The Ideal of the Self

The Idealism of the Self

More important than where one is from and where one is going is who one is. Nothing can be known or experienced beyond the self. Why then do men constantly seek outward to find his meaning? Why must he believe what the world claims is true, when that truth is merely the fearful regurgitation of supposed facts enforced by a whirlwind majority? Since, perhaps, the beginning of civilization men have fallen in line for the "greater good" and those who did not were either called villain or hero. Obeying the self can bring both wonder and ruin; the outcome is mandated by the strength of one's will. In Ernest Hemingway's "A Clean Well-lighted Place," "A Soldier's Home," and A Farewell to Arms, the hero rejects the notion that foolish idealisms like marriage, patriotism and religion will force purpose into his life. Instead, he discovers that the only way to find any meaning in one's life is to live poised and dignified - true only to oneself.

First and foremost the code hero must either be separate or separate himself from the society in which he exists. Fredric Henry, in A Farewell to Arms, is able to emotionally evolve because he is an American soldier in the Italian Army. The distance between himself and his world allows him to surpass the superficial biases and prejudices which only serve to encumber the growth of the hero. As we can see in "A Clean Well-lighted Place" every character, the old and young waiter and the old man, is baffled by the motives of the others. Even the stoic hero, the old waiter, asks why the old man has tried to commit suicide (Kerner). He cannot know why for he is not of the same creed. He is alone in a world of strangers, and that is how it must be; lest he too falls into despair like the old man, or lives in ignorance as the young waiter does. And so the ignorance of the world's motives is but a signal of the hero's ability to transcend his world. But to be a man apart is not simply enough he must take the next step and actively reject the world that is restraining him. Like Krebs, in "A Soldiers Home", who "did not want to tell any more lies... did not need a girl... [and] did not want to come home" (155) and Fredric Henry who chides Ferguson for being a religious zealot, the hero must learn to rely on himself and not the preconceived notions of his peers. Krebs does not want to lie to his mother and he doesn't want to lie to himself. He wants to be free. Free to be alone without a girl, free not to return to home that is no longer his own, free to believe what he will.

The most common prejudice shared between the hero's peers, which the hero must reject, is religion. Religious dogma must be rejected, for it is the greatest symbol of blind prejudice and superstitious belief. Although Hemingway portrays the religious characters as well-intentioned individuals, they are ultimately made out to be fools. "[Krebs] mother prayed for him" in order to save his soul and help him regain his ambition but "still, none of it had touched him" (158). Prayer can not help Krebs. If there ever was a God, Krebs is out of His reach or He does not wish to intervene. There is no solace to be found in religion; the hero is "not in His Kingdom" (247) any more. The hero creates a world of his own when he rejects society. He has to, for he has no other options. Count Greffi, a ninety-four year old man in A Farewell to Arms, "had always expected to become devout... but somehow it [did] not come" (263) because there was no reason to believe. Despair rises from meaninglessness and it "is the despair felt by a man who hungers for the sense of order and assurance that men seem to find in religious faith, but who cannot find grounds for his faith" (Warren 38). There is no reason and no way for these men to return to the "Kingdom." They cannot return because they felt the truth: there is no kingdom. Like the old waiter, when the only thing left to believe in is "nada" one must find strength not from without but from within. This nothingness, this "nada is an umbrella term that subsumes all of the irrational, unforeseeable, existential forces that tend to infringe upon the human self, to make a 'nothing.' It is the absolute power of chance and circumstance to negate individual free will and the entropic tendency toward ontological disorder that perpetually looms over man's tenuous personal sense of order" (Hoffman). Nada is the truth. It is the dark emptiness which envelops all mankind. Conscious of its existence or not all must exist within it. There is no way to escape its inevitability. We sprang from nada and so shall we all return.

Although independent, the code hero does seek companionship in others; however the idea of courtship and marriage is thrown out as a fools dance enforced by society. Even the stubborn, religious Ferguson admits, "You'll never get married... You'll fight before you'll marry. . . . Fight or die. That's what people do. They don't marry" (Hemingway, "Farwell to Arms" 151). Ferguson fears that they will be too late to return to the grace of God. Fears that the holy spirit will tear the couple apart before they can enjoy the holiness of matrimony What Ferguson does not realize though is that they could have been married a hundred times and Catherine still would have died, because "Catherine is destroyed not by the war [or an overt act of god], but by the small hips that would have killed her in Minneapolis" (Gellens 113); she could have married a wealthy catholic priest in the Abruzzi and still she would have ended up the same way. Nothing could prevent Catherine's death. Even if the baby was delivered by the most expensive surgeons in the world and she survived the delivery, no amount of money could keep Catherine from eventually dieing.

Hemingway shows that wealth is not a measure of well being, for no amount of wealth or revelry can dilute one's perception to the point of accepting the travesties committed by society. As one can see, money does not blind the old man from the "nada" which consumes him. Nor does Fredric Henry find happiness in the revelry "of cafes and nights when the room whirled and you needed to look at the wall to make it stop, nights in bed, drunk, when you [believed] that that was all there was" (Hemingway, "Farwell to Arms" 72). Losing themselves in parties and wealth is only a temporary escape from the torment of their souls. When the world stops whirling the pain sets in again. And the drunken night must eventually fades into sober mornings when the cold world welcomes back its weary inhabitants.

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