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Red Plush And Brass: Prostitution As A Mirror Of Self In The Fiction Of Ernest Hemingway, Claude Caswell

Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation examines the iconography and psychology of prostitution as a motif in the fiction of Ernest Hemingway. After identifying the prostitutional dynamics that form a recurring pattern throughout Hemingway's work and personal life, the discussion focuses primarily on exploring the implications of those dynamics in Hemingway's three major novels: The Sun Also Rises (1926), A Farewell to Arms (1929), and For Whom the Bell Tolls (1940).

What this study contends is that the literal and figurative presence of prostitution as a theme in Hemingway's narratives operates on two basic levels. On one level, the prostitution elements represent the pathology …