Chapter 10 - Hemingway, Race(ism), and Criticism

Summary

In “Hemingway, Race(ism), and Criticism,” Ian Marshall surveys the recent surge of criticism on Hemingway and race exemplified by the work of Marc K. Dudley, Amy L. Strong, Gary Edward Holcomb, and Charles Scruggs, among many others. In a provocative argument, he insists that examinations of this topic do not sufficiently decenter the author and thus end up as character testimonials, attempting to gauge the degree to which Hemingway was/was not racist. Marshall instead argues that Hemingway’s leftist politics should be recognized (at least before his 1950s shift to the moderate right) to appreciate the influence of his stance on class divisions on Ralph Ellison. Insisting that critics have misunderstood Ellison’s supposed abandonment of radicalism after the 1940s, he argues that black writers have been far more wary and suspicious of Hemingway than Hemingway scholarship has admitted. He then concludes by noting the particularly inspiring use of comparative pedagogies to open the canon and introduce readers to the Harlem Renaissance as a counterpoint to Hemingway.