From Mommy Dearest to Super Bitch: The Misunderstood Destructive Women in Hemingway's Early Works

Ernest Hemingway is perhaps one of the greatest American writers of the twentieth century. Known for his "spare and tight journalistic type of prose," Hemingway gives his readers uncomplicated views into the complex lives of his characters. In his works, Hemingway deals with many issues. However one of the most prevalent is gender and the male-female relationship. In many of his early works, Hemingway explores the complexities of male identity and how women interfere in its formation.

Hemingway once said "If a writer of prose knows enough about what he is writing about, he may omit things that he knows and the reader, if the writer is writing truly enough, will have a feeling of those things as strongly as though the writer had stated them" (Reuben). Hemingway knew first hand of the difficulties his male characters had with the women in their lives. In his personal life, as well as the lives of many of his male characters, Hemingway dealt with his inability to effectively communicate with women.

In his novel The Sun Also Rises (1926) and his short story collections In Our Time (1925) and Men Without Women (1927), Hemingway portrays women as destructive creatures, who whether intentionally or inadvertently, create problematic situations for the men in their lives, leaving them to question their own identity.

Although many perceive his characterizations to be based in malice towards the opposite sex, Hemingway's female characters are manifestations of his inability to find and maintain a balance between being a man and having strong women in his life.

Throughout his life, Hemingway had, at best, a difficult relationship with his mother. Grace Hall Hemingway and her husband Clarence "Ed" Hemingway had very different ideas about how to raise their children, especially their sons. An extremely independent and assertive woman, Grace sought to teach Ernest about the joys of music, her chosen career. In contrast, Ed wanted to promote his son's interest in hunting and fishing (Gladstein 54).