User:JBrown/sandbox: Difference between revisions

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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).

Racial and sexual ambiguities also trouble “The Battler,” one of the Nick Adams initiation stories in ''In Our Time'' (1925). The story begins with Nick himself having just survived a battle with a brakeman on a freight train. He has been thrown off the train and lands with a scuffed knee and bruise on the face, of which he is rather proud— “He wished he could see it” (“Battler” 129)—but he is still standing. “He was all right” (129). Nick then ventures into another battling arena—a fire-lit camp that seems to be a refuge but which also turns out to be a kind of boxing ring. There he encounters Ad Francis, an ex-champion prizefighter whose bruises are more impressive, and much more disgusting, than his own:

In the firelight Nick saw that his face was misshapen. His nose was sunken, his eyes were like slits, he had queer-shaped lips. Nick did not perceive all this at once, he only saw the man’s face was queerly formed and mutilated. It was like putty in color. Dead looking in the firelight. (131)

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 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).
+Racial and sexual ambiguities also trouble “The Battler,” one of the Nick Adams initiation stories in ''In Our Time'' (1925). The story begins with Nick himself having just survived a battle with a brakeman on a freight train. He has been thrown off the train and lands with a scuffed knee and bruise on the face, of which he is rather proud— “He wished he could see it” (“Battler” 129)—but he is still standing. “He was all right” (129). Nick then ventures into another battling arena—a fire-lit camp that seems to be a refuge but which also turns out to be a kind of boxing ring. There he encounters Ad Francis, an ex-champion prizefighter whose bruises are more impressive, and much more disgusting, than his own:
+ In the firelight Nick saw that his face was misshapen. His nose was sunken, his eyes were like slits, he had queer-shaped lips. Nick did not perceive all this at once, he only saw the man’s face was queerly formed and mutilated. It was like putty in color. Dead looking in the firelight. (131)