Editing Internet Texts/Women in Hemingway's fiction/Brett Ashley
In The Sun Also Rises, a 1926 novel which depicts the post-war generation of expatriates living in Paris, Hemingway creates one of his most interesting female characters, Lady Brett Ashley, usually referred to as a “deadly” woman, the exact opposite of his “saintly” woman.
Critics who believe that Hemingway’s heroines embody either of these two extremes, claim that the second type is presented in a negative way as a strong, liberated and beautiful, but also emotionally void, vicious and destructive woman. Indeed, Wilson calls Lady Ashley “an exclusively destructive force”,[1] Fiedler a “bitch-goddess”[2] and Baker “an alcoholic nymphomaniac” or “an agent of depletion”.[3] Nevertheless, once again, Hemingway creates a heroine who seems easy to label, but is, in fact, much more complex and, consequently, often misread. Even if she is “deadly”, she is so only to a certain degree and thus cannot be classified as an utterly destructive and evil woman. As Fiedler observes, she “is permitted, once at least, the gesture of herself rejecting her mythical role”.[4]
Lady Ashley is presented as a beautiful yet unconventional woman who easily attracts men’s attention. Jake Barnes describes her in the following words:
Brett was damned good-looking. She wore a slipover jersey sweater and a tweed skirt, and her hair was brushed back like a boy's. She started all that. She was built with curves like the hull of a racing yacht, and you missed none of it with that wool jersey.[5]
Having her hair bobbed and wearing sleeveless dresses, Brett serves as a perfect example of a flapper. She epitomises the New American Woman not only by her looks, but also her behaviour since she does not conform to society’s expectations of her gender. Being sexually liberated, she is not looking for serious commitment, but meaningless and unstable relationships. What is more, Brett takes control over her life as she herself goes after men she finds attractive rather than staying passive and being the one pursued.
What makes Brett such an interesting character as well as such a compelling woman irresistible to men is not only her beauty, but also her complex personality. She is a strong woman who does not restrict herself to anyone. Her sexual behaviour, more typical of a man rather than a woman, is primarily what condemns her as having a corrupting influence on the opposite sex. However, the masculine traits exhibited by Brett enrich her character. As Fulton believes, Brett is ”one of Hemingway’s richest female characters; her personality gradually emerges as an intriguing mix of femininity and masculinity, strength and vulnerability, morality and dissolution”.[6]
Brett’s ability to seduce men and her interest in impermanent, purely sexual relationships led to her being perceived as a femme fatale, a beautiful woman who enchants men, manipulates them and, finally, causes their destruction. Such claims seem justifiable as Brett, in fact, tends to quickly end her affairs, disrupting her partners’ lives and leaving them bitter or miserable. Robert Cohn may be seen as one of her victims. After their affair is over, Cohn keeps following Brett even though she evidently ignores him, indicating that his presence is not desirable. As a result of his inability to accept being abandoned, he becomes an object of ridicule, constantly abused by Mike. Brett’s fiancé, Mike Campbell seems emotionally damaged when she leaves him as well. Although he generally tends to be impulsive and drinks too much, Brett’s fascination with Romero only aggravates the situation. The insecurities caused by Brett’s infidelity bring about his excessive drunkenness and inappropriate behaviour.
Nonetheless, Brett should not be accused of destroying men’s lives or held responsible for their emotional problems because they enter the relationship with her voluntarily and fully aware of her true nature and the way she treats men. When Cohn asks Jake about Brett, he receives a straight answer, “She’s in love with Mike Campbell, and she’s going to marry him”, to which he responds, “I don’t believe she’ll ever marry him”.[7] From the very beginning, he has unrealistic expectations of Brett. Although they have met only once and barely even talked to each other, Cohn seems to claim he can see right through her. Not only does he choose to ignore the fact she is engaged, but he also refuses to accept the truth about Brett’s character. He had no grounds to count on anything more than a fling. Therefore, by ending his relationship with Frances in order to be with Brett, Cohn condemns himself to suffering. Mike, on the other hand, evokes more sympathy as being engaged to Brett, he had the right to demand fidelity. Brett, however, did not conceal her promiscuity from him as Mike himself says to Cohn, “She’s slept with lots of better people than you”,[8] and even though it does not justify her cheating, Mike did make a conscious decision by getting involved with her.
It is, however, Jake who is the most dependent on Brett and on whom she depends as well. They may be the only couple in the novel who is truly in love, but cannot be together because of Jake’s impotence. Despite the fact that Jake does not have a romantic relationship with Brett, he is probably the man most used by her as well as the one who suffers the most since his feelings towards Brett are true. What makes him even more pitiable is the way in which he narrates the story. He describes his miserableness as if it was Brett’s fault and thus shows her in a bad light: “To hell with Brett. To hell with you, Lady Ashley”.[9] As Fulton points out, the reason why Brett is so often misinterpreted lies in the fact that readers see her through Jake’s eyes. Although he is “our primary source of information about Brett”, his description is biased because he “narrates through his own prejudices”.[10] Jake, for example, claims that Brett is the source of his unhappiness, whereas it is his wound which constitutes his major problem. Furthermore, Fulton argues that it is Hemingway’s style, the iceberg theory which prevents us from seeing the “the submerged facets of her character”. Once Jake’s narration is scrutinised and the “concealed aspects” are found, Brett emerges as “a fully developed character engaged, like Jake, in learning how to live in a world where the rules have irrevocably changed”.[11]
Even though Jake’s representation of Brett is biased, it may be hard to deny her selfishness. She is fully aware of Jake’s feelings, but continues to hurt him by coming back to him and raising his hopes. Jake, however, has only himself to blame as he lets himself be abused and is always at Brett’s disposal. He sacrifices himself for Brett knowing that they could never be together. Jake is not only literally emasculated, but his weak character makes him appear unmanly as well, especially when compared to Brett. Therefore, it is Jake’s weakness and his inability to accept the truth that make him cry at night miserable.
As selfish and cruel Lady Ashley may appear to be, she does not derive pleasure from using men. Her affairs do not bring her happiness as she tells Jake, “Oh, darling, I’ve been so miserable”.[12] Since she is much too often presented as a destructive woman, the fact that Brett suffers just like other characters in the novel is unjustifiably omitted. Unwilling to commit to a man who cannot satisfy her sexually and, consequently, unable to be with her true love, Brett is lonely and miserable. She seeks solace in brief affairs and alcohol. Her alcoholism is, nevertheless, not a solution, which she herself recognises, “I can’t just stay tight all the time”.[13] Love, which could be her remedy, is unattainable. Her seeming selfishness may thus be said to stem from her love for Jake, just like his weakness stems from his feelings. Brett’s realisation that “[they] could have had such a damned good time together”[14] makes her appear as almost a tragic character destined for suffering since it seems she could have any man, but the one she really loves is the one she cannot be with.
Furthermore, one of the complexities of Brett’s character is the fact that she, so frequently labelled as a “bitch”, decides not to be one. Already in one of the first scenes in the novel, Hemingway suggests that Brett should not be read as a purely evil femme fatale as she realises her actions may hurt others and regrets them. She claims that her personal failures are the result of her treatment of men: “When I think of the hell I’ve put chaps through. I’m paying for it all now”.[15] Once she decides to cheat on Mike with Romero, she says: “I don’t say it’s right. (...) I’ve never felt such a bitch”.[16] Finally, when she chooses to let Romero go, she explains her decision by saying: “I’d have lived with him if I hadn’t seen it was bad for him”, and later she adds, “I’m not going to be one of these bitches that ruins children”.[17]
As in the case of Catherine Barkley or Maria, the historical context of the novel must be taken into account while analysing its characters. Brett, just like Catherine, worked as a nurse during the First World War. She, too, lost her true love in the war. The hedonistic lifestyle she leads is her own strategy for living in the post-war reality. For Catherine and Maria it was love, for Brett it is sex and alcoholism since love is inaccessible. As well as suffering from the war horrors, she also had some traumatic experience concerning her marriage to Lord Ashley which was far from an idyll. Brett was maltreated and threatened by her husband who “used to tell her he’d kill her” and “[a]lways slept with a loaded service revolver”.[18] Having such a past must have influenced her character. It is thus possible that Brett is unwilling to submit to any of her partners and ends her relationships rather quickly for fear of being abused by a man again. As Hemingway, determined not to be dominated by a woman, employed a similar strategy in his life, he might have been more prone to portray Brett in a sympathetic way as a strong, but not evil woman.
As it has been presented, Brett is another one of Hemingway’s women who are unjustifiably labelled. Brett’s complexity stems from the fact she is full of contradictions. She is both self-reliant and dependent on men, both a modern woman and a goddess, both strong and sensitive. Although it is possible to find instances of Brett’s selfish behaviour in the novel, calling her a “destructive bitch” seems to be highly unjust. Not only can her actions be accounted for by her traumatic past, but the characters who are allegedly destroyed by her, allow themselves to be abused. What is more, the person who narrates the events and portrays Brett is Jake, a man who is unhappily in love with her which means there is every likelihood for his narration to be biased. However, the most significant evidence for Brett’s personal development is her recognition of the pain she may have cause to men and, finally, her own attempt to be more thoughtful and selfless.
Quiz
[edit | edit source]
References
[edit | edit source]- ↑ Wilson, Edmund. 1939. “Hemingway: Gauge of Morale”, in: Harold Bloom (ed.), 2005. Ernest Hemingway. Philadelphia: Chelsea House Publishers, 7-23.
- ↑ Fiedler, Leslie A. [1960] 2003. Love and Death in the American Novel. Champaign: Dalkey Archive Press.
- ↑ Baker, Carlos. 1956. Hemingway, the Writer as Artist. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
- ↑ Fiedler, Leslie A. [1960] 2003. Love and Death in the American Novel. Champaign: Dalkey Archive Press.
- ↑ Hemingway, Ernest. [1926] 1954. The Sun Also Rises. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons.
- ↑ Fulton, Lorie Watkins. 2004. “Reading Around Jake’s Narration: Brett Ashley and The Sun Also Rises”, The Hemingway Review 24, 1: 61-80.
- ↑ Hemingway, Ernest. [1926] 1954. The Sun Also Rises. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons.
- ↑ Hemingway, Ernest. [1926] 1954. The Sun Also Rises. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons.
- ↑ Hemingway, Ernest. [1926] 1954. The Sun Also Rises. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons.
- ↑ Fulton, Lorie Watkins. 2004. “Reading Around Jake’s Narration: Brett Ashley and The Sun Also Rises”, The Hemingway Review 24, 1: 61-80.
- ↑ Fulton, Lorie Watkins. 2004. “Reading Around Jake’s Narration: Brett Ashley and The Sun Also Rises”, The Hemingway Review 24, 1: 61-80.
- ↑ Hemingway, Ernest. [1926] 1954. The Sun Also Rises. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons.
- ↑ Hemingway, Ernest. [1926] 1954. The Sun Also Rises. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons.
- ↑ Hemingway, Ernest. [1926] 1954. The Sun Also Rises. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons.
- ↑ Hemingway, Ernest. [1926] 1954. The Sun Also Rises. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons.
- ↑ Hemingway, Ernest. [1926] 1954. The Sun Also Rises. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons.
- ↑ Hemingway, Ernest. [1926] 1954. The Sun Also Rises. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons.
- ↑ Hemingway, Ernest. [1926] 1954. The Sun Also Rises. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons.