Reflections of the Father: Mirroring in Hemingway's Garden of Eden
Open Access
- Author:
- Danella, Kristin T
- Area of Honors:
- Letters, Arts, and Sciences (Abington)
- Degree:
- Bachelor of Arts
- Document Type:
- Thesis
- Thesis Supervisors:
- Linda Patterson Miller, Thesis Supervisor
Ellen Andrews Knodt, Thesis Honors Advisor - Keywords:
- Ernest Hemingway
The Garden of Eden
Mirror Images
In Our Time
Dr. Clarence E. Hemingway
Fathers and Sons
Autobiographical influences on Hemingway's writing - Abstract:
- Garden of Eden, one of Ernest Hemingway’s posthumous novels, concentrates a tremendous amount of autobiographical material into one work. Hemingway always strived to “get the actual feel of things” into his writing. In Garden of Eden, Hemingway uses both physical mirror scenes where his protagonists gaze into their own reflections, and mirrored stories, such as “African Story,” which parallels “Indian Camp,” and “My Old Man,” to analyze his artistic identity, his own family relations, and ultimately, his role as a son. My thesis purports to discuss Garden of Eden in three distinct chapters. The first chapter looks at several of David and Catherine’s many scenes where they look into their own reflection in the mirror. These physical mirror scenes in Garden of Eden shed light on Catherine’s lack of artistic identity, and David’s newly found identity that he achieves through his writing. The second chapter discusses how Catherine’s struggle for power causes David to seek refuge in his short stories, which ultimately forces Catherine to destroy his manuscripts. Catherine’s actions and personality mirrors Mrs. Adams’s (a stand-in for Hemingway’s mother) actions in Hemingway’s early Nick Adams stories. The second chapter looks at Hemingway’s relations with his own parents and how this is reflected in Garden of Eden. Finally, the third chapter is a close textual comparison of “African Story,” written into the text of this late novel, and two early In Our Time short stories, “Indian Camp” and “My Old Man.” Garden of Eden, although a controversial novel, is fascinating because it combines so many different aspects of Hemingway’s life as a writer, a husband, and a son into the story of David and Catherine Bourne’s crumbling marriage. Ultimately, Garden of Eden is an affirmation of Hemingway’s vocation as a writer. Through writing, he not only discovers himself, but also redefines his relationship with his father.