The Mailer Review/Volume 5, 2011/Hemingway and Women at the Front: Blowing Bridges in The Fifth Column, For Whom the Bell Tolls, and Other Works: Difference between revisions
LogansPop22 (talk | contribs) Edited citation Tags: Mobile edit Mobile web edit |
LogansPop22 (talk | contribs) Edited citation Tags: Mobile edit Mobile web edit |
||
| (One intermediate revision by the same user not shown) | |||
| Line 145: | Line 145: | ||
Hemingway wrote a self-justifying letter to his adolescent son Patrick, explaining the breakdown of his marriage to Gellhorn while also preparing Patrick for his new relationship with Mary Welsh: “We want some straight work, not be alone and not have to go to war to see one’s wife and then have wife want to be in different war theatre in order that stories not compete. Going to get me somebody who wants to stick around with me and let me be the writer of the family.”{{sfn|Hemingway|1981|p=576}} He wrote similarly to his eldest son John, “[I] would swap her for two non beautiful [sic] wives I might occasionally have the opportunity to go to bed with.”{{sfn|Morehead|2003|p=228}} While Hemingway had gone to war to see his lover quite willingly, the change in Gellhorn’s identity from lover to wife was a sea-change that Hemingway could not get past because, by definition, wives were for the home front. Husbands might go to war as an act of self-realization, but wives should not, as he made very sure Mary understood. In his 1950 novel ''Across the River and into the Trees'', he provides a thinly veiled attack on Martha that doubles as a warning to Mary: “You mean she went away, from ambition, when you only were away from duty,” Renata says to Colonel Cantwell about his former wife, adding, “You couldn’t have married a woman journalist that kept on being that.”{{sfn|Hemingway|1978|p=212}} | Hemingway wrote a self-justifying letter to his adolescent son Patrick, explaining the breakdown of his marriage to Gellhorn while also preparing Patrick for his new relationship with Mary Welsh: “We want some straight work, not be alone and not have to go to war to see one’s wife and then have wife want to be in different war theatre in order that stories not compete. Going to get me somebody who wants to stick around with me and let me be the writer of the family.”{{sfn|Hemingway|1981|p=576}} He wrote similarly to his eldest son John, “[I] would swap her for two non beautiful [sic] wives I might occasionally have the opportunity to go to bed with.”{{sfn|Morehead|2003|p=228}} While Hemingway had gone to war to see his lover quite willingly, the change in Gellhorn’s identity from lover to wife was a sea-change that Hemingway could not get past because, by definition, wives were for the home front. Husbands might go to war as an act of self-realization, but wives should not, as he made very sure Mary understood. In his 1950 novel ''Across the River and into the Trees'', he provides a thinly veiled attack on Martha that doubles as a warning to Mary: “You mean she went away, from ambition, when you only were away from duty,” Renata says to Colonel Cantwell about his former wife, adding, “You couldn’t have married a woman journalist that kept on being that.”{{sfn|Hemingway|1978|p=212}} | ||
Martha Gellhorn came to recognize the dilemma that inevitably resulted when modern men were attracted to modern women for qualities that they {{pg|397|398}} would abjure in a wife, playing it for comedy in the 1945 play she and Virginia Cowles wrote, ''Love Goes to Press'' (originally titled ''Men Must Weep'' and then, with wonderful ambiguity, ''Take My Love Away''). The two female protagonists, Annabelle Jones (based on Gellhorn) and Jane Mason (based on Cowles), are successful war correspondents who report from the front lines of World War II, when “any decent woman would stay at home” according to Philip, the British Public Relations Officer and Jane’s love interest.{{sfn|Gellhorn|Cowles| | Martha Gellhorn came to recognize the dilemma that inevitably resulted when modern men were attracted to modern women for qualities that they {{pg|397|398}} would abjure in a wife, playing it for comedy in the 1945 play she and Virginia Cowles wrote, ''Love Goes to Press'' (originally titled ''Men Must Weep'' and then, with wonderful ambiguity, ''Take My Love Away''). The two female protagonists, Annabelle Jones (based on Gellhorn) and Jane Mason (based on Cowles), are successful war correspondents who report from the front lines of World War II, when “any decent woman would stay at home” according to Philip, the British Public Relations Officer and Jane’s love interest.{{sfn|Gellhorn|Cowles|1995a|p=10}} Joe Rogers, war correspondent and Annabelle’s ex-husband, “says war’s no place for a woman” according to his new fiancée, actress Daphne Rutherford.{{sfn|Gellhorn|Cowles|1995a|p=14}} She is entertaining the troops rather nearer to the front line than she had expected, and he promises to “bundle [her] up and send [her] straight off to America where it’s safe.”{{sfn|Gellhorn|Cowles|1995a|p=14}} | ||
While the male correspondents are satisfied to rewrite military communiques, Annabelle and Jane show remarkable ingenuity in finding ways to get to the front so as to report the action firsthand. However, their efforts are denigrated, Joe Rogers repeatedly complaining, to the widespread agreement of the other men, that they “run this lousy war on sex-appeal.”{{sfn|Gellhorn|Cowles| | While the male correspondents are satisfied to rewrite military communiques, Annabelle and Jane show remarkable ingenuity in finding ways to get to the front so as to report the action firsthand. However, their efforts are denigrated, Joe Rogers repeatedly complaining, to the widespread agreement of the other men, that they “run this lousy war on sex-appeal.”{{sfn|Gellhorn|Cowles|1995a|p=45, 49}} As Sandra Spanier notes in her Afterword to the play: | ||
<blockquote> The fact is, of course, that being female is a definite occupational handicap for a war correspondent, and both Jane and Annabelle know it. But because their womanhood is something that they have never been allowed to forget, they have great fun flaunting it. With a perfect understanding of the currency of power, they turn a handicap to their own advantage in repeated acts of subversion that the authors exploit to comic effect.{{sfn| | <blockquote> The fact is, of course, that being female is a definite occupational handicap for a war correspondent, and both Jane and Annabelle know it. But because their womanhood is something that they have never been allowed to forget, they have great fun flaunting it. With a perfect understanding of the currency of power, they turn a handicap to their own advantage in repeated acts of subversion that the authors exploit to comic effect.{{sfn|Gellhorn|Cowles|1995b|pp=82-83}} </blockquote> | ||
In considering the likely outbreak of World War II, Gellhorn had noted of her own plan to once again take up the profession of war correspondence, “It is going to be a serious drawback to be a woman, it always has been but probably worse now than ever.”{{sfn|Hemingway|1981|p=90}} | In considering the likely outbreak of World War II, Gellhorn had noted of her own plan to once again take up the profession of war correspondence, “It is going to be a serious drawback to be a woman, it always has been but probably worse now than ever.”{{sfn|Hemingway|1981|p=90}} | ||
Jane and Annabelle find it a minor irritant that everyone assumes they must inevitably be nurses. “No, I’m not a nurse,” Jane patiently repeats.{{sfn|Gellhorn|Cowles| | Jane and Annabelle find it a minor irritant that everyone assumes they must inevitably be nurses. “No, I’m not a nurse,” Jane patiently repeats.{{sfn|Gellhorn|Cowles|1995a|p=16}} But this correction implies criticism of the stereotype alone, not the role itself. Indeed, Jane forgoes a scoop in order to render medical aid to a wounded officer on the battlefield, just as Gellhorn helped the medical staff with the wounded on the hospital transport ship where she had stowed away {{pg|398|399}} in the toilet so as to get to Normandy to report on the D-Day landing. Even the “repugnant” Daphne is recuperated.{{sfn|Gellhorn|Cowles|1995a|p=36}} When Philip criticizes Daphne because “all she can think about is her dreadful career,” Jane responds with exquisite irony that “it isn’t the career that’s silly,” and she notes with admiration that Daphne “certainly knows what she wants.”{{sfn|Gellhorn|Cowles|1995a|p=63}} | ||
Jane briefly thinks that what she herself wants is marriage to Philip, who suddenly expresses admiration for her independence and professionalism as a war correspondent. But soon he says, “I can’t have you going to the front any more. . . [because] you’re mine now.”{{sfn|Gellhorn|Cowles| | Jane briefly thinks that what she herself wants is marriage to Philip, who suddenly expresses admiration for her independence and professionalism as a war correspondent. But soon he says, “I can’t have you going to the front any more. . . [because] you’re mine now.”{{sfn|Gellhorn|Cowles|1995a|p=60}} He sabotages her work by arranging for her to sleep through an attack she is to report, and he makes plans to send her to his family home in England. This last is too much for Jane. She is appalled by his description of the life his mother and sister lead there—notably, not because she finds it trivial, but rather because the riding and hunting, the bee-keeping and cow-tending, the war committees and the uniformed “land army” all require a different sort of courage and a different set of talents than she possesses.{{sfn|Gellhorn|Cowles|1995a|p=76}} She is horrified to discover, for example, that there are no “field dressing station[s]” at fox hunts, and she bewails the fact that “there’s no one to pick up the wounded.”{{sfn|Gellhorn|Cowles|1995a|p=69, 64}} Imagining a future where she will be “kicked by horses and stung by bees and finally die of mastitis from a cow,” she envies Annabelle whom she envisions “in a lovely dry dug-out somewhere.”{{sfn|Gellhorn|Cowles|1995a|p=73, 69}} Jane changes her mind about marrying Philip and lights out for the territory—to Burma, in fact, with Annabelle, to report on the war front there. | ||
Annabelle does indeed plan to continue her war correspondence, but she hopes to do so with Joe Rogers, who has proclaimed not only his continuing love for her but also a new attitude of respect for her work: “No other girl would have dared to fly that mission You’re everything. You’re pretty and funny and brave. I think being so brave is one of the things I’m proudest of.”{{sfn|Gellhorn|Cowles| | Annabelle does indeed plan to continue her war correspondence, but she hopes to do so with Joe Rogers, who has proclaimed not only his continuing love for her but also a new attitude of respect for her work: “No other girl would have dared to fly that mission You’re everything. You’re pretty and funny and brave. I think being so brave is one of the things I’m proudest of.”{{sfn|Gellhorn|Cowles|1995a|p=67}} He promises never again to steal her stories as he did during their brief marriage. “He said he did it because he loved me so much he couldn’t bear to have me in danger,” Annabelle tells Jane, but “it turned out he married me to silence the opposition.”{{sfn|Gellhorn|Cowles|1995a|p=19}} Joe now asserts, “Nothing means anything without you,” and he promises never to interfere in her work again.{{sfn|Gellhorn|Cowles|1995a|p=67}} Annabelle imagines a future with this “beautiful, funny, fascinating man” in which they will cover wars together in happy comradeship,{{sfn|Gellhorn|Cowles|1995a|p=20}} having learned that marriage is “too dangerous” and that “you risk ruining everything with marriage.”{{sfn|Gellhorn|Cowles|1995a|p=69}} But Annabelle discovers that Joe has not {{pg|399|400}} changed when he steals her trip to Poland. The theft is bad enough, but his condescending explanation is still more infuriating: “Hawkins sent for you, but it’s too dangerous. I love you too much. It doesn’t matter for a man. P.S. Back tomorrow.”{{sfn|Gellhorn|Cowles|1995a|p=73}} Annabelle’s earlier comment, “If there’s anything I really loathe, it’s a woman protector,” resonates for she senses personal motivations beneath this seemingly generous sentiment.{{sfn|Gellhorn|Cowles|1995a|p=25}} Moreover, the same sentiment is expressed by Philip, as one of the male correspondents tells her: “You’ve got to be more tolerant, Annabelle. The poor guy’s been away from England for three years, fighting to protect womankind from the horrors of war. And then the womankind walks in on him. He might as well have spared himself the trouble. You can see it would upset him for a while.”{{sfn|Gellhorn|Cowles|1995a|p=25}} | ||
Annabelle is terribly hurt by Joe’s betrayal, but she vows not “to let any worthless man ruin [her] job,”{{sfn|Gellhorn|Cowles| | Annabelle is terribly hurt by Joe’s betrayal, but she vows not “to let any worthless man ruin [her] job,”{{sfn|Gellhorn|Cowles|1995a|p=74}} and she is cheered at the prospect of covering the war in Burma: “It sounds too terrible. Those poor men, and no one to tell what they’re doing. Forgotten Army. How dare people treat them like that”{{sfn|Gellhorn|Cowles|1995a|p=75}} Annabelle proves herself “still out to save the world,” as Jane had earlier described her, claiming, “We have to write, Jane. The people who fight can’t. It’s our job. Our duty, really.”{{sfn|Gellhorn|Cowles|1995a|pp=19, 18}} So Annabelle and Jane go off to yet another war front, finding it “lovely to be at the same war” but regretting that the men they love cannot somehow tolerate sharing the ex- perience with them.{{sfn|Gellhorn|Cowles|1995a|p=23}} Hemingway’s Philip Rawlings had criticized Dorothy, saying that “the first thing an American woman does is try to get the man she’s interested in to give up something,”{{sfn|Gellhorn|Cowles|1995a|p=24}} but in ''Love Goes to Press'' it is the men who try to change the women. As Sandra Spanier notes in her Afterword, ''"Love Goes to Press'' portrays men and women in love and at war from a distinctly female point of view, a lens through which we rarely have had the opportunity in American literature to view any war. And in this wartime drama, the European Theater of Operations is literally that— the stage set for the main action: the War between the Sexes.”{{sfn|Gellhorn|Cowles|1995b|p=82}} | ||
In ''The Fifth Column'', Hemingway also portrays what he called “the great unending battle between men and women,”{{sfn|Baker|1969|pp=481-482}} 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.”{{sfn|Hemingway|1969b|p=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.”{{sfn|Hemingway|1969b|p=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,”{{sfn|Baker|1969|pp=481-482}} 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.”{{sfn|Hemingway|1969b|p=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.”{{sfn|Hemingway|1969b|p=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. | ||