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  • Essay / The relationship between Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises and journalism

    Ernest Hemingway is widely considered one of the finest modernist literary minds, and his first novel The Sun Also Rises (also known as Fiesta) is held in high esteem. It is based on real events in Hemingway's life, which he fictionalized even as he lived them, and centers on the running of the bulls ceremony in Pamplona, ​​Spain. Hemingway, having worked as a journalist in the years before his novel's publication, employed an emergent writing style (known by some as "hard" writing) that presented a spare, austere nature, avoiding the use of flowery descriptions. words. This essay will show, using The Sun Also Rises as an example, that this style was influenced by journalism and that the basic elements of the novel itself were heavily dependent on Hemingway's journalistic training.Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get an original essay One of the most obvious connections between The Sun Also Rises and journalism is that it was written virtually out of the blue, with Hemingway working on the novel as events were unfolding in his own life. At first it featured the real names of the characters, with Hemingway the protagonist being simply referred to as "Hem" (Hays, 2011, p.2). He took extensive notes throughout this period and began work on the novel itself later; according to Linda Wagner-Martin, in Ernest Hemingway: A Literary Life, "It is a matter of literary history that Hemingway took notes...even while the roman a clef was being produced" (Wagner-Martin, 2007 , p.52). What emerged from these notes was a novel, later edited and rewritten by Hemingway. The novel has special significance in that Hemingway did not originally intend to write something this long, but rather to write about the festivities of Pamplona, ​​a subject he considered worthy study because it is unknown to many Americans. It could be argued that Hemingway's journalistic training was entirely necessary for his presence in Pamplona (since he wanted to break away from it and write a novel about the Festival), and as was journalism's emphasis on taking of complete notes made the writing of a novel possible. to extract the information obtained. There is a sense of urgency throughout the novel which is produced by many factors, but the fact that it is an account of real events (more or less) and recorded virtually "in the moment ” undoubtedly added realism to the work. His sentences are short and matter-of-fact, especially during all the action scenes – a relevant example is this account of the running of the bulls: “Then the people began to run. A drunk slipped and fell. Two police officers grabbed him and rushed him towards the fence. The crowd was running fast now” (Hemingway, 1926, p.103). This story is a continuous commentary, so to speak, and is reminiscent of what a journalist might record or write while watching an action unfold. This entire descriptive section is devoid of emotive words and reads like a current affairs television newscast. This is a holdover from his journalistic training at the Toronto Star: “The first commandment [of the newspaper] was to use short sentences. Use short first paragraphs. »(Underwood, 2013, p.127). Whether or not this adds realism to the work is of course a subjective question, but in this case it emulates the type of micro-reporting one sees in live blogs, reporting factual view after factual view. In this way, it could be considered more realistic to the extentwhere it is presented in a way that we are accustomed to receiving news or factual information. This brings us to the topic of Hemingway's writing style, another major part of The Sun Also Rises that was influenced by his background in journalism. Its terse, reticent prose hides from the reader much of the ancillary information, as well as any authorial representation of emotion that might influence how the reader views the information presented. Let's take this section as an example: "I say, weren't you there?" » asked Mike. “Ring for a beer, Bill.” “What a morning!” said Bill. He wiped his face. "My God! what a morning! And here comes old Jake. Old Jake, the human punching bag." "What happened inside?" "Damn it!" Bill asked, "What s Did it happen, Mike? » “There were these bulls coming,” Mike said. “Right in front of them was the crowd, and one guy tripped and knocked them all down.” “And the bulls all came right on top of them,” Bill said. “I heard them screaming.” (Hemingway, 1926, p.105) In this passage, the characters are discussing important things, but there is a complete lack of detail outside of the dialogue to indicate this. Even “said,” which is a sort of “invisible” word to represent dialogue, is used incredibly sparingly. Every action described – and again, these are extremely sparse – is conveyed in a neutral manner, without being imbued with emotion or even description. Throughout the book, there are many other examples of this type of brief depiction, and it adds up to a breathtaking view of these characters, as if the reader is simply looking at them. This gives an aspect of truth to the novel, as “truth” for any person could be defined as what they themselves have seen or heard. Examining the influence of journalism on the plot of The Sun Also Rises raises an interesting point: since one of the principles of journalism is to represent reality, Hemingway was early to notice the literary appeal of writing about his own life and to convey his reality. As critic Peter L. Hays says, “Hemingway never states but tries to suggest a character's emotion” (Hays, 2011, p. 59), which is done in the aforementioned style, reminiscent of reportage. factual and allows the reader to freely extract what they want from the dialogue. The characters express their emotions quite clearly, but by avoiding connecting adverbs and adjectives to the dialogue, Hemingway is not representing his characters; he lets everyone represent themselves. Again, this adds realism to the work; In real life, unless we are told directly, we must infer a person's state of mind by examining their behavior. This is exactly what Hemingway gives the reader the chance to do in The Sun Also Rises, and this is one of the most important reasons why it is realistic. In The Undeclared War Between Journalism and Fiction, Doug Underwood says that "in The Sun Also Rises, Hemingway's technique was to merge the artist with the journalist by allowing Jake to present a journalist's account of the drama of the festival and the interactions of his friends – but do it in a way that invites us to see beyond the superficial elements of his story” (Underwood, 2013, p.129). This is perhaps the most realistic way to create a narrative, using a stripped-down version of the first-person perspective that is so devoid of description that it invites it into the reader. This is, in a sense, ironic; Hemingway changed, deleted, or combined certain characters and changed dialogue and events in order to create a more complete story. Again, this was a major factor in therealism of the novel itself; by presenting a semi-fictional story so stark that it seemed more real than reality. The modus operandi of journalism is to be truthful, but Hemingway wanted the reality of the story to go beyond mere prose and become symbolic. This point leads directly to another influence of journalism on The Sun Also Rises; Hemingway's rebellion against him. This rebellion was intrinsically part of the creation of The Sun Also Rises, as it was Hemingway's attempt to break free from journalism. At this point in his life, he wanted to write a novel and become a respected writer (2007, Wagner-Martin, p. 52), which he believed could only be done by leaving his journalistic roots behind. He has repeatedly spoken out against the limits of journalism; the power of editors over his creativity, the family orientation of newspapers of the time and how stunted, stereotypical and disposable journalistic work seemed to him (2013, Underwood, p.132). The Sun Also Rises was his attempt to buck the regulations that had held back his work up to that point, and one of the main ways he did this was by taking creative license with the plot and characters. According to Doug Underwood, in The Undeclared War Between Journalism and Fiction, "If the scenes, characters, and dialogue could not be reshaped – even if only slightly – Hemingway believed he would have been prevented from expressing the deeper “truths” of human interactions that his artistic instinct told him was where the main dynamics of life were taking place” (2013, Underwood, p.129). By changing names and adjusting the story and dialogue, Hemingway placed a thin veil of fiction over real, complex, and deep characters, carefully crafting each moment in an attempt to represent the truth more truthfully than journalism. He stated that "[a writer's] level of fidelity to the truth must be so high that his invention [which arises from] his experience should produce a truer narrative than anything factual can be" (2013, Underwood, 2013, p.127). ). Thus, journalism's relationship with The Sun Also Rises could be described as antagonistic; Hemingway deliberately tried to transcend his limitations and convey real life as he saw it. One way to do this is to address issues that would have been controversial at the time and certainly would not have been acceptable in a family. friendly newspaper. Homosexuality is an example; Jake gets angry at two gay men, saying, "I know they're supposed to be fun, and you should be tolerant, but I wanted to go after one of them... to break up this superior, mocking composure.” Jake is also impotent, the result of an injury obtained during the war, which is another topic – incidentally with an interesting depth of interpretation – that would be considered rude or taboo to discuss. This is even what Bill says, “Never mention that…it’s the kind of thing you can’t talk about” (Hemingway, 1926, p.). Even the debatable main point of the story, Jake's inability to consummate his love with Brett, would be a taboo subject at the time. The novel is therefore in itself a rebellion against journalistic censorship. These issues might be considered relatively common today, but viewed in social context, the reality was new and explosively controversial. Therefore, tackling taboo social issues such as these had a huge impact on the realism of the novel, making it as close to real life as had ever been depicted at the time. As mentioned earlier, the main precepts of writing 04/12/14.