Moorehead, ''Gellhorn'' 221). She wrote more pithily to a friend that “female journalists were now seen as lepers” (quoted by Moorehead, ''Gellhorn'' 221).</ref> though individual resourcefulness frequently overcame this official restriction). These female correspondents ranged as freely as their inclinations, abilities, and contacts enabled. | ||
It would seem that ''The Fifth Column''’s Dorothy Bridges is a war corre- {{pg|385|386}} spondent—how else to explain her residence in Madrid’s Hotel Florida, the presence of a large military map and war poster and typewriter in her room, and her announcement late in the play that she has “sent away three articles” (82)? But her lover Robert Preston, himself a war correspondent, calls her “a bored Vassar bitch” (4)—a change from the 1937 Madrid typescript where she is identified with Martha Gellhorn’s own Bryn Mawr. Rather than protesting, Dorothy agrees that she doesn’t “understand anything that is happening here” (5). Dorothy’s stereotypical characterization as a dumb blonde renders her presumed identity problematic. For example, Philip confusedly shouts, “Aren’t you a lady war correspondent or something? Get out of here and go write an article. This [the assassination of a Loyalist soldier in Philip’s room] is none of your business” (33). Her role as war correspondent cannot stand alone, but must be delimited by the modifier “lady”—or better yet relegated to the unnameable “or something.” But if the assassination of a soldier is not the business of a “lady” war correspondent, then what is? Indeed, what is the appropriate material for the article Philip directs her to write while simultaneously identifying what is off limits to her? In this telling scene, Philip places Dorothy in an untenable position because her identity and her subject matter remain unsayable. She fits into neither of the historically accepted categories of women at the battle front, prostitute or rape victim, nor into that of the more recently accepted category of nurse. But there she is nonetheless, at the war front instead of the home front, practicing it would seem the male profession of war correspondent. | It would seem that ''The Fifth Column''’s Dorothy Bridges is a war corre- {{pg|385|386}} spondent—how else to explain her residence in Madrid’s Hotel Florida, the presence of a large military map and war poster and typewriter in her room, and her announcement late in the play that she has “sent away three articles” (82)? But her lover Robert Preston, himself a war correspondent, calls her “a bored Vassar bitch” (4)—a change from the 1937 Madrid typescript where she is identified with Martha Gellhorn’s own Bryn Mawr. Rather than protesting, Dorothy agrees that she doesn’t “understand anything that is happening here” (5). Dorothy’s stereotypical characterization as a dumb blonde renders her presumed identity problematic. For example, Philip confusedly shouts, “Aren’t you a lady war correspondent or something? Get out of here and go write an article. This [the assassination of a Loyalist soldier in Philip’s room] is none of your business” (33). Her role as war correspondent cannot stand alone, but must be delimited by the modifier “lady”—or better yet relegated to the unnameable “or something.” But if the assassination of a soldier is not the business of a “lady” war correspondent, then what is? Indeed, what is the appropriate material for the article Philip directs her to write while simultaneously identifying what is off limits to her? In this telling scene, Philip places Dorothy in an untenable position because her identity and her subject matter remain unsayable. She fits into neither of the historically accepted categories of women at the battle front, prostitute or rape victim, nor into that of the more recently accepted category of nurse. But there she is nonetheless, at the war front instead of the home front, practicing it would seem the male profession of war correspondent. | ||
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As soon as Philip falls in love with Dorothy, a romance that she boldly initiates, he demands that she “move out of this hotel and . . . go back to America” (31). But Dorothy refuses to leave, calling him an “impudent, impertinent man” (31). An independent woman, she need not comply with his demand that she return to the home front. That is, after all, the realm of wives, as evidenced by Preston’s wife, about whom he is “always going on,” according to Dorothy, who adds, “Let him go back to his wife and children if he’s so excited about them. I’ll bet he won’t” (25). | As soon as Philip falls in love with Dorothy, a romance that she boldly initiates, he demands that she “move out of this hotel and . . . go back to America” (31). But Dorothy refuses to leave, calling him an “impudent, impertinent man” (31). An independent woman, she need not comply with his demand that she return to the home front. That is, after all, the realm of wives, as evidenced by Preston’s wife, about whom he is “always going on,” according to Dorothy, who adds, “Let him go back to his wife and children if he’s so excited about them. I’ll bet he won’t” (25). | ||
Though Dorothy commits herself to remaining near the battle front, she has simultaneously worked to make her own room homey, and she makes over Philip’s adjoining room as well. In the context of the play, Dorothy’s redecoration of Philip’s room signals her desire to domesticate him, to lure him away from the war to the home front. Certainly that is how Philip interprets it. His ambivalence about this domestication is revealed by his dis- {{pg|386|387}} comfort in the redecorated room and by his conflicted responses to Dorothy. In the midst of the war, she has created a home front of sorts, a conflation that confuses Philip. He attempts to reestablish the division by associating nighttime with the home front and daytime with the war front, declaring during the night not only his love but more tellingly his desire to marry her, and repudiating these declarations during the day. Dorothy reacts to both nighttime and daytime pronouncements with equanimity, enjoying Philip’s nighttime fantasies which she also shares, yet recognizing them as such. When Philip rejects her at the end of the play, he does so because he fears he will be unable to withstand the temptation she represents to abandon the war front for the home front, a concern that his German comrade Max reinforces. But Philip’s rejection of Dorothy, however painful, does not result in her departure from Madrid.< | Though Dorothy commits herself to remaining near the battle front, she has simultaneously worked to make her own room homey, and she makes over Philip’s adjoining room as well. In the context of the play, Dorothy’s redecoration of Philip’s room signals her desire to domesticate him, to lure him away from the war to the home front. Certainly that is how Philip interprets it. His ambivalence about this domestication is revealed by his dis- {{pg|386|387}} comfort in the redecorated room and by his conflicted responses to Dorothy. In the midst of the war, she has created a home front of sorts, a conflation that confuses Philip. He attempts to reestablish the division by associating nighttime with the home front and daytime with the war front, declaring during the night not only his love but more tellingly his desire to marry her, and repudiating these declarations during the day. Dorothy reacts to both nighttime and daytime pronouncements with equanimity, enjoying Philip’s nighttime fantasies which she also shares, yet recognizing them as such. When Philip rejects her at the end of the play, he does so because he fears he will be unable to withstand the temptation she represents to abandon the war front for the home front, a concern that his German comrade Max reinforces. But Philip’s rejection of Dorothy, however painful, does not result in her departure from Madrid.<ref> In Benjamin Glazer’s adaptation of the play for production, the much-revised character of Dorothy ''does'' leave Madrid, hoping but not expecting Philip to follow her. Glazer’s Dorothy is more conventional than Hemingway’s, an attempt to make her more sympathetic to the audience. Notably, she is only pretending to be a war correspondent while she is actually searching for her lost brother who has joined the Lincoln Brigade. In Glazer’s adaptation she is, bizarrely, raped by Philip. She is thereby transformed from Hemingway’s female war correspondent into the conventional female rape victim of war. Despite the rape, Glazer’s Dorothy falls in love with Philip, a response that the audience is expected to approve. For a discussion of Glazer’s version as compared to Hemingway’s, see Fellner 5–30.</ref> Just as Philip has volunteered for the duration, so too, it would seem, has Dorothy. But she is better able to assimilate fantasy and reality, nighttime and daytime, home front and war front, into a complex whole. For Dorothy, the conversations about other places are “just ''playing''” (62), a kind of bedtime story ritual. Realist to his romantic, she accepts the constraints placed on them by their mutual presence at the war: “But can’t we just go on now, as long as we have each other, I mean if we aren’t going to always keep on, and be nice and enjoy what we have and not be bitter?” (63). | ||
In creating a home front at the war front, Dorothy does not split but compounds her loyalties, voluntarily remaining at home in war-torn Madrid. Gellhorn asserts in her 1959 Introduction to The Face of War: “War was our condition and our history, the place we had to live in” (viii). In making the war front their home, women were thus making themselves at home in the public sphere of the world at large. In “The War in Spain” section of ''The Face of War'', Gellhorn specifies: “Thanks to ''Collier''’s I had the chance to see the life of my time, which was war For eight years, I could go where I | In creating a home front at the war front, Dorothy does not split but compounds her loyalties, voluntarily remaining at home in war-torn Madrid. Gellhorn asserts in her 1959 Introduction to The Face of War: “War was our condition and our history, the place we had to live in” (viii). In making the war front their home, women were thus making themselves at home in the public sphere of the world at large. In “The War in Spain” section of ''The Face of War'', Gellhorn specifies: “Thanks to ''Collier''’s I had the chance to see the life of my time, which was war For eight years, I could go where I | ||
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For women at the war front, now at home in the public sphere, what in {{pg|387|388}} fact was there to return to, since the home front was publicly defined by the presence of a waiting wife? Yet such a return was necessary if the balance between the male public sphere and the female private sphere was to be reestablished. Margaret Mead addressed this male anxiety, complaining about the “continuous harping on the theme: ‘Will the women be willing to return to the home?’’’ and noting the male self-interest involved in this particular skirmish between the sexes: “[This question was] repeated over and over again. . . by those to whose interest it will be to discharge women workers . . . as soon as the war is over” (qtd. in Gilbert and Gubar 3:214). The female war correspondent at the battle front was an extreme example of the millions of women who had entered the public sphere of war work, if most often on the home front. | For women at the war front, now at home in the public sphere, what in {{pg|387|388}} fact was there to return to, since the home front was publicly defined by the presence of a waiting wife? Yet such a return was necessary if the balance between the male public sphere and the female private sphere was to be reestablished. Margaret Mead addressed this male anxiety, complaining about the “continuous harping on the theme: ‘Will the women be willing to return to the home?’’’ and noting the male self-interest involved in this particular skirmish between the sexes: “[This question was] repeated over and over again. . . by those to whose interest it will be to discharge women workers . . . as soon as the war is over” (qtd. in Gilbert and Gubar 3:214). The female war correspondent at the battle front was an extreme example of the millions of women who had entered the public sphere of war work, if most often on the home front. | ||
Dorothy Bridges’ identity as female war correspondent is undermined not only by her characterization but by the very structure of the play, which rigidly confines her to the domestic sphere—a strategy that Hemingway later employed more subtly in ''For Whom the Bell Tolls''. Act One, where Dorothy is prominent, has three scenes, all set at the Hotel Florida. Act Two, where Dorothy is less prominent, has only one scene set at the Hotel Florida; the other two scenes are set at Seguridad headquarters, where two Loyalist soldiers are being interrogated for suspected treason, and at Chicote’s Bar, the hangout for International Brigade soldiers, prostitutes, and war correspondents. Act Three, where Dorothy is again less prominent, has two scenes set at the Hotel Florida; the other two scenes are set at Seguridad headquarters, and at a Republican artillery observation post that Philip and Max infiltrate. The active Philip’s scenes include not only those in his and Dorothy’s rooms at the Hotel Florida, but also those at Seguridad Headquarters, Chicote’s Bar, and the Republican observation post. In contrast, Dorothy is never presented outside of the Hotel Florida, almost always in her own room (only once entering Philip’s room). Indeed, she is most frequently seen in bed, for example “sleeping soundly” through Philip’s extended conversation with the hotel manager (16), “go[ing] back to sleep for just a little while longer” after waking for breakfast and conversation (26), pushed by Philip “toward the bed” in a protective gesture when the Loyalist soldier is shot in Philip’s room (33), eating breakfast in bed, reading in bed, lying in bed with Philip while she wears her new silver fox cape,< | Dorothy Bridges’ identity as female war correspondent is undermined not only by her characterization but by the very structure of the play, which rigidly confines her to the domestic sphere—a strategy that Hemingway later employed more subtly in ''For Whom the Bell Tolls''. Act One, where Dorothy is prominent, has three scenes, all set at the Hotel Florida. Act Two, where Dorothy is less prominent, has only one scene set at the Hotel Florida; the other two scenes are set at Seguridad headquarters, where two Loyalist soldiers are being interrogated for suspected treason, and at Chicote’s Bar, the hangout for International Brigade soldiers, prostitutes, and war correspondents. Act Three, where Dorothy is again less prominent, has two scenes set at the Hotel Florida; the other two scenes are set at Seguridad headquarters, and at a Republican artillery observation post that Philip and Max infiltrate. The active Philip’s scenes include not only those in his and Dorothy’s rooms at the Hotel Florida, but also those at Seguridad Headquarters, Chicote’s Bar, and the Republican observation post. In contrast, Dorothy is never presented outside of the Hotel Florida, almost always in her own room (only once entering Philip’s room). Indeed, she is most frequently seen in bed, for example “sleeping soundly” through Philip’s extended conversation with the hotel manager (16), “go[ing] back to sleep for just a little while longer” after waking for breakfast and conversation (26), pushed by Philip “toward the bed” in a protective gesture when the Loyalist soldier is shot in Philip’s room (33), eating breakfast in bed, reading in bed, lying in bed with Philip while she wears her new silver fox cape,<ref> Dorothy’s silver fox cape is a fictionalized version of Gellhorn’s own. Reynolds asserts that this cape was “a gift [to Gellhorn] from the Abraham Lincoln Brigade” (270), but he provides no note for his source. Lincoln Brigade veterans Milton Wolff (the Brigade’s last commander) and Mo Fishman independently told me in telephone interviews in May 2001 that they considered this claim unlikely given the extremely low pay of the Brigade soldiers, most of which was donated to build orphanages, and the relative infrequency of contact with Gellhorn and her circle. Moorehead notes that in Gellhorn’s first few weeks in Spain, she “went shopping with [fellow war correspondent] Virginia Cowles, . . . priced silver foxes and got desperately greedy wanting them” (''Gellhorn'' 119–20). In The Fifth Column, Hemingway represents Dorothy’s fur as the morally dubious Black Market purchase of a self-centered woman, and in the context of the play he indicts Gellhorn as well. However, the reality is more complicated. Moorehead notes that “often, [Hemingway and Gellhorn] walked together around Madrid, buying silver and jewelry ‘like specula- tors’” (''Gellhorn ''136), and Kert notes that Hemingway’s sidekick Sidney Franklin not only scrounged food for Hemingway but also “found bargains in furs and perfumes” (297). Hemingway must have found Gellhorn’s fur acceptable, indeed attractive, since she wore it when ac- companying him in 1937 to the Second Congress of American Writers, where he previewed The Spanish Earth, showing an excerpt from it, and gave his famous speech, “Fascism is a Lie”; Gellhorn gave a speech the following day. In a 1937 radio broadcast from Madrid to the United States, Gellhorn “stressed for her radio listeners the composure of Madrid’s population,” noting the irony that “while various staples were scarce, it was possible to purchase ‘furs, fine silk stockings, and beautiful clothes, French perfume, victrolas, wrist watches, and every imaginable luxury’” (Rollyson 115). In order to make such broadcasts, she was required to “dash across the road to the Telefonica, where Madrid’s only radio studio was based, at the moment of peak evening shelling” (Moorehead, ''Gellhorn'' 139). But despite her radio broadcasts and her journalism, she upbraided herself during this same period, “fretting about her own idleness, her visits to the dressmaker and furrier ‘Stupid day, stupid woman. I am wasting everything’” (Moorehead, ''Gellhorn'' 138) | ||
</ref> “asleep in bed” when Philip and Max discuss the initial failure of their counterespionage plan (55). Jeffrey Meyers de- {{pg|388|389}} scribes her with understandable hyperbole as “virtually narcoleptic” (318). The bed is Dorothy’s locus classicus, both defining and containing her. | |||
In the second scene of the play, Dorothy easily switches her sexual loyalties from Preston to Philip, thereby introducing the motifs of loyalty and betrayal that suffuse the play. These motifs are appropriate given the complex politics of the Spanish Civil War, but also the complicated personal situation of Hemingway, who was emotionally torn between his wife and his lover. In an unlikely judgment, the prostitute Anita criticizes Dorothy for “tak[ing] a man just like you pick a flowers [sic]” (43). Dorothy casually rejects Preston, who makes bad puns and takes cover during shelling, in favor of Philip, who does not take cover but otherwise seems Preston’s inferior. A war correspondent who spends his time drinking and carousing rather than writing, he is certainly “''livel''[''y'']” (5), as Dorothy notes with approval, but not productive. On the other hand, she scorns Preston’s productivity since “he never goes to the front . . . [but] just writes about it” (20)—a scruple that suggests her own ethics concerning war correspondence. Of course, Dorothy does not know that Philip is deadly serious, his carousing a cover for counterespionage activities at which he is extraordinarily successful. In company with Max, he overcomes a Nationalist command post, kills multiple soldiers, captures a general and a political leader, and gains information that ultimately results in the capture of three hundred Fifth Columnists in Madrid. Petra the hotel maid explains that the Fifth Column is “the people who fight us from inside the city” (46). This term gained its historical currency from Nationalist General Mola who, “when asked by a group of foreign journalists which of his four columns he expected would take Madrid . .. replied, in words repeated incessantly during the . . . years of treachery and espionage since that time, that it would be that ‘Fifth Column’ of secret Nationalist supporters within the city” (Thomas 317)—a term that Hemingway’s play popularized. General Mola’s words unleashed in Madrid and elsewhere a charged atmosphere of mistrust and paranoia, which promoted a civil war within the civil war, given the uneasy coalition of political parties that eventually composed the Republic’s Popular Front. | In the second scene of the play, Dorothy easily switches her sexual loyalties from Preston to Philip, thereby introducing the motifs of loyalty and betrayal that suffuse the play. These motifs are appropriate given the complex politics of the Spanish Civil War, but also the complicated personal situation of Hemingway, who was emotionally torn between his wife and his lover. In an unlikely judgment, the prostitute Anita criticizes Dorothy for “tak[ing] a man just like you pick a flowers [sic]” (43). Dorothy casually rejects Preston, who makes bad puns and takes cover during shelling, in favor of Philip, who does not take cover but otherwise seems Preston’s inferior. A war correspondent who spends his time drinking and carousing rather than writing, he is certainly “''livel''[''y'']” (5), as Dorothy notes with approval, but not productive. On the other hand, she scorns Preston’s productivity since “he never goes to the front . . . [but] just writes about it” (20)—a scruple that suggests her own ethics concerning war correspondence. Of course, Dorothy does not know that Philip is deadly serious, his carousing a cover for counterespionage activities at which he is extraordinarily successful. In company with Max, he overcomes a Nationalist command post, kills multiple soldiers, captures a general and a political leader, and gains information that ultimately results in the capture of three hundred Fifth Columnists in Madrid. Petra the hotel maid explains that the Fifth Column is “the people who fight us from inside the city” (46). This term gained its historical currency from Nationalist General Mola who, “when asked by a group of foreign journalists which of his four columns he expected would take Madrid . .. replied, in words repeated incessantly during the . . . years of treachery and espionage since that time, that it would be that ‘Fifth Column’ of secret Nationalist supporters within the city” (Thomas 317)—a term that Hemingway’s play popularized. General Mola’s words unleashed in Madrid and elsewhere a charged atmosphere of mistrust and paranoia, which promoted a civil war within the civil war, given the uneasy coalition of political parties that eventually composed the Republic’s Popular Front. | ||
That Philip, the seeming playboy-correspondent, is involved in something secret and serious is realized even by the idiot hotel manager, a point emphasized not in the 1937 Madrid typescript but in Hemingway’s 1938 Key West revision of the play. But dim Dorothy, who lives with Philip in adjoining rooms at the Hotel Florida, never suspects his other life, the resulting {{pg|389|390}} dramatic irony redounding always to Philip’s credit. Philip’s apologia for loving Dorothy sounds instead like an indictment: “Granted she’s lazy and spoiled, and rather stupid, and enormously on the make. Still she’s very beautiful, very friendly, and very charming and rather innocent—and quite brave” (44). While Dorothy is here damned by faint praise, Philip’s description calls his own values into question. Philip loves her because of her superficial qualities, only his appreciation of her bravery hinting at something deeper. In this sense, they are well matched, each largely drawn to the other because of physical size and sexual appeal. Dorothy is referred to as “that great big blonde” (41), and she is attracted by Philip’s sexual prowess,< | That Philip, the seeming playboy-correspondent, is involved in something secret and serious is realized even by the idiot hotel manager, a point emphasized not in the 1937 Madrid typescript but in Hemingway’s 1938 Key West revision of the play. But dim Dorothy, who lives with Philip in adjoining rooms at the Hotel Florida, never suspects his other life, the resulting {{pg|389|390}} dramatic irony redounding always to Philip’s credit. Philip’s apologia for loving Dorothy sounds instead like an indictment: “Granted she’s lazy and spoiled, and rather stupid, and enormously on the make. Still she’s very beautiful, very friendly, and very charming and rather innocent—and quite brave” (44). While Dorothy is here damned by faint praise, Philip’s description calls his own values into question. Philip loves her because of her superficial qualities, only his appreciation of her bravery hinting at something deeper. In this sense, they are well matched, each largely drawn to the other because of physical size and sexual appeal. Dorothy is referred to as “that great big blonde” (41), and she is attracted by Philip’s sexual prowess,<ref>Hemingway here engages in an ego-bolstering move, since Gellhorn “did not find [Hemingway] physically attractive” and sex with Hemingway “was never very good” (Moorehead, ''Gellhorn'' 114, 135). Moorehead notes that Gellhorn “told a friend [in a 1950 letter], [that] all through the months in Spain she went to bed with Hemingway ‘as little as she could manage’: My ‘whole memory of sex with Ernest is the invention of excuses and failing that, the hope it would soon be over’” (''Gellhorn'' 135–36). </ref> noting that “he made me happier than anyone has ever made me” (47). When he throws her over, asserting, “You’re uneducated, you’re useless, you’re a fool and you’re lazy,” she responds, “Maybe the others. But I’m not useless” (83). She here indirectly refers to her sexual utility, which Philip identifies as “a commodity you shouldn’t pay too high a price for” (83). Hurt and angry, Dorothy retaliates by asking Philip, “Did it ever occur to you that you’re a commodity, too? A commodity one shouldn’t pay too high a price for” (84). Philip is amused, never having had to think of himself as a sexual object, indeed a whore (“commodity” an economic term saturated with Marxist significance). But Dorothy does not have the luxury of Philip’s laughter. She is psychologically vulnerable to the charge, for “women who push the boundaries of gender are censured for such behaviors” in gender- specific ways (Herbert 2). Just as the ''milicianas'' were figured forth as whores to discourage their presence at the front lines and to render them a familiar female type if they stayed, so too is Dorothy when she will neither leave the war front for the home front nor deny the interrelationship of war front and home front that she herself has created and represents. | ||
The correlation between Dorothy and the whore would thus seem to be historically inevitable, a correlation that develops from the play’s very first short scene, which exists solely to provide a gloss on the play. A whore sees the sign on the door to Dorothy’s room: “Working. Do Not Disturb” (3). When she asks her soldier-customer to read it to her, he responds with contempt: “So that’s what I’d draw. A literary one. The hell with it” (3). She responds—to the sign? to his contempt?—with “a dry high, hard laugh,” asserting, “I’ll get me a sign like that too” (3). The stage goes dark and the scene ends, these allegorical characters disappearing forever, having provided their implicit commentary on all that follows. {{pg|390|391}} | The correlation between Dorothy and the whore would thus seem to be historically inevitable, a correlation that develops from the play’s very first short scene, which exists solely to provide a gloss on the play. A whore sees the sign on the door to Dorothy’s room: “Working. Do Not Disturb” (3). When she asks her soldier-customer to read it to her, he responds with contempt: “So that’s what I’d draw. A literary one. The hell with it” (3). She responds—to the sign? to his contempt?—with “a dry high, hard laugh,” asserting, “I’ll get me a sign like that too” (3). The stage goes dark and the scene ends, these allegorical characters disappearing forever, having provided their implicit commentary on all that follows. {{pg|390|391}} | ||
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But just as Dorothy does not catch on to Philip’s secret life, perhaps neither does Philip catch on to Dorothy’s. Though she is never represented as writing, only once sitting down at her typewriter and then only for a moment (as though to emphasize her disengagement from it), she somehow writes three articles during the play’s time period, not merely the one article whose potential completion Preston doubts, saying, “You never do work anyway” (10). Philip shares this judgment, labeling her “lazy” (83). In the final scene of the play she is presented in the stage directions as returning “home” (81) to her room at the Hotel Florida—but from where? Her activ- {{pg|391|392}} ities outside the confines of her room, if occasionally referenced, are never dramatized like Philip’s. | But just as Dorothy does not catch on to Philip’s secret life, perhaps neither does Philip catch on to Dorothy’s. Though she is never represented as writing, only once sitting down at her typewriter and then only for a moment (as though to emphasize her disengagement from it), she somehow writes three articles during the play’s time period, not merely the one article whose potential completion Preston doubts, saying, “You never do work anyway” (10). Philip shares this judgment, labeling her “lazy” (83). In the final scene of the play she is presented in the stage directions as returning “home” (81) to her room at the Hotel Florida—but from where? Her activ- {{pg|391|392}} ities outside the confines of her room, if occasionally referenced, are never dramatized like Philip’s. | ||
Yet Dorothy clearly goes out on her own in besieged Madrid when no one (neither the playwright, nor the other characters, nor the audience) is “watching,” and her criticism of Preston for writing articles without visiting the battle front suggests one of her probable destinations. She tells Philip at one point,“You know I’m not as silly as I sound, or I wouldn’t be here”(57)— a claim that Philip himself could have made yet to which he does not react. Just as his career requires him to act silly, so too perhaps does hers, for it cannot have been easy to be one of only a few female correspondents in the male realm of war. Indeed, Philip’s cynical comments and bored manner find their corollary in Dorothy’s Vassar idiom and equally bored manner. Just as Philip’s manner masks his deadly seriousness as a counterespionage agent, so may Dorothy’s manner mask her own seriousness as a war correspondent. | Yet Dorothy clearly goes out on her own in besieged Madrid when no one (neither the playwright, nor the other characters, nor the audience) is “watching,” and her criticism of Preston for writing articles without visiting the battle front suggests one of her probable destinations. She tells Philip at one point, “You know I’m not as silly as I sound, or I wouldn’t be here”(57)— a claim that Philip himself could have made yet to which he does not react. Just as his career requires him to act silly, so too perhaps does hers, for it cannot have been easy to be one of only a few female correspondents in the male realm of war. Indeed, Philip’s cynical comments and bored manner find their corollary in Dorothy’s Vassar idiom and equally bored manner. Just as Philip’s manner masks his deadly seriousness as a counterespionage agent, so may Dorothy’s manner mask her own seriousness as a war correspondent.<ref>For perhaps the only other interpretation that takes Dorothy seriously, offering a subtextual reading, see Nakjavani. His argument differs from mine, however, insofar as he focuses narrowly on ideology and politics, associating Dorothy with ideology (a positive value in Nakjavani’s argument) and Max with politics (a negative value).</ref> Though she earlier claimed that she didn’t “understand anything that is happening here,” she follows up by commenting, “I understand a little bit about University City, but not too much. The Casa del Campo is a complete puzzle to me. And Usera—and Carabanchel. They’re dreadful”(5). She cites four critical locations, neighborhoods and suburbs of Madrid where the Nationalist enemy had been dug in since November 1936, sites of horrific battles between Republican militias (soon supported by the International Brigades) and the Nationalist Army that determined whether Madrid would stand or fall. Madrid suffered mightily, but La Pasionaria’s cry "No Pasarán”—“They shall not pass”—became the city’s watchword. For the rest of the war, the Nationalists maintained their positions on the outskirts of Madrid, shelling the city and inhibiting the movement of supplies, while Madrid held fast despite terrible punishment until the very end. It was a “City of Anguish” as Edwin Rolfe titled one of his Spanish Civil War poems. These battle sites were indeed “dreadful,” as Dorothy asserts in her understated idiom (and as Robert Jordan recollects in ''For Whom the Bell Tolls'', having fought at Usera and Carabanchel himself). And she keeps her promise to write “just as soon as [she] understand[s] things the least bit better” (10). | ||
Employing understatement like Philip’s own, Dorothy later comments to Philip in passing, “I work when you’re not around,” a claim that Philip could also make (57). Yet Philip has a history on which to draw to enact his role successfully, whereas Dorothy must create a new role without history’s support, {{pg|392|393}} rendering her circumspect as she defines this identity. Nancy Sorel notes of the women war correspondents who reported World War II—“fewer than a hundred in all” (xili)—that “every women felt vulnerable in regard to her professional status,” whether because of “discriminatory treatment by generals,” “denigrating remarks from hostile male reporters,” or unwanted romantic or sexual advances (xiv). Dorothy disguises her vulnerability at enacting her new role as war correspondent just as Philip does at enacting his role as counterespionage agent. But Dorothy has no one to talk to about her secret life, while Philip has Max, to whom he confides his doubts and fears, and even the hotel manager, to whom he confides information in a code they both understand. As Pilar tells Robert Jordan in ''For Whom the Bell Tolls'', “Everyone needs to talk to someone. Now for every one there should be some one to whom one can speak frankly, for all the valor one could have one becomes very alone”(89). And secretly valorous Dorothy is in this regard far more alone than Philip. | Employing understatement like Philip’s own, Dorothy later comments to Philip in passing, “I work when you’re not around,” a claim that Philip could also make (57). Yet Philip has a history on which to draw to enact his role successfully, whereas Dorothy must create a new role without history’s support, {{pg|392|393}} rendering her circumspect as she defines this identity. Nancy Sorel notes of the women war correspondents who reported World War II—“fewer than a hundred in all” (xili)—that “every women felt vulnerable in regard to her professional status,” whether because of “discriminatory treatment by generals,” “denigrating remarks from hostile male reporters,” or unwanted romantic or sexual advances (xiv). Dorothy disguises her vulnerability at enacting her new role as war correspondent just as Philip does at enacting his role as counterespionage agent. But Dorothy has no one to talk to about her secret life, while Philip has Max, to whom he confides his doubts and fears, and even the hotel manager, to whom he confides information in a code they both understand. As Pilar tells Robert Jordan in ''For Whom the Bell Tolls'', “Everyone needs to talk to someone. Now for every one there should be some one to whom one can speak frankly, for all the valor one could have one becomes very alone”(89). And secretly valorous Dorothy is in this regard far more alone than Philip. | ||
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Yet once Gellhorn and Hemingway were able to live together outside the war zone (even before his divorce was finalized), Hemingway resented Gellhorn’s continuing career as war correspondent because it resulted in what he viewed as her abandonment of him—for example, when she left him in 1939 at Sun Valley in order to cover the Russo-Finnish War. In effect, she thereby {{pg|394|395}} relegated him to the role of home-front wife. Having experienced that role long before during World War I, he must have feared being jilted again as Agnes had jilted him when he returned to the home front of Oak Park while she remained in Italy, and as he had recently jilted Pauline, who had begged to accompany him to Spain but whom he had insisted remain on the home front in Key West. | Yet once Gellhorn and Hemingway were able to live together outside the war zone (even before his divorce was finalized), Hemingway resented Gellhorn’s continuing career as war correspondent because it resulted in what he viewed as her abandonment of him—for example, when she left him in 1939 at Sun Valley in order to cover the Russo-Finnish War. In effect, she thereby {{pg|394|395}} relegated him to the role of home-front wife. Having experienced that role long before during World War I, he must have feared being jilted again as Agnes had jilted him when he returned to the home front of Oak Park while she remained in Italy, and as he had recently jilted Pauline, who had begged to accompany him to Spain but whom he had insisted remain on the home front in Key West. | ||
Hemingway hoped to keep Gellhorn “away from war, pestilence, carnage and adventure” (''Letters'' 511). Nevertheless, shortly after their 1941 marriage she persuaded him to accompany her as a fellow war correspondent to the Far East (thereby reversing the power-relationship that had obtained between them in Spain), where she was to report for ''Collier’s'' on the China-Japan War as well as the defense of Hong Kong, Singapore, and the Dutch East Indies. Though Gellhorn tolerated the difficulties of this trip less well than did Hemingway, that did not quench her thirst for such assignments. While Hemingway remained at the Finca Vigía on the home front of Cuba, she traveled the Caribbean on assignment for ''Collier’s'' in 1942, investigating the impact of submarine warfare on the islands; the lack of action perhaps caused her to underestimate Hemingway’s own later submarine-hunting activities off Cuba and Bimini. | Hemingway hoped to keep Gellhorn “away from war, pestilence, carnage and adventure” (''Letters'' 511). Nevertheless, shortly after their 1941 marriage she persuaded him to accompany her as a fellow war correspondent to the Far East (thereby reversing the power-relationship that had obtained between them in Spain), where she was to report for ''Collier’s'' on the China-Japan War as well as the defense of Hong Kong, Singapore, and the Dutch East Indies. Though Gellhorn tolerated the difficulties of this trip less well than did Hemingway, that did not quench her thirst for such assignments. While Hemingway remained at the Finca Vigía on the home front of Cuba, she traveled the Caribbean on assignment for ''Collier’s'' in 1942, investigating the impact of submarine warfare on the islands; the lack of action perhaps caused her to underestimate Hemingway’s own later submarine-hunting activities off Cuba and Bimini.<ref>For Gellhorn’s description of her trip to the Far East with Hemingway, see her ''Travels'' 19–63; for her description of her Caribbean trip, see her ''Travels'' 64–108.</ref> | ||
When she left Hemingway in Cuba for the European theater of World War II in 1943, she begged him repeatedly to accompany her or to join her there, as in this letter of 9 December 1943: “I so wish you would come. I think it’s so vital for you to see everything; it’s as if it wouldn’t be entirely seen if you didn’t” (''Letters'' 156). The insistent tone of her letters reveals her desperate desire to recapture their best time together—in Spain, at the Hotel Florida, both comrades, both dedicated to the same cause, both writing. | When she left Hemingway in Cuba for the European theater of World War II in 1943, she begged him repeatedly to accompany her or to join her there, as in this letter of 9 December 1943: “I so wish you would come. I think it’s so vital for you to see everything; it’s as if it wouldn’t be entirely seen if you didn’t” (''Letters'' 156). The insistent tone of her letters reveals her desperate desire to recapture their best time together—in Spain, at the Hotel Florida, both comrades, both dedicated to the same cause, both writing. | ||
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In ''The Fifth Column'', Hemingway also portrays what he called “the great unending battle between men and women” (Baker 481-82), though he plays it for tragedy rather than comedy. His biting portrait of Dorothy Bridges, Philip Rawlings’ potential wife, provided a cautionary example that Hemingway proceeded to ignore, as so many critics have pointed out, and as Philip seems to know when he famously confesses, “I’m afraid that’s the whole trouble. I want to make an absolutely colossal mistake” (42). But in order to render evident this colossal mistake, which Philip actually avoids, {{pg|400|401}} Hemingway is reduced to caricaturing Martha in the role of Dorothy—in point of fact, underplaying those characteristics that he found most attractive in Martha and also most disconcerting. But the play didn’t work, critics citing most often as its primary flaw the unbelievable characterization of Dorothy. And so he easily ignored his own warning, as Martha also apparently did, though her fictional counterpart quite rightly says of Philip, “You’re a very serious problem for any woman” (24). These two willful, talented, independent people came together in the heat of battle, then waged their own personal war, from which Martha emerged an accomplished war correspondent and Hemingway emerged as husband to a woman whom he had persuaded to abandon war correspondence—not a pocket Reubens, as he affectionately termed her, but a pocket female war correspondent whom he packed up for the home front once he decided he wanted to leave the war behind. But given the modernist merging of home front and war front, Hemingway should not have been surprised to discover that in moving Mary into Martha’s room at the Finca Vigía, he had not emerged as victor in the war between the sexes but had merely shifted the battlelines. | In ''The Fifth Column'', Hemingway also portrays what he called “the great unending battle between men and women” (Baker 481-82), though he plays it for tragedy rather than comedy. His biting portrait of Dorothy Bridges, Philip Rawlings’ potential wife, provided a cautionary example that Hemingway proceeded to ignore, as so many critics have pointed out, and as Philip seems to know when he famously confesses, “I’m afraid that’s the whole trouble. I want to make an absolutely colossal mistake” (42). But in order to render evident this colossal mistake, which Philip actually avoids, {{pg|400|401}} Hemingway is reduced to caricaturing Martha in the role of Dorothy—in point of fact, underplaying those characteristics that he found most attractive in Martha and also most disconcerting. But the play didn’t work, critics citing most often as its primary flaw the unbelievable characterization of Dorothy. And so he easily ignored his own warning, as Martha also apparently did, though her fictional counterpart quite rightly says of Philip, “You’re a very serious problem for any woman” (24). These two willful, talented, independent people came together in the heat of battle, then waged their own personal war, from which Martha emerged an accomplished war correspondent and Hemingway emerged as husband to a woman whom he had persuaded to abandon war correspondence—not a pocket Reubens, as he affectionately termed her, but a pocket female war correspondent whom he packed up for the home front once he decided he wanted to leave the war behind. But given the modernist merging of home front and war front, Hemingway should not have been surprised to discover that in moving Mary into Martha’s room at the Finca Vigía, he had not emerged as victor in the war between the sexes but had merely shifted the battlelines. | ||
<center>NOTES</center> | |||
{{reflist}} | {{reflist}} | ||