User:JBrown/sandbox: Difference between revisions

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Consider “The Light of the World” (1933), in which the teenage narrator and his friend, Tom, encounter a motley crew of late-night travelers at a rail-way station: “five whores . . . and six white men and four Indians” (Hemingway, ''Short Stories'' 385). Among the prostitutes are two “big” women, Alice and Peroxide, who argue about who really knew “Steve” or “Stanley” Ketchel (they also can’t agree on the first name). The cook remembers Stanley Ketchel’s 1909 fight with Jack Johnson, in particular how Ketchel had floored Johnson in the 12th round just before Johnson knocked him out. Peroxide attributes Ketchel’s defeat to a punch by Johnson (“the big black bastard” (389)) when Ketchel, “the only man she ever loved” (388), smiled at her in the audience. Alice remembers Steve Ketchel telling her she was “a lovely piece” (390). Both women refer continuously to Ketchel’s “whiteness”—“I never saw a man as clean and as white and as beautiful,” says Peroxide (388). “White,” as Walter Benn Michaels notes, “becomes an adjective describing character instead of skin” (“The Souls” 193); and so, Ketchel is figured as a kind of Christ-like figure, while Johnson, “that black son of a bitch from hell” (Hemingway,“The Light” 389), is the devil.

Ketchel’s pseudo-divinity is further suggested by such statements as “I loved him like you love God”; “His own father shot and killed him. Yes, by Christ, his own father” (388); and, of course, the title. Philip Young points out that Hemingway placed this story after “the most pessimistic of all his stories,” “A Clean, Well-Lighted Place,” in Winner Take Nothing, “as if the point of the story is really that the light of the world has gone out” (50).

But there seems to be more going on under the surface of this particular iceberg. First, the confusion of names and facts is important. Stanley Ketchel was not killed by his father—that was Steve Ketchel, a lightweight boxer, who never got near Johnson. Stanley was shot in 1910 by the husband of a woman with whom he was having an affair. Second, of all boxers, Stanley Ketchel was perhaps the most unlikely possible candidate for Redeemer. His nickname was the “Michigan Assassin,” and, according to one reporter, “he couldn’t get ''enough'' blood” (Roberts 82). While the prostitutes may be seeking salvation, the story that they tell is absurd. So what is going on? Howard Hannum argues that much of the dialogue between the two women “has the quality of counterpunching,” as if they are restaging Ketchel’s contest against Johnson: here, the (bleached) blonde versus the heavyweight (325). But the cook’s role also needs to be considered. The discussion of whiteness begins when the narrator notices a “white man” speaking; “his face was white and his hands were white and thin” (Hemingway, “The Light” 385). The other men tease the cook about the whiteness of his hands (“he puts lemon juice on his hands” (386)) and hint that he is gay. Are these two things connected? And, if they are, what does that suggest about clean, white, beautiful Ketchel? When asked his age, Tom joins in the sexual bantering with hints at “inversion”—“I’m ninety-six and he’s sixty-nine” (387)—but throughout the boys remain uneasy and confused. By the end of the story, the narrator seems quite smitten with Alice (“she had the prettiest face I ever saw” (391)). Tom notices this and says it is time to leave. The supposedly natural order of whites beating blacks, men having sex with women, and “huge” whores being unappealing has been unsettled (386). When the cook asks where the boys are going, Tom replies, “the other way from you” (391).

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 Consider “The Light of the World” (1933), in which the teenage narrator and his friend, Tom, encounter a motley crew of late-night travelers at a rail-way station: “five whores . . . and six white men and four Indians” (Hemingway, ''Short Stories'' 385). Among the prostitutes are two “big” women, Alice and Peroxide, who argue about who really knew “Steve” or “Stanley” Ketchel (they also can’t agree on the first name). The cook remembers Stanley Ketchel’s 1909 fight with Jack Johnson, in particular how Ketchel had floored Johnson in the 12th round just before Johnson knocked him out. Peroxide attributes Ketchel’s defeat to a punch by Johnson (“the big black bastard” (389)) when Ketchel, “the only man she ever loved” (388), smiled at her in the audience. Alice remembers Steve Ketchel telling her she was “a lovely piece” (390). Both women refer continuously to Ketchel’s “whiteness”—“I never saw a man as clean and as white and as beautiful,” says Peroxide (388). “White,” as Walter Benn Michaels notes, “becomes an adjective describing character instead of skin” (“The Souls” 193); and so, Ketchel is figured as a kind of Christ-like figure, while Johnson, “that black son of a bitch from hell” (Hemingway,“The Light” 389), is the devil.
+Ketchel’s pseudo-divinity is further suggested by such statements as “I loved him like you love God”; “His own father shot and killed him. Yes, by Christ, his own father” (388); and, of course, the title. Philip Young points out that Hemingway placed this story after “the most pessimistic of all his stories,” “A Clean, Well-Lighted Place,” in Winner Take Nothing, “as if the point of the story is really that the light of the world has gone out” (50).
+But there seems to be more going on under the surface of this particular iceberg. First, the confusion of names and facts is important. Stanley Ketchel was not killed by his father—that was Steve Ketchel, a lightweight boxer, who never got near Johnson. Stanley was shot in 1910 by the husband of a woman with whom he was having an affair. Second, of all boxers, Stanley Ketchel was perhaps the most unlikely possible candidate for Redeemer. His nickname was the “Michigan Assassin,” and, according to one reporter, “he couldn’t get ''enough'' blood” (Roberts 82). While the prostitutes may be seeking salvation, the story that they tell is absurd. So what is going on? Howard Hannum argues that much of the dialogue between the two women “has the quality of counterpunching,” as if they are restaging Ketchel’s contest against Johnson: here, the (bleached) blonde versus the heavyweight (325). But the cook’s role also needs to be considered. The discussion of whiteness begins when the narrator notices a “white man” speaking; “his face was white and his hands were white and thin” (Hemingway, “The Light” 385). The other men tease the cook about the whiteness of his hands (“he puts lemon juice on his hands” (386)) and hint that he is gay. Are these two things connected? And, if they are, what does that suggest about clean, white, beautiful Ketchel? When asked his age, Tom joins in the sexual bantering with hints at “inversion”—“I’m ninety-six and he’s sixty-nine” (387)—but throughout the boys remain uneasy and confused. By the end of the story, the narrator seems quite smitten with Alice (“she had the prettiest face I ever saw” (391)). Tom notices this and says it is time to leave. The supposedly natural order of whites beating blacks, men having sex with women, and “huge” whores being unappealing has been unsettled (386). When the cook asks where the boys are going, Tom replies, “the other way from you” (391).