It's Not You, It's Me
Over the course of Ernest Hemingway and his first wife, Hadley Richardson's marriage, which lasted from 1921 to 1927, Hemingway published two novels, one being The Sun Also Rises, and three collections of short stories, including In Our Time.
While Hemingway was working on The Sun Also Rises and In Our Time in 1922, Hemingway’s wife had packed every single manuscript of Hemmingway’s, including all duplicates, into a single suitcase for Hemingway before he traveled. Unfortunately, the bag, as well as all of Hemingway’s manuscripts were stolen at Gare de Lyon train station. With the motivation from Hemingway’s good friend Ezra Pound, Hemingway either finished writing or rewrote entirely new pieces and published them as the 1923 version of In Our Time.
Despite the tension between Hemingway and Hadley following the loss of his manuscripts, Hemingway dedicated In Our Time to Hadley, the inscription which can be seen in the image to the left. In 1926, Hemingway’s novel The Sun Also Rises was officially published; a novel that follows a group of American and British expatriates traveling from Paris to Spain to attend the Festival of San Fermin– this group of expatriates included Hemingway and his friends.
From the left: Gerald Murphy, Sara Murphy, Pauline Pfeiffer, Ernest Hemingway, and Elizabeth Hadley Richardson.
The Sun Also Rises is known to be a roman a clef, or a novel with characters based on real people and action based on real events. While Hadley spent most of her time in Paris with Hemingway as he was writing The Sun Also Rises, the novel seems to only account and follow the relationship between Hemingway and Pauline Pfeiffer, a friend of both Hemingway and Hadley’s, the three of them pictured in the photo on the right.
Not only was 1926 the year The Sun Also Rises was published, it was also the year that Hadley first confronted Hemingway about his affair with Pfeiffer. After discovering the affair, Hadley gave Ernest “100 days” to prove that he was not in love with Pauline.
During this time, Hadley continued to write letters to Hemingway when they were apart, either due to Hemingway’s travels for his writing, or when their son got sick and Hadley was unable to travel alongside him. In one of the letters which are pictured to the left, Hadley refers to herself as his “Mummy Kitten,” one of the many nicknames the two constantly used between each other.
In this letter that Hadley wrote to Hemingway prior to their official divorce, Hadley jokingly and ironically invited Pauline to spend the summer with her and Ernest. Seventy-five days following her 100-day plan, Hadley wrote that she was no longer prepared to wait for Hemingway and officially filed for a divorce at the end of 1926.
Hemingway’s good friend, A.E. Hotchner, an American editor and novelist wrote in his novel, Hemingway in Love, of the first time Hemingway ran into Hadley in Paris, years following their divorce and his marriage to Pauline. Hadley was exiting a taxicab when Hemingway spotted her. The two went for dinner, and it was here that Hemingway confessed to Hadley, “I want you to know, Hadley, you’ll be the true part of any woman I write about. I’ll spend the rest of my life looking for you. I’ll always love you,” he told her.
Two weeks before committing suicide in 1961, Hemingway confessed to Hotchner while being treated in a hospital for depression and paranoia, “Tell me this. How does a young man know when he falls in love for the very first time – how can he know that it will be the only true love of his life? How can he possibly know? With any luck, maybe I’ll dream of Paris.” While what we know of Hemingway’s life in Paris leads us to believe he led a great life of partying and writing, Hemingway’s time in Paris was farther from a good time than most people are led to think. In The Ernest Hemingway Collection located in the JFK Library, Item #168 relays Hemingway’s famous words: “I do not know what I thought Paris would be like but it was not that way.”
Hemingway’s maltreatment of Hadley seems to be most evident in his published works. Though there is no concrete evidence proving this, it is more so the lack there of information on Hadley that gives us all of the more information regarding her mistreatment. Hadley was in fact, by Hemmingway’s side during the publishing of his first major works, and their relationship and her importance was not mentioned in a single one.
Despite Hadley being aware of Hemingway’s affair with Pauline, Hadley still treated Ernest as if he was her lover in her last few letters. Even following an affair, it seems as if Hadley was still expected to respect Hemingway, and treat him as her equal. This framework of marriage, while not as prominent today, still remains a prevalent construct in society, and to some feels like an obligation that must be upheld.
While the construct of marriage is not as enforced in all cultures as it was during Hemingway’s time, the dynamic of Hemingway and Hadley’s relationship seems to veer away from the general meanings and expectations we often associate with marriage and/or romantic love. Why, even after Hemingway goes against the traditional framework of marriage, does Hadley continue to uphold her roll as the wife?
How do we treat love and marriage today versus in the early 1900’s? Could Hemingway practically writing Hadley out of his life by not mentioning her in his novel, as well as the way Hadley treats Hemingway in her letters following the affair be a means for us, the reader, to gain insight into the minds and relationship of not only Hemingway and Hadley, but into the complexity and messiness of love/marriage in general?
What truths does Hemingway and Hadley’s relationship reveal to us about love? Is the messiness of marriage the problem, or it it the messiness and complexities within each individual themselves?