Actually Hemingway describes the man and the women as both being sad. He writes, "They ate without talking and the man held her hand under the table. She was good-looking and they seemed very sad." So, I think they are probably both mourning.
I did in fact read this story and I did like it. Though if it has some kind of colossally mysterious hidden iceberg meaning it was lost on me. There were a lot of different feelings conveyed though. Two themes that I picked out were 'time/travel' and 'observation or something'. Hemingway spends a lot of time describing the road, the dust on the road, what the travelers can see from the road. There is a particular part where Guy, the driver, keeps inquiring whether they can see Genoa anymore and they seem to be really eager to put Italy behind them. This seemed important to me. The travelers are almost fleeing but we don't really explicitly know why. The travelers are in serious observer mode where they make some contact with the people of Italy, but the contact that is made is very disconnected (examples: the woman in the restaurant and the fascist biker on the road). These are the things I picked up from the story, and I don't know if they are supposed to tie together into some bigger idea.
To revisit 'The Undefeated', I'm not sure I understand the context of this Christian understanding of bullfighting. Do the Spanish people see the Bullfight as some kind of religious ceremony, some re dramatization of the Crucifixion? Or is this just how Joe or some group like to think of bullfighting? I guess the symbolism makes some kind of sense, but it doesn't seem to justify the violence.
I believe the name Manuel is related to or comes from the bible verse:
Matthew 1:23 Behold, a virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which being interpreted is, God with us. (KJV)
I think Hemingway was certainly aware of this, being that scripture seems to be an influence in his writing in general. Though I don't think his intentions are very clear for why he chose this name. I don't see him Manuel as a God-like figure in anyway though really. Maybe in someway a figurehead for God being with us. I don't know how this would be shown though, maybe by the fact that he survived so much adversity in the bull fighting ring.
skip to main |
skip to sidebar
Blog Archive
Contributors
Men Without Women is a 1927 collection of short stories by Ernest Hemingway. In a letter to F Scott Fitzgerald dated September 1927, Hemingway tells that he originally wanted to find another title from the Book of Ecclesiastes (source of 'The Sun Also Rises') but, upon borrowing an Anglican vicar's bible, discovered that Rudyard Kipling and others had mined all potential biblical quotations, leaving him to come up with 'Men Without Women' off the cuff.
1 comment:
I think Joe meant that the Spanish people (at least those who were heavily involved with bullfighting) were the ones who saw it as a parallel to the Crucifixion.
Post a Comment