Resolving Tensions in The Garden of Eden: Determining Hemingway’s Final Dilemma
Resolving Tensions in The Garden of Eden: Determining Hemingway’s Final Dilemma

Summary/Abstract: The concept of sex/gender as a binary set lies at the heart of The Garden of Eden, along with Hemingway’s life-long fascination with the possibilities of shift in gender and with sex. The question of male identity and the crisis in masculinity seems to have been evolved into the broader question of gender identity and gender crisis. The significance of the theme of androgyny in The Garden of Eden lies in the fact that it accentuated the issue of sex, gender and sexuality not in one single novel to which it belonged; rather, the structure of the book echoes through and affects our general understanding of Hemingway’s entire oeuvre. In this novel, the traditional masculine voice lying latent in Hemingway’s psyche surfaces and functions in favor of the masculine authority. This has been part of the unresolved dilemma within Hemingway for long. He had stored it within him and has expressed it on various other occasions. The present paper undertakes to resolve the long-debated tension regarding Hemingway’s gender dilemma in The Garden of Eden.

• Details
• Contents