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
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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.”{{sfn|Hemingway|1981|p=511}}''Letters'' 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.{{efn|For Gellhorn’s description of her trip to the Far East with Hemingway, see her; {{harvtxt|Gellhorn|1978|pp=19–63}}''Travels'' for her description of her Caribbean trip, see her {{harvtxt|Gellhorn|1978|pp=19–64 | Hemingway hoped to keep Gellhorn “away from war, pestilence, carnage and adventure.”{{sfn|Hemingway|1981|p=511}}''Letters'' 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.{{efn|For Gellhorn’s description of her trip to the Far East with Hemingway, see her; {{harvtxt|Gellhorn|1978|pp=19–63}}''Travels'' for her description of her Caribbean trip, see her {{harvtxt|Gellhorn|1978|pp=19–64, 68}}''Travels''.}} | ||
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."{{sfn|Hemingway|1981|p=156}}''Letters'' 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."{{sfn|Hemingway|1981|p=156}}''Letters'' 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. | ||