Title
Ernest Hemingway and the Mirror of Manhood: Fetishism, Transvestism, Homeovestism, and Perverse Méconnaissance
Document Type
Article
Annotation
Analysis of Hemingway’s divided sexuality, drawing on the author’s personal letters, published and unpublished works, and theories of psychosexual transgression. Reads David Bourne of The Garden of Eden as possessing a “rift in his sense of gender identity and in the basic structure of his ego,” relating his struggles to Hemingway’s. Argues Catherine Bourne is a resurrection of Catherine Barkley of A Farewell to Arms, with both representing “the split-off feminine half of Hemingway’s ego.” Explores various confusions of self in mirror reflections throughout Hemingway’s canon, arguing that the author identified transvestically with the phallic woman and homeovestically with his father. Concludes that Hemingway serves as a model of manhood because of the courageous record he left of his constructed masculinity and femininity.
Published in
Arizona Quarterly
Volume
54
Issue
3
Date
1998
Pages
27-68
Citation
Eby, Carl P. “Ernest Hemingway and the Mirror of Manhood: Fetishism, Transvestism, Homeovestism, and Perverse Méconnaissance.” Arizona Quarterly 54, no. 3 (Autumn 1998): 27-68.