Bill and Jake's insensitivity
Upon Bill's return from his trips to Budapest and Vienna, he arrives at Jake's flat in a taxi and recounts his story from Vienna. He calls Budapest a wonderful place, but remembers nothing of Vienna on account of drunkenness, except for one black fighter he clearly remembered helping after one of his fights. He describes how the man was about to make a post-match speech when the locals started throwing chairs and attempting to strike him, and Jake's party had driven him away from danger and helped him get money from people who owed him. The way Bill and Jake discuss this story allows us readers to have a glimpse about the insensitivities of Bill and Jake as characters.
Bill uses the N-word copiously in his story, which seems to contradict his other praises about the fighter. Bill refers to him as "splendid" and "wonderful" plenty of times. When describing the outbreak of violence, Bill notes that he was not one of the ones throwing chairs or punches, and even ends up helping the man find his money and clothing him with his jacket until he can get his own clothes back. It indeed seems like Bill has some respect for the fighter. However, throughout his entire retelling of the story, he never refers to him as "man," "fellow," or "boy" as he does to other people he describes. He only uses the N-word along with a few uses of "fighter." Bill also doesn't give any indication that he knows the man's name, despite knowing details about his life with his family in Cologne. Does Bill really respect the man, despite using such degrading language? What was Hemingway's purpose in including Bill's story in the book?
I think Hemingway includes Bill's story to show his insensitivity to people different from him. Though he uses a word of such negativity, Bill praises him and doesn't give a single sign of a negative opinion he has of him, showing how Bill doesn't fully understand the weight of how degrading and disrespectful his usage of the N-word is. We additionally see his insensitivity later in chapter 9, when he notes to a priest that the lack of service to him was "enough to make a man join the Klan" (96). This makes me think Hemingway used Bill's story to illustrate Bill's general insensitivity to others.
Jake uses the N-word once while asking a question to Bill regarding his story, and his usage of the word seems to show his similar lack of sensitivity. Jake could have easily used "him" or "the man," as Bill could have, but chooses to use the N-word instead. We have already observed other signs of Jake's insensitivity in a dancing club in Paris. We discussed in class about how the men Brett went to the Braddock's dancing-club with were homosexual, and in that section, after seeing them, Jake noted how their presence angered him, and told himself that they were meant to be "amusing," showing his feelings of inferiority due to his injury but also his lack of respect for these people due to their identity as homosexuals.
Though Bill's Vienna story comes up in the text out of nowhere and immediately disperses, I personally think Hemingway is setting up context for an encounter with somebody later in the plot. Our main characters are currently travelling, and they have already demonstrated that they can be insensitive to anybody, shown in their encounter with a priest in the train. I personally hope they encounter the fighter once again so he can knock them all out for talking about him that way. And until then, thanks for reading.
I think Bill's actions speak louder than his words. His language obviously paints a bad picture of him but the story he was telling was about him the man away from the fight safely, getting him clothes, and loaning him money. Likely, if the fighter is encountered, he will be grateful to Bill.
ReplyDeleteI think that Bill and Jake's casual bigotry that's never addressed or corrected shows Hemingway's level of privilege. It's not a main part of the plot, it never gets mentioned again, so bigotry is just an essential part of these characters' worldview and many readers in the 1920s would have accepted it without batting an eye. I don't think Hemingway is saying all that much about the characters specifically, since those beliefs were pretty widespread and socially accepted. Hemingway is in a position to make jokes about Jewish people or the Klan and expect people to laugh along. It's very jarring to read in the present day, but we are probably not the intended audience for this book.
ReplyDeleteWhile I'm not saying Bill's use of the N-word is okay in any sense and I completely agree with the fact that Bill is being extremely insensitive in this moment, I don't know if Bill meant it in a degrading way. It's hard to say if Bill meant it to degrade the fighter or he just used the word in reference to him. Despite if he meant it in this way or not it still goes to show how insensitive he is, using a slur in casual conversation.
ReplyDeleteNot only does Jake not recognize how disgusting that was, Hemingway doesn't seem to either. It takes a lot of enjoyment from the book for me, even contextualizing it, how abhorrent some of the things they say are
ReplyDeleteI agree with your point about this likely setting up important character traits for later - it's an interesting depiciton of two men of the time period - though is this Hemingway depicting what he views as normal people? Are these two particularily incensitive, and Brett who hangs out with homosexuals a rarity? It's interesting to see how their situations in life perfectly set them up to have no "incentive" to know about and relate to those different from them.
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