Feminine Characters In Hemingway's Feast

Hemingway presents both his first wife Hadley and his friend Sylvia as largely happy and content people. They are probably the ideal women of that time who are pleased with their lot in life and in love with their significant other. He puts both women in a flattering light, but there is much more to them than what he chooses to include in Hemingway’s Feast. This may possibly be especially true for Hadley. In the snapshot he gives the reader of her in the chapter ‘Shakespeare and Company’ she seems to be a complacent housewife who is very much in love with her husband. While it is true that she was in love with Hemingway, her happiness is far more questionable. One reason for this is her lack of passion. She sees Hemingway invest countless hours into his work and feels empty for not having something that excited her in the same way. This left her feeling like she was not special “as Ernest was” (Grammel). She understood that Hemingway “lived inside the creative sphere” while she “lived outside” of it (Grammel). He himself was at times the cause of her inclination to feel excluded from his world since he would leave her out personally at times. An example of this is the extremely personal offense is the way he chooses not to characterize Hadley in the novel Hemingway and the Sun where everyone he is in regular contact with is personified except for her. It was a maneuver that whether purposeful or not managed to make her feel shut out, but even with a mixture of emotions she remained proud of him.

Beach is also a deeper person than what is shown of her in Hemingway’s writing. She was a person dealing with problems that lied behind her cheer as well. For one, she had to manage being the virtual workhorse of writer James Joyce. Her title of editor entailed various secretarial duties as well. The amount of work he asked her to do was a heavy load in addition to tending to her business. She obviously loved him because she persevered through it despite the ingratitude she felt. What little thanks she did get was shortly followed by yet another request. In addition to being overworked, she soon found  trouble with her love life as well. After coming home from being held by Nazi shoulders, she learns that her partner has been with a different woman behind her back. All of this and she still managed to remain “the nicest person” Hemingway knew (Grammel). When it came to Joyce, Beach was largely submissive and sheepish, but was extremely brave when it came to other aspects of her life such as living in a country heavily involved in a war. A place that was clearly unsafe where she watched people flee the country all around her. Beach looked on all of it with an air that greatly resembled a person of nonchalance. She stood up to soldiers even when it put her in danger. She once refused an officer that she had displayed as if to be sold, but when he asked to purchase it, she denied him. In response to him threatening to damage her store, cleared it out and painted over the name in the window to make it unrecognizable. She risked her life for things that she believed in.

There is more to both of these women than Hemingway gives them credit for. Writing about them this way could mean either that he didn’t see these complexities or that he did not want to see them and wrote about them as he wished they were.