Other Female Figures in FEAST

Through Hemingway, we’re introduced to a feminine and gentle Sylvia Beach. He describes her as having, “Brown eyes that were as alive as a small animal’s and as gay as a young girl’s.” He includes descriptions of her gossiping and joking, but also gives light to her kindness and trust, discussing a time when she let Hemingway borrow books without paying the borrowing deposit. In addition to this, Hemingway emphasizes that Beach didn’t rush him to pay, but rather encouraged him to take his time and enjoy the literature stating, “Don’t read too fast.”

Beach is portrayed as all-knowing and witty in this passage as Hemingway doesn’t think she knows that he lives in a poorer side of Paris, however it is later revealed the Beach very well knows where Hemingway lives and is knowledgeable of the area. Beach is portrayed as a genuine and patient woman who enjoys the ‘finer’ elements of life, wanting to share them with everyone: reading books, eating good meals. She even invites Hemingway and his wife over for dinner upon just meeting him. 

In Beach’s letters to Joyce, we see this same kindness that Hemingway portrays, as she states “Everything I have I give you freely.” This highlights this open and giving nature that Hemingway experienced with Beach. 

However through these letters we see a side to Beach that Hemingway does not give light to. Beach was level-headed, dealing with the mistreatment from Joyce (and his ego) to publish a book she believed in. Beach found herself, ‘being pressed into service to run his endless errands, to lend him pocket money, to give him a sympathetic ear.’ 

Joyce eventually betrays Beach by taking Ulysses to a ‘more lucrative’ publisher. Beach states, “(I am poor and tired too) and I have noticed that every time a new terrible effort is required from me, (my life is a continual “six hours” with sprints every ten rounds) and I manage to accomplish the task that is set me you try to see how much more I can do while I am about. Is it human?” 

Hemingway compares Beach to a ‘young girl,’ however here we see Beach defending herself; not letting herself be pushed around and taken advantage of. Beach, although shown as kind, patient, and giving, is revealed as a strong woman through her letters with Joyce. Beach also puts her store before Joyce, having her priorities clearly marked; a woman who knows what she wants and what’s important to her. 

Beach as a strong and rational woman is again supported through her discussion of the war. For example, while discussing her student assistant being, ‘machine-gunned in the ditches’ to later be interned, she does so matter-of-factly, interjecting none of her own emotion in the matter. Beach even begins the following paragraph describing how lovely a particular day in June was. 

Even the mere fact that Beach decided to take the risk and stay in Paris talks to her determined and strong demeanor, refusing to compromise her preferences for the Nazis. As opposed to the eager way she gave Hemingway books, she refuses to sell the copy of Finnegan’s Wake to the German officer (who Beach points out was high-ranking), simply saying that she was keeping it for herself. Hemingway’s encounter with Beach fails to expose this strong demeanor, bravery, and the manner in which she stuck to her ideals that we see through her interactions with Joyce and the war.

In regard to Hadley, we receive this same very blanketed representation from Hemingway. 

Hadley, as portrayed in the Gammel reading, is traditional-sacrificing to take care of her mother. 

This image of Hadley as a woman of another time; a woman who follows the gender norms and sits pretty as a dutiful wife is really only hinted at throughout A Moveable Feast. For example, Hadley insists on paying back the library that day-she’s kind; intends on doing things right; being a good, dutiful wife by caring for her husband and picking up his shortcomings. She makes him lunch and waits to hear about his day. Again, further on, we get this sense of Hadley as this naive woman of domestication when she says, “And we’ll never love anyone else but each other.” 

Through A Moveable Feast, we also see Hemingway’s control in their relationship, making plans for the night without consulting Hadley, merely telling her. But Hemingway presents her as stable, kind, and gentle, portraying her traditional mindset, not so much as traditional, but rather as helpful and calm.

Hadley (and her traditionalism) was on the sidelines of Hemingway’s modernism. Hemingway doesn’t present this clash either throughout A Moveable Feast, which brings up the question of whether he really digested how traditional of a woman she was. Hadley states, “I have no passion of my own.” Dropping out of university, Hadley did not have the same work ethic or drive as Hemingway either. We don’t see this side of her in A Moveable Feast either, as she seems interested in the library, asking if it has Henry James. Hadley was probably not an intellectual in the same sense as Hemingway, but this is never revealed through Hemingway’s depictions of her.  

In addition to this clash in mentalities, Hemingway’s wife experienced inner turmoil herself-dealing with the effects of an abusive father and suffering with Ernest’s anxiety (as it reminded her of her father’s rage). Hadley was not as stable as we see her presented by Hemingway.

Regardless, this difference in their mentalities eventually catches up to them when Hemingway leaves Hadley for Pauline, Hadley even gave Hemingway permission to remarry (how traditional). Hadley follows the older norms for women. Pound even warned her against trying, “to utterly domesticate” Hemingway. Hemingway, a man so ahead of his time and Hadley, a woman so stuck in the times, were sure to not work out. 

For the most part, A Moveable Feast shows Hadley as warm, kind and gentle, which she very well may have been, but it leaves out that these qualities stemmed from a mindset stuck in the ‘traditional.'

Nonetheless, Hemingway portrays both these women with qualities which other readings support, but leaves out the deeper elements to their personalities. For Beach he leaves out that, although kind, gentle and understanding, she was also strong and respected. He presents his own wife as kind and warm, hinting that she may care about her reputation amongst the locals (in her eagerness to return the book), but never revealing the extent of her traditional mindset and instability. 

“Paris is so very beautiful that it satisfies something in you that is always hungry in America.” 

Maybe this is why Hemingway failed to highlight Beach’s strength, or his own wife’s domesticated nature. He was in a city that leaves you constantly fulfilled, painting everything in it in the best possible light. Hemingway was starstruck by Paris.