A Farewell to Sexism and The Female Also Rises Essay

Ernest Hemingway has a reputation of organism a do misogynist. People have analyzed his books, specifically A Farewell to Arms and The Sun Also Rises, and attacked him for being sexist towards the main female roles, Catherine Barkley and doll Brett Ashley. Other analysts argue that Catherine and Brett are strong female authorise roles. Through these two characters, Hemingway disproves the misogynist and sexist analysts and presents readers with in pendent female roles. A characteristic of sexism towards women include wake their dependence, including the inability to think by themselves.In A Farewell to Arms, Frederic asks Catherine to kiss her and she replies no. If Catherine was so dependent and couldnt think on her own, she wouldnt have refused Frederics affection. Catherine also asks Frederic if he loves her and she calls him show up for fiction and goes on to say You dont have to pretend to love me (Hemingway, 31). This shows that she thinks and is not blinded by her emotio ns and is able to realize that he is lying to her. In The Sun Also Rises, Lady Brett Ashley does whatever she wants. She is unbelievably promiscuous and parties all the time with the guys.Most women during the conception War I time sat post in the kitchen and took compassionate of the kiddos rather than having a drink with the guys. Instead, aft(prenominal) she hooked up with Romero and Cohn got jealous and stick by him up, she scolded Cohn. Not many women would yell at a guy during the World War I period. This still further shows her independence and her ability to think by herself. Critics argue that Catherine is merely a male conceive of (Shmoop column Team). They have good evidence in saying that and they argue that Catherine gives up her own individualism to get Frederic to love her. They use her paraphrase about religion, Youre my religion.Youre all Ive got (Hemingway), and her quote about herself, There isnt any me. Im you. Dont make up a separate me (Hemingway). But what those critics arent gibeing is that Catherine is just a romantic woman. She is very alone(predicate) and desperately wants a deep, beautiful love after seeing all the deceases and wounded soldiers around her. Her wanting to be one with Frederic is completely justified. According to the Shmoop Editorial Team, critic Sandra Whipple Spanier says that her willingness to love Frederic entirely is heroic because it saves her from exit crazy with grief.When everything is exploding all around you, everything takes on more urgency. Its normal that she feels so intensely for Frederic and that she thinks of droll and even poetic ways to express this love. Its not Hemingways misogyny that is making him picture Catherine this way its just the toll that the war has on her. More proof of independence in Catherine is that when she and Frederic are apart, she just keeps working and getting by dint of the days without him. She does not need him to get through the day and that just pr oves her to be a strong, independent woman.Another thing that sets her apart from sexist characteristics is her coordination compound thoughts on marriage. This complexity is shown through her conflict between not following the social norms she doesnt care about and conforming to such norms because doing so makes life easier (Shmoop Editorial Team). She tells Frederic that her and her Fiance, that has died, were engaged for eight years because if they got conjoin she thought hed be trapped. When Frederic brings up getting married, she just plays it off like theyre already practically married and why fix something thats not broken?She only begins to castrate her mind after her pregnancy. Hemingway also disproves the critics when he aligns the significance of fall during the war to Catherine. Even though rain can be seen as a symbol of spring and rebirth, Catherine sees it differently and associates it with death and gloom (Shmoop Editorial Team). When Frederic asks her why she is afraid of the rain she states that Its very hard on loving (Hemingway), Im afraid of the rain because sometimes I see me dead in it (Hemingway), and And sometimes I see you dead in it (Hemingway).According to Shmoop, the rain makes soldiers more prone to injury and they did research to find out why Catherine would say that rain is hard on loving. They found that her fiance died during the Battle of Somme, which was showery so she associated the rain with death. By her thinking this way and being able to associate the rain with death and gloom, it proves that Hemingway made Catherine out to be a complex character. Hemingway also makes Catherine and Lady Brett Ashley strong and totally throws extraneous the females are weak and emotionally unstable stereotype.First and foremost, Catherine is a World War I have at an overseas hospital. She takes care of soldiers that are, most of the time, fatally wounded. The reason she does this is because her fiance was killed in battle. Instead of crumbling after his death, she pulls through and does something that will benefit more people after a tragic event in her life. If Hemingway was so sexist, he would have made her kill herself like Shakespeare does to his weak female characters after calamity strikes their lives.According to the Shmoop Editorial Team, Hemingway parallels the death of the soldiers during battle to Catherines death, stating that Like the soldiers who stood live on in the face of battle, Catherine stood brave in the face of a battle with her own body. Hemingway also showed some strength in Lady Brett Ashley from The Sun Also Rises, when she was not sickened by the bull fighting like the typical woman. In A Farewell to Arms and The Sun Also Rises, Hemingway provides readers with two strong, independent female characters that are improbably admirable for women.By Hemingway showing Catherines strength and diverse way of thinking throughout World War I and Lady Brett Ashleys ability to be one of the guys and speak out for herself, he challenges his critics and proves that he is not the misogynist that people claim him to be. Works Cited Hemingway, Ernest. A Farewell to Arms. New York Scribner, 1957. Print. 16 Feb. 2014. Shmoop Editorial Team. Catherine Barkley in A Farewell to Arms. Shmoop. com. Shmoop University, Inc. , 11 Nov. 2008. Web. 16 Feb. 2014.