Introduction

Hadley and Hemingway 

While the way we view love and marriage has evolved as the year's progress, the way we define a healthy, successful relationship seems to be something that is constantly up in the air. The factors we use to determine and define a “healthy” or “happy” relationship are always dependent on the person, their wants, and their needs. However, how can two people be happy in a relationship and successfully make each other happy if one of the two people is not happy with themselves?

Ernest Hemingway and his first wife, Hadley Richardson married in 1921. Shortly after being married, moved to Paris, where Hemingway began to pursue his career as a writer. Alongside Hadley, Hemingway began working on and publishing some of his most famous works, one being his novel The Sun Also Rises. While it is apparent to any reader that Hemingway dedicated a variety of his texts to Hadley, his mention of Hadley throughout his earlier published texts seems to be missing. The Sun Also Rises was otherwise known as a roman a clef, or a novel with characters based on real people and action based on real events. This novel was specifically based on Hemingway and his friend’s travels from Paris to the Festival of San Fermín in Pamplona to watch the running of the bulls. Being that Hemingway was married to Hadley and wrote alongside her for the beginning of his career and during the publishing of The Sun Also Rises as well as In Our Time, one would assume that Hemingway would have mentioned Hadley in the text– even though he doesn’t.

Hemingway’s lack-there-of mentioning Hadley in his texts seems to be less of a reflection of his relationship (or lack of relationship) with Hadley, but more so a reflection of his relationship with himself. Hemingway’s instability set a precedent for not only the series of events that occurred throughout his life regarding both his career and his relationships but also for the unstable relationship he had with himself, ultimately resulting in his suicide at the age of 61, making his life one of the saddest American literary tales.

In “A Moveable Feast,’’ which Hemingway was still working on revising when he died, he says, in reference to Hadley, “I wish I had died before I ever loved anyone but her.’’ What does Hemingway and Hadley’s relationship reveal to us about the complexities and messiness of love and marriage?