Category Archives: Analysis

To Have and Have Not by Ernest Hemingway

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To Have and Have Not by Ernest Hemingway

To Have and Have Not is a novel set in Key West, Havana, and the Gulf of Mexico by American writer Ernest Hemingway. It depicts the failed life of individualist Harry Morgan. The author combines harry Morgan’s personal experience with social life, which is a new attempt in the writing technique. This work is Hemingway’s most creative and experimental novel. The book is divided into three parts: Spring, Autumn, and Winter, which vividly depict the failed life of Harry Morgan as an individualist. In “Spring,” Morgan rents fishing boats and is forced to make a living transporting “live” goods (stowaways) for others. In order to protect himself, he did not hesitate to take the law into his own hands and was sued for human life. In Autumn, Morgan traded smuggled liquor. By Winter, Morgan is so desperate to make money that he even agrees to accept an offer to ship back a gang of Cuban terrorists who rob banks. Although he killed the terrorists on the yacht, he was also shot and killed.

This is one of Hemingway’s works that has aroused strong controversy among critics. Hemingway published his novel To Have and Have Not in 1937 which pointed out that the gap between the rich and the poor in The United States led some people to take risks. The novel has a tragic and strong ending. The death of Captain Harry Morgan makes one feel that he is just an ordinary man who earns a decent living in Hemingway’s hands. He had been in the warm Caribbean sun, hoping for an easy life for his family. In the first Spring, Captain Harry Morgan is clearly a man in his own right, even able to take care of Eddie like a brother. Eddie is in some ways a shadow of Harry Morgan. Harry sees his future in Eddie and reminds himself of the principles he should follow to survive. But that didn’t last long after Mr. Johnson defaulted. “I’ve got a family,” he said, and something had to be done to make the money back.

With Harry Morgan’s ruthless approach, his life cycle seems to start working as it did at the beginning of the book. In this 1937 novel, it is more or less felt that Hemingway’s Harry Morgan is still in the fog of individualism and that he still has a long way to go before he can reach new heights. It’s worth noting that In Hemingway’s eyes, Harry Morgan is not a hero at all, he’s just a tough guy.

-Coreen C.

The Torrents of Spring by Ernest Hemingway

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The Torrents of Spring - Kindle edition by Hemingway, Ernest ...

The wife and daughter of American young writer Scripps O ‘Neill left one after another. He left home on snowy nights to find work and met middle-aged waitresses in small restaurants. In a small restaurant, he meets Diana, a middle-aged waitress and literary English. They hit it off and got married in a flash. As a result, he became a worker in the city’s water pump factory. But Mandy, Diana’s replacement waitress at the little restaurant, charmed Scripps with her literary wit and eloquent speech. Yogi Johnson, Scripps’ fellow factory worker, wanted no women after an affair in Paris during the First World War. However, a naked Indian woman broke into the small restaurant and was kicked out. Yogi, wandering the streets in a daze, followed her and walked with her into the night.

This novel is a parody of Hemingway’s. It has both romantic and naturalistic styles and belongs to alternative works. From the perspective of the narrator, it is of great value. In the way of narration, Hemingway likes to show and tell, usually presented in a conversational manner. The narration is generally a description, and the characters do not speak. But in “The Torrents of Spring,” Hemingway employs repetition, stream of consciousness, and meta-narrative in addition to presentation and dialogues.

-Coreen C.

The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway

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The Sun Also Rises: The Hemingway Library Edition - Kindle edition ...

The Sun Also Rises is a novel written by American writer Ernest Hemingway. The novel takes the historical period from 1924 to 1925 and the famous city of Paris as the background revolves around a group of British and American young men and women who have suffered serious trauma in affection or love or left serious psychological or physiological dysfunction in the war and the unrestrained life and the emotional dispute between them. It reflects the painful and sad state of mind of this generation after the awakening of consciousness, but they feel no way out. The author thus became the voice of the “lost generation” and created a unique style of writing with this book. In this novel, Hemingway not only focuses on the “lost generation” in the loss and despair of the unrestrained but also describes a state of mind that seeks stimulation and solace from the intoxicating, impetuous and noisy way of life. At the same time, it quietly annotates the efforts made by these arrogant, negating, and cynical “wastelanders” to find a new way out in the difficult situation and reveals the spiritual essence of their pursuit of freedom, justice, individual liberation, and independence.

The novel condenses and gathers young Hemingway’s own thoughts, emotions, reason, pain, and his glimpse into the future, which is a deep extension of Hemingway’s own life experience and philosophical thinking. The young American Barnes suffered a spinal injury during World War I and became sexually incapacitated. After the war, when he was a journalist in Paris, he fell in love with Lady Ashley, an Englishman. His wife went after pleasure, and he drank to drown his sorrows. The two went to Spain with a group of male and female friends to attend a bullfighting festival for spiritual stimulation. She rejected the Jewish young Cohn’s pursuit but fell in love with Romero, a matador who was only nineteen years old. However, after a period of time together, because of the age gap between the two sides, and Mrs. Ashley did not have the heart to destroy the prospects of a pure youth, the relationship ended in the gloom. She eventually returns to Barnes, though both know they will never be truly united.

-Coreen C.

Sister Carrie by Theodore Dreiser

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Sister Carrie - Kindle edition by Dreiser, Theodore. Literature ...

Carrie, a country girl, came to Chicago with a longing for the city. Carrie soon felt disappointed after a while. She lived in her sister’s house, and the shabby and humiliating conditions destroyed her dreams. At that moment Drouet, whom Carrie had met on the train, appeared. He extended a generous hand and offered financial help, and the two moved in together. The present life was a little like the one she had dreamed of, but she found that the relationship was not right. Then he meets Hurstwood, a publican, and they flirt and fall in love. Often, as they walked among the lights and the wine and the food, Carrie saw the congruity between dream and reality. However, such a life can not come so easily. Something happened to the landlord. In desperation, Hurstwood fled to New York with Carrie. For the rest of his life, the tavern owner was stranded like a dog. Once again she experienced what hardship meant. By chance, Sister Carrie found work at the Opera, and her good looks and natural voice put to good use. She grew popular and wealthy, and Hurstwood became a worn and rusted machine before her eyes. She left Hurstwood and lived a life of splendor alone which made Hurstwood kill himself.

This work is characterized by realism, which reveals the tragic fact of people’s fanatical pursuit of The American dream in the early 20th century. It reveals the instinctive theme that drives people to enjoy but ultimately disillusion and shows that there can be no real happiness in the money-centered American capitalist society. It can be seen from the novel that Carrie’s degeneration has certain social factors. First of all, due to the capitalist system at that time, Carrie was the representative of a group of people at the bottom of society. She was forced by a hard life and had to go down the road. On the other hand, it stems from Carrie’s dissatisfaction with the present situation of life and her constant pursuit of a higher life to satisfy her desire, which leads the man on whom she constantly depends to embark on this degenerate road. It was social and objective that Carrie had lost her job. It was this objective factor that led Carrie down a depraved path. Even when Hurstwood had told her that he had a wife, his financial ability and social position still attracted Carrie so deeply that she followed him to New York. For this man was able to gratify Carrie’s desires and her great vanity. Because in society at that time, having money meant still having a good quality of life. Having a high social status is not the value orientation of Carrie alone, but the value orientation of the whole society. It is this value orientation that influences a group of women from the countryside like Carrie to take this path.

-Coreen C.

An American Tragedy by Theodore Dreiser

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Amazon.com: An American Tragedy (Signet Classics) (9780451531551 ...

The novel is divided into three volumes. The story is based on a real criminal case in New York, and the hero Clyde Griffiths is also based on a real person. Clyde grew up in a poor religious family and preached on the streets for a living. Young and frivolous Clyde worked as a waiter in a luxury hotel in Kansas City, because of bad friends, all day long indulges in alcohol. In order to avoid trouble, Clyde went to New York to seek refuge with his uncle and fell in love with Roberta Alden, a poor and virtuous workwoman. Later, Clyde met the beautiful daughter of Sandra Finchley, which was enough to lift him out of poverty and into the world of high society. Before long, Roberta became pregnant and even asked to marry Clyde in secret. Poor women workers or rich women? In desperation, Clyde conceived the idea of murdering Roberta. Unexpectedly the matter does not carry out according to his wish and Roberta dies accidentally.

Clyde was subsequently brought to justice. There was an election in the United States, and the attorney general put pressure on investigators to prove Clyde was the murderer. Clyde was still condemned to the electric chair after his assistant fabricated evidence and his lawyer made a lot of money. God could not save him, and his parents still decried worldly materialism and praised God’s mercy. Is it the American dream or the American tragedy? This novel will give you the answer. The novel deeply shows the live view of the American people in the early 20th century that money is the most important, desire is inflated and the general sense of disillusionment. The novel An American Tragedy not only reveals the serious consequences of the hyperinflation of egoism but also reveals the corrosive and toxic effect of the money-oriented American lifestyle on human crime.

-Coreen C.

Book Review: Life on the Mississippi by Mark Twain

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Life on the Mississippi: Mark Twain, Grover Gardner: 9781441764737 ...

Life on the Mississippi is an autobiographical travel book. Mark Twain recalled his work as a sailor on the Mississippi River. The author has a keen interest in the Mississippi River. In his hands, the river emerges as a living, changeable, unpredictable, capricious image. To Mark Twain, who had little schooling, the Mississippi River was nothing less than a university, which exposed him to many mysterious natural and complex social phenomena. The rise and fall of the Mississippi River even directly affect the rise and fall of farms and cities. In those years, the river had fought its way through Hurricane Island, Arkansas, Walnut, and Conference Bay. The author also describes with delight the cities along the Banks of the Mississippi: Burlington, St. Louis, Minneapolis, Rock Island, New Orleans, and St. Paul.

The author’s love for nature and for the working people is reflected in his autobiographical travel notes Life on the Mississippi. Mark Twain had a special feeling for the Mississippi River because he had worked as a pilot in his youth, working with the crew and fighting side by side on the river. He knew its eddies, its reefs, and its rapids. He never forgot the mountains, towns, and local customs on both sides of the river. In his novel, the author gives a very touching description of the beautiful scenery that rises over the river at sunset. The writer describes nature, not for the sake of scenery, but to express his complex mood by describing nature. The author emphasizes that of all his experiences, the one that has left the deepest impression on him is his life as a sailor in the Mississippi River.

-Coreen C.

Book Review: Ravelstein by Saul Bellow

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Ravelstein (Penguin Great Books of the 20th Century): Bellow, Saul ...

The first two parts of Ravelstein, a biographical novel, are mainly about the last and most important stage of Ravelstein’s life. He was terminally ill, but he fought against the disease until his death. The latter part is mainly about the narrator, Chick himself is on the verge of death due to food poisoning, but he has deep thoughts about life and death at this time. Ravelstein was born in a small city and had a very unhappy childhood. His father had been poor all his life and was a tyrant in the family. Ravelstein, who grew up in the shadow of his father, came into contact with society at an early age and went out on his own. After struggling hard for many years, he finally got rid of the poor people’s life being a famous university professor. He taught students from all walks of life, many of them in important positions, including students who played an important role in the Gulf War. He maintained close contact and frequent intercourse with them. Taking advice from his good friend Chick, he turned his teaching research into a best-selling book attacking the theory of relativity, the American education system, and its declining international status and influence, and became a guest of the president of the United States and the prime minister of Britain. From then on, he became a successful member of the upper class of the affluent society in the United States and lived a luxurious and decadent life. While he was enjoying a life of fame and fortune, he found himself terminally ill. Towards the end of his life, he asked Chick to write an autobiography for him.

Ravelstein is a charming and paradoxical Jewish intellectual. he embraced life with the indulgence and intoxication of Dionysus and the dream and aspiration of the god of the sun. He questioned the contemporary American social value and education system but highly praised the classical culture of ancient Greece and Rome and loved classical music. He fell in love with Armani suits, Cuban cigars, pure gold Montblanc gold pens, and so on. He was an advanced intellectual in American society, but his manner was vulgar. When attending various celebrity social occasions, he would often splash coffee or other drinks on expensive clothes and drink them directly from a coke bottle, which even made T.S. Eliot stunned. He is a conservative who does not worship the free market, but uses his talent to produce valuable goods and become rich overnight. He advocates aesthetic, free love, but has gay friends; he grew up trying to escape his Jewish father, the tyrannical king of his family, but in his life he played his father’s role to his students and friends. The unique historical background, social situation and ethnic characteristics of the Jewish people make Jewish writers in the American culture face embarrassment in their creation. Jews in America (especially the upper-class intelligentsia), reluctant to abandon their traditional religion and unable to resist the American way of life floundered in this confusion, searching for their identity with both desire and disappointment.

-Coreen C.

Book Review: More Die of Heartbreak by Saul Bellow

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spacebeer: More Die of Heartbreak by Saul Bellow (1987)

The protagonist Benn Crader is a botanist. He was famous for a while but had a very unsuccessful love life. After the death of his first wife, his emotional world lost its focus, and although he later married Matilda Layamon, his second marriage brought him little happiness. There is no real love between him and Matilda, only a relationship of exploitation. The main reason Matilda, a beautiful woman, married Benn was to use his academic achievements and scientific fame as a solid foundation for her social activities. However, the novel does not simply focus on the description of Benn’s emotion, but by depicting his embarrassing situation it shows the emotional exhaustion of the spiritual world in modern American society.

Intellectuals can grasp the essence of things under the surface and are willing to use their wisdom and superb skills to advise the public. Therefore, intellectuals are not only knowledgeable people, but they are also doers of social moral standards and pioneers of reform. Through the ages, they have maintained their intellectual identity in vain, even at the cost of their lives. The protection of intellectual identity has gradually become a kind of collective unconsciousness. Intellectuals fulfill and maintain their identity as spiritual leaders, but this identity is subverted by the impact of mass culture. Popular culture deprives intellectuals of their right to speak. They communicate through film, television, and other media new role models, value systems, and lifestyles that are unconsciously internalized by the masses. The common people were so absorbed in the convenience and diversity of popular culture that they were no longer interested in intellectual dogmas.

When the identity of intellectuals is questioned or even deprived, the group of intellectuals feels an unprecedented sense of loss. However, the helplessness of intellectuals is not completely caused by the isolation of the society; the internal differentiation of intellectuals greatly accelerates the disintegration of the intellectual group. Intellectuals do not know whether they have been assimilated into popular culture or whether their identity as intellectuals has been lost. In fact, in the materialistic modern society, intellectuals began to lose their spiritual integrity. In “More Die of Heartbreak”, Benn compromises with society when he cannot find true love. He becomes an impoverished intellectual who lacks independent survival ability and even an independent personality. He needs constant consultation with his nephew Kenneth to get affirmation before he can calm down.

-Coreen C.

Book Review: Dangling Man by Saul Bellow

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Dangling Man (Penguin Classics): Bellow, Saul, Coetzee, J. M. ...

The text of “Dangling Man” unfolds in the form of a diary. The story follows the complicated psychology of Joseph, the Jewish protagonist, who resigned and waits to enlist during World War II. Joseph had planned to use the delay in enlistment to relax and enjoy his freedom before joining the army. Joseph had no peace of mind. He stayed indoors all day long, lost in his own inner world. Joseph peeks into the world through the closed room, the emotional catharsis in the diary, at the same time record the emotional changes and the world. He did not know who he was, could not find a place in society, and gradually became a lonely patient rejected by his family and abandoned by his friends. Joseph had to talk to his alter ego, the surrogate elf. Joseph swung back and forth between the ideal and the reality, with loneliness and bewilderment constantly attacking him. He even began to doubt about family, marriage, friendship and future, and finally became a dangling man free from the society.

The heroes in Bellow’s works all have good wishes for a better life and the meaning of life. It is the consistent ideal of Bellow’s heroes to pursue perfect self and then perfect social life. However, life rewards them with hurt again and again, so they choose to flee. An inescapable paradox lies between their search and their flight. Just as they dream of playing the lofty role of helping the world and saving the world, in real life they are victims. The eternal contradiction between ideal and reality is reflected in them vividly. No matter how good they are in their professional fields, they are extremely clumsy in real life. Although Bellow’s heroes also persistently pursue their own ideals, they are fundamentally different from the traditional heroes. The traditional heroes leave behind a noble beauty of tragedy with arduous struggle, final failure, and destruction while the hero of Bellow leaves behind a paradoxical color.

-Coreen C.

Book Review: Herzog by Saul Bellow

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Herzog by Saul Bellow - Reading Guide: 9780143107675 ...

Herzog, the hero, is a university professor. He is knowledgeable, kind and sensitive, but he is at variance with the real society. He was married twice and divorced twice. The second wife, Madeleine, was fooling around with his best friend and drove him out of the house. Like an outsider, Herzog wandered about outside the family and society, but he could not find a spiritual way out. He was extremely miserable and lonely in heart, and he kept writing letters to all kinds of people, exploring and searching for the meaning of survival. He knew that he would not be understood, but regarded as a lunatic. But then he felt happier and more peaceful than he had ever felt before. Herzog came to visit an old flame, but immediately left without saying goodbye. Later, he returned to his childhood home and took an old gun that his father had left behind. He wants to kill Madeleine and Valentine. But after seeing Valentine patiently bathe his little daughter, he lost the will to kill. Soon after, he had a car accident. The police found his gun and detained him. His brother paid the fine before he was set free. Herzog in his middle years was bewildered, dizzy, mentally broken and helpless. In the end, Herzog and his lover Ramona return to their country home and found a home in love and nature.

The name of the protagonist of the novel focuses on a middle-aged Jewish intellectual seeking psychological balance, trying to find a foothold in the process. Herzog is a Jewish historian who teaches in the university. He is a senior intellectual who advocates rationality and bourgeois humanism. He believes in the development of social civilization and cares about the living conditions of human beings. Two failed marriages, his best friend became the lover of his second wife, and his emotional difficulties drove him almost insane. Because real life is everywhere against him, the hero fell into the habit of writing letters in the crazy meditation of a deep spiritual exploration. He vented his frustrations in words or in his head in a thousand letters but never sent any. He wrote to family members, relatives, friends, newspaper editors, even enemies, and prominent members of society, living and dead. Here Bellow does not directly show the readers Herzog’s personal life experience, but lets the isolated intellectuals in real life reflect his confusion in the process of trying to state the past, search for rationality, clarify thinking and find themselves.

-Coreen C.