Chapter 6 - Family Dynamics and Redefinitions of “Papa”-hood

Summary

In “Family Dynamics and the Re-definitions of Papa-hood,” Suzanne del Gizzo tracks the construction of Hemingway’s famous “Papa” persona and the way, especially since the end of the twentieth century, scholars and critics have explored how the assumption his parternal if not paternalistic image may have been rooted in vulnerability and anxiety about masculinity – and indeed about identity more broadly – that began in the author’s childhood and extended into his public and private performances of “Papa”-hood into his adulthood, performances further complicated by a rapid decline in health and mental well-being in his fifties. Del Gizzo observes that the issue of “Papa”-hood is found at a busy intersection of Hemingway scholarship, where biography, psychoanalytic criticism, trauma studies, masculinity studies, and clinical assessments of the author’s mental health issues converge. Informed by developments in our understanding of the impact of mental health on family life, the essay surveys biographical criticism and literary scholarship related to representations of fathers and sons in Hemingway’s work.