Hemingway’s war on therapy culture

Ernest Hemingway’s debut major novel, The Sun Also Rises, marks its centenary today. The work challenges the enduring public perception of the author as a gruff, emotionless figure obsessed solely with bullfighting and deep-sea fishing. Instead, the text presents a psychologically complex narrative centered on Jake Barnes, an American military veteran drifting through war-scarred European cities. The story moves from Paris to Pamplona in northern Spain, where Barnes navigates social dynamics driven by suppressed trauma. While the character exhibits notable taciturnity, the underlying tension points toward deeper psychological motivations rather than mere stoicism. Readers familiar with Hemingway’s reputation for terse, masculine prose may find the novel surprising. For decades, critics and imitators have parodied his style, leading to cultural artifacts like the International Imitation Hemingway Competition established in 1977. This competition produced satirical pieces such as "Big Too-Hardened Liver" over three decades. Even F. Scott Fitzgerald fell victim to the urge to mimic the author in 1934 within the pages of Esquire. These parodies often reduced Hemingway’s literary output to simple observations about dead biscuits or wind, ignoring the nuanced exploration of human feeling found in his actual work. In The Sun Also Rises, Hemingway leaves the specific nature of Jake’s torment ambiguous. The protagonist stares into a full-length mirror and remarks cryptically that being wounded in a certain way seemed funny. Years later, when journalists suggested Jake was a direct stand-in for the author, Hemingway dismissed the idea by asking if they believed he had lost his genitalia in combat. Once readers recognize the sexual impotence implied by Jake’s condition, the novel’s action takes on new meaning. The bullfights and fistfights serve as compensatory mechanisms for psychological distress. Jake watches the bullfights with longing, earning the label of a true aficionado from locals in Pamplona. He strategically befriends the toreador, leaving him alone with the promiscuous aristocrat Lady Brett Ashley in hopes they will spend the night together. This dynamic illustrates how humans displace simmering frustrations into other areas of life. The novel acts as a blueprint for other classic Hemingway stories from the 1920s and 1930s. Works like "Big Two-Hearted River" from 1925 depict fishing trips serving as refuges from war trauma. Similarly, "The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber" from 1936 features moments of rash courage on hunting expeditions that compensate for romantic humiliation. These narratives emerged during a peak period of Freudian influence in North America. Writers like Eugene O’Neill sold out Broadway theaters with plays exploring the Oedipus Complex. Meanwhile, Edward Bernays, Freud’s nephew, applied psychoanalytic theories to persuade American women to smoke. In Paris, where Hemingway resided, surrealist movements also engaged deeply with Freudian concepts. The interplay between personal psychology and external action defines the era’s literature, moving beyond surface-level masculinity to examine internal displacement.