Hemingway, Race(ism), and Criticism

Book chapter

Ian Marshall

The New Hemingway Studies, pp.161-75

2020

Metrics

60 Record Views

Title: Hemingway, Race(ism), and Criticism
Author/Creator: Ian Marshall
Publication Details: The New Hemingway Studies, pp.161-75
Annotation: Argues that books on H and race by Strong (2008) and Dudley (2011) present only launching points for essential study by current scholars. Suggests that an important text, Ralph Ellison's essay "Twentieth Century Fiction and the Black Mask of Humanity" (published in 1953), deserves closer attention, especially to its political framework. Moreover, a critical tendency in recent years to emphasize Ellison's comments on Hemingway's technical accomplishments has "with almost surgical precision, occluded or otherwise minimized [the essay's] implications with respect to race and class conflict." Critiques studies by scholars such as Holcomb and Scruggs (2012) as insufficiently sensitive to Hemingway's racialized and racist content. Examines "Soldier's Home" and "The Porter" to highlight missed opportunities for critical exploration of the subject. Concludes that essays by Brogan (on Hemingway and Alice Walker, 2010) and Pipes (Hemingway and Alain Locke, 2018) and similar intertextual studies illustrate how continued and reimagined academic attention to Hemingway can better inform students' socioeconomic understanding of literature and its relation to their lives.
Academic Unit: Hemingway Bibliography
Language: English
Resource Type: Book chapter
Record Identifier: 991015136297003691