Brett Ashley: Whore or Herione
After a thorough reading and in-depth analyzation of Ernest Hemingway's riveting novel The Sun Also Rises, the character of Brett Ashley may be seen in a number of different ways. While some critics such as Mimi Reisel Gladstein view Brett as a 'Circe'; or 'bitch-goddess,'; others such as Carol H. Smith see Brett as a woman who has been emotionally broken by the world around her. I tend to agree with the latter of these views, simply because of the many tragedies that befell Brett. She is a heroine who, despite being wounded by love and war, continues to pursue true love.
Mimi Reisel Gladstein does make an excellent case for Brett as a 'modern-day Circe'; or 'bitch-goddess.'; Brett is a '. . . drunkard, a nymphomaniac, or a Circe who turns men into swine. . .'; (58). She has this transforming effect on several men throughout the course of the novel. Because of her extreme physical beauty, men such as Robert Cohn and Mike Campbell place Brett on a pedestal where she can do no wrong. Robert offers himself to Brett, then follows her around as if on a leash, 'sniveling and squealing as if he were swine'; (58). While Brett saunters around on her sexual escapades, she does not take into account the feelings of Jake, the man who truly loves her, because he is unable to meet her sexual needs. Brett does bother with Jake's frustrations; she uses him only as an emotional support to fall back on when the flings leave her emotionally unsatisfied. 'Brett's bitchery is fully revealed by her treatment of Jake. . . he truly loves her but she uses Jake to get the emotional fix she cannot find is sexual union . . . this is ironic since she would most likely find both if Jake were fully functional'; (59). By looking at her treatment of Robert Cohn, Mike Campbell, and Jake Barnes, Brett could easy be seen as a self-centered, promiscuous nymphomaniac whose quest for love destroys men but leaves her relatively unharmed.
As Carol Smith points out, however, '. . . analyzing Brett in terms of bitch-goddess or Terrible Mother does not do justice to her'; (55). Smith's quotation is well-founded. Hemingway has done much more with the character of Brett than it may seem. 'She is a good woman the world has broken . . . a complex woman who has endured much'; (55). T...
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Works Cited
Bardacke, Theodore. 'Hemingway's Women: 1950,'; Ernest Hemingway: The Man and His Work. Ed. John K. McCaffery (Cleveland: World Publishing, 1950), pp. 342-44. Rpt. in Brett Ashley. Ed. Harold Bloom. New York: G.K. Hall and Co., 1995. pp.12-13.
Gladstein, Mimi Reisel, 'Hemingway,'; The Indestructible Woman in Faulkner, Hemingway, and Steinbeck. (Ann Arbor, UMI Research Press, 1986), pp. 59, 62. Rpt. in Critical Essays on Earnest Hemingways The Sun Also Rises, ed. James Nagel. New York: G.K. Hall and Co., pp.58, 59.
Hemingway, Ernest. The Sun Also Rises. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1926.
Smith, Carol H., 'Women and the Loss of Eden,'; Ernest Hemingway: The Writer in Context, Ed. James Nagel (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1984), pp132-4. Rpt. in Critical Essays on Earnest Hemingways The Sun Also Rises, ed. James Nagel. New York: G.K. Hall and Co., 1995. 54-
Hemingway can be seen as a women's man, he was attracted to women, and marriage did not prevent him from having affairs. Whatever his life was, one of the main themes in his writing remained his determination to understand the difference between the two genders. This difference always mattered in his texts, as we will see in this short story, written by Hemingway, “Up In Michigan”. In this story, Hemingway tries to tell the story in the way he thinks a woman would see and live it, during the story, he will alternate the two point of views, the man’s (Jim), and the woman’s (Liz), and he will end the story on Liz’s view.
James Kittelson’s biography on the life of Luther is thought provoking and informative. Kittelson does not have a concise thesis, but as it is a biography the central theme of Luther the Reformer is an insightful narrative of Martin Luther’s life from his birth in Eisleben until his death on February 18, 1546 in Eisleben. Kittelson thoroughly and with great detail and sources explains Luther’s mission to reform the catholic church. Luther the Reformer seeks to condense Luther’s life in a manner which is more easily read for those who do not know the reformer’s story well. Luther is portrayed not only as a theologian throughout the book, but as a person with struggles and connections throughout the Germanic region in which he lived. Luther’s theology is portrayed throughout the entirety of the book, and Kittelson approaches Luther’s theology by explaining Luther’s past. The inclusion of
Martin Luther was a former Priest/Monk and that saw some corruption in the Roman Catholic Church. Luther tried to bring his concerns to the Church in his writing of the “Ninety-five Theses on the Power of Indulgences.” When these question that Luther proposed to the Archbishop of Mainz went unsatisfactorily unanswered in 1517, Luther started defaming the Roman Church and pushed for the utter destruction of the Roman Church. What started out as an internal reform of Church’s discipline, turned into a war against the Roman Church for their total destruction. This was the intent of Luther’s sermon of 1521.
Meter, M. An Analysis of the Writing Style of Ernest Hemingway. Texas: Texas College of Arts and Industries, 2003.
In The Heath Anthology of American Literature, Volume II. Edited by Paul Lauter et al. Lexington, MA: D.C. Heath and Company, 1991: 1208-1209. Hemingway, Ernest. A.
“: You hungry, Gabe? I was just fixing to cook Troy his breakfast,” (Wilson, 14). Rose understands her role in society as a woman. Rose also have another special talent as a woman, that many don’t have which is being powerful. Rose understands that some things she can’t change so she just maneuver herself to where she is comfortable so she won’t have to change her lifestyle. Many women today do not know how to be strong sp they just move on or stay in a place where they are stuck and unable to live their own life. “: I done tried to be everything a wife should be. Everything a wife could be. Been married eighteen years and I got to live to see the day you tell me you been seeing another woman and done fathered a child by her,”(Wilson, 33). The author wants us to understand the many things women at the time had to deal with whether it was racial or it was personal issues. Rose portrays the powerful women who won’t just stand for the
Through this brief anecdote, Hemingway presents the readers the social dilemma of male domination over his counterpart. The women's fight for equality changed some "old traditions" but there are still many Jigs in our society that shouldn't be treated as inferiors. Women are the most beautiful beings in life, but they are not to be possessed ,but loved and admired.
When a writer picks up their pen and paper, begins one of the most personal and cathartic experiences in their lives, and forms this creation, this seemingly incoherent sets of words and phrases that, read without any critical thinking, any form of analysis or reflexion, can be easily misconstrued as worthless or empty. When one reads an author’s work, in any shape or form, what floats off of the ink of the paper and implants itself in our minds is the author’s personality, their style. Reading any of the greats, many would be able to spot the minute details that separates each author from another; whether it be their use of dialogue, their complex descriptions, their syntax, or their tone. When reading an excerpt of Hemingway’s A Moveable Feast one could easily dissect the work, pick apart each significant moment from Hemingway’s life and analyze it in order to form their own idea of the author’s voice, of his identity. Ernest Hemingway’s writing immediately comes across as rather familiar in one sense. His vocabulary is not all that complicated, his layout is rather straightforward, and it is presented in a simplistic form. While he may meander into seemingly unnecessary detail, his work can be easily read. It is when one looks deeper into the work, examines the techniques Hemingway uses to create this comfortable aura surrounding his body of work, that one begins to lift much more complex thoughts and ideas. Hemingway’s tone is stark, unsympathetic, his details are precise and explored in depth, and he organizes his thoughts with clarity and focus. All of this is presented in A Moveable Feast with expertise every writer dreams to achieve. While Hemingway’s style may seem simplistic on the surface, what lies below is a layered...
" The Hemingway Review. 15.1 (Fall 1995): p. 27. Literature Resource Center -.
15 Feb. 2003. http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/books/1999/hemingway/stories/biography/part1/index.html. Stanford, Judith A. & Co. Responding to Literature: Stories, Poems, Plays, and Essays. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2003.
The novel, The Sun Also Rises, by Ernest Hemingway is an example of how an entire generation redefined gender roles after being affected by the war. The Lost Generation of the 1920’s underwent a great significance of change that not only affected their behaviors and appearances but also how they perceived gender identity. Lady Brett Ashley and Jake Barnes are two of the many characters in the novel that experience shattered gender roles because of the post war era. The characters in the novel live a lifestyle in which drugs and alcohol are used to shadow emotions and ideals of romanticism. Brett’s lack of emotional connection to her various lovers oppose Jake’s true love for her which reveals role reversal in gender and the redefinition of masculinity and femininity. The man is usually the one that is more emotionally detached but in this case Lady Brett Ashley has a masculine quality where as Jake has a feminine quality. Both men and female characters in the novel do not necessarily fit their gender roles in society due to the post war time period and their constant partying and drinking. By analyzing Brett, Jake, and the affects the war had on gender the reader obtains a more axiomatic understanding of how gender functions in the story by examining gender role reversal and homosexuality.
...who openly departed from the Roman Catholic church in the 16th century. Furthermore, his Ninety-Five Theses became the first widespread publication to question church practices and thus threaten papal authority. The church and Luther particularly disagreed on ideas related to salvation, and Luther’s refusal to recant his beliefs, which contradicted with those of the Pope, resulted in his excommunication from the church. Nevertheless, this excommunication initiated his breaking away from the church and led him to create his own church, which embraced Scripture as the sole authority and justification by faith. The theology of the Reformation emerged from his Ninety-Five Theses and this work marked the beginning of the process that transformed Luther “the monk” into Luther “the reformer” and fractured the Roman Catholic church into new sects of Christianity.
Waldhorn, Arthur. Ernest Hemingway: A Collection of Criticism (Contemporary Studies in Literature). Chicago: Syracuse University Press, 1978.
Through the characters' dialogue, Hemingway explores the emptiness generated by pleasure-seeking actions. Throughout the beginning of the story, Hemingway describes the trivial topics that the two characters discuss. The debate about the life-changing issue of the woman's ...
According to Martin Luther, "every man must do two things alone; he must do his own believing and his own dying." Martin changed the way people viewed their religion and the churches. He believed in the separation of church and state, he also believed people could ask for forgiveness from God themselves. Furthermore, he thought the church couldn’t forgive your sins; it was only God who could. While overall, starting the Protestant Reformation.