The Hemingway Code Hero

Indigenous to almost all of Hemingway's novels and in fact to a study of Hemingway in general is the
concept of the Hemingway hero, sometimes more popularly known as the "code hero." When Hemingway's
novels first began to appear, they were readily accepted by the American reading public; in fact they were
enthusiastically received. Part of this reception was due to the fact that Hemingway had created a new type of
fictional character whose basic response to life appealed very strongly to the people of the 1920's. At first the
average reader saw in the Hemingway hero a type of person whom he could identify with in almost a dream
sense. The Hemingway man was a man's man. He was a man involved in a great deal of drinking. He was a
man who moved from one love affair to another, who participated in wild game hunting, who enjoyed bullfights,
who was involved in all of the so-called manly activities which the typical American male did not participate in.

As more and more of Hemingway's novels appeared and the reader became more familiar with this type of
person, we gradually began to formulate a theory about the Hemingway code hero. We observed that
throughout many of Hemingway's novels the code hero acts in a manner which allowed the critic to formulate a
particular code. It must be emphasized, however, that the Hemingway character or code hero would himself
never speak of a code. He does not make such broad generalizations. To actually formulate a set of rules of
conduct to which the Hemingway character would adhere is, in one sense, a violation of the essential nature of
the code hero. He does not talk about what he believes in. He is a man of action rather than a man of theory.
Therefore, the following concepts of the code hero are those enunciated not by the hero himself but by the
critics and readers who are familiar with the total body of Hemingway's works and of his views.

Behind the formulation of this concept of the hero lies the basic disillusionment of the American public, the
disillusionment that was brought about by the First World War. The sensitive man in America or the sensitive
man in the world came to the realization that the old concepts and old values embedded in Christianity and
other ethical systems of the western world had not served to save mankind from the catastrophe inherent in
this World War. Consequently, after the war many sensitive writers began to look for a new system of values, a
system of values that would replace the old received doctrines that had proved to be useless. Having endured
the great calamity of World War 1, Hemingway found that he could not return to the quiet countryside of
America, could no longer accept those values that had previously dominated all of America. Instead, he
searched for some principles based upon a sense of order and discipline that would endure in any particular
situation. We can conclude this by saying that Hemingway's values then are not Christian; they are not the
morals that we have grown accustomed to in twentieth-century Protestant America.

A basis for all of the actions of all Hemingway key heroes is the concept of death. The idea of death
permeates or lies behind all of the characters' actions in Hemingway's novels. This view involves Hemingway's
concept that "when you are dead you are dead." There is nothing more. If man cannot accept a life or reward
after death, the emphasis must then be on obtaining or doing or performing something in this particular life. If
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death ends all activity, if death ends all knowledge and consciousness, man must seek his reward here, now,
immediately. Consequently, the Hemingway man exists in a large part for the gratification of his sensual
desires; he will devote himself to all types of physical pleasures because these are the rewards of this life.

Hemingway's characters first attracted attention because they did drink a lot and did have many love
affairs; this appealed on a simple level to the populace. In its most elementary sense, if man is to face total
oblivion at his death, there is nothing then to do but enjoy as many of the physical pleasures as possible during
this life. Thus the Hemingway man will drink, he will make love, he will enjoy food, he will enjoy all sensuous
appetites--all the sensuous pleasures that are possible. For example, we need only to recall small insignificant
scenes in Hemingway works, such as in A Farewell to Arms, when in the midst of the battle Frederick Henry
and his two ambulance drivers sit down in the middle of the battlefield amid all of the destruction and
thoroughly devote themselves to relishing, enjoying, savoring every taste of their macaroni, cheese, and bottle
of mediocre wine,

Returning to the primary consideration, that is, that death is the end of all things, it then becomes the duty
and the obligation of the Hemingway hero to avoid death at almost all cost. Life must continue. Life is valuable
and enjoyable. Life is everything. Death is nothing. With this view in mind, it might seem strange then to the
casual or superficial reader that the Hemingway code hero will often be placed in an encounter with death, or
that the Hemingway hero will choose often to confront death. The bullfighters, the wild game hunters,
characters like these are in constant confrontation with death.

From this we derive then the idea of grace under pressure. This concept is one according to which the
character must act in a way that is acceptable when he is faced with the fact of death. One might express it in
other terms by saying that the Hemingway man must have fear of death, but he must not be afraid to die. By
fear we mean that he must have the intellectual realization that death is the end of all things and as such must
constantly be avoided in one way or another.

But--and this is the significant point--man can never act in a cowardly way. He must not show that he is
afraid or trembling or frightened in the presence of death. We can extend this idea further by saying that, if man
wishes to live, he lives most intensely sometimes when he is in the direct presence of death. This will at times
bring out man's most innate qualities, test his manhood, will contribute then an intensity, a vivacity to the life
that he is at present leading, and it is for this reason that Hemingway often places his characters either in war,
in bull-fighting rings, or on the plains of Africa where he must face an animal determined to kill him. It is then
that the Hemingway man shows the coolness, the grace, the courage, the discipline which have prompted the
idea of grace under pressure. The man who never encounters death, who never faces any danger at all, this
man has not yet been tested; we don't know whether he will withstand the pressures, whether he will prove to
be a true Hemingway man.
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Thus in the short story "The Short, Happy Life of Francis Macomber," at the age of thirty-five Francis
himself had never tested his courage. On the first test he ran; he ran like a coward. But on a subsequent test
he stood up and proved himself to be a true, good Hemingway hero. It is thus only by testing, by coming into
confrontation with something that is dangerous that man lives with this intensity. In the presence of death, then,
man can discover his own sense of being, his own potentiality.

THE NADA CONCEPT

Aside from death being a part of the concept of the code hero, there are certain images that are often
connected with this view. His actions are often identified by certain definite movements or performances. He is
often called a restless man. By restless is meant that he will often stay awake at nighttime and sleep all during
the day. The reason far this is that for the Hemingway man sleep itself is a type of obliteration of the
consciousness. Night is a difficult time far the Hemingway hero or code hero because night itself--the darkness
of night--implies, suggests, or symbolizes the utter darkness that man will have to face after death. Therefore
the code hero will avoid nighttime. This will be the time he will drink; this will be the time he will carouse or stay
awake. In many novels he will spend the night making love with someone and only at the crack of dawn will
he then desire sleep.

In A Farewell to Arms, Frederick Henry stays awake all night so as to be with Catherine Barkley, who is on
the night shift. Catherine Barkley is on the night shift so that they will no have to sleep during the night; they
can make love during the night, or talk. They can do anything to avoid the combination of darkness and sleep.
In short stories such as "The Clean, WelI-Lighted Place" the emphasis is upon light. The Hemingway code
character, if he goes to sleep at night, will often leave a light on. He does not like the darkness of the room, the
darkness of the night, the state of sleeping, because these are in themselves suggestive of that final sleep of
death.

THE DISCIPLINE OF THE CODE HERO

If the old traditional values are no good anymore, if they will not serve man, what values then will serve
man? Hemingway rejects things of abstract qualities--courage, loyalty, honesty, bravery. These are all just
words, What Hemingway would prefer to have are concrete things. For Hemingway a man can be courageous
in battle on Tuesday morning at 10 o'clock. But this does not mean that he will be courageous on Wednesday
morning at 9 o'clock. A single act of courage does not mean that a man is by nature courageous. Or a man
who has been courageous in war might not be courageous in some civil affair or in some other human
endeavor. What Hemingway is searching for are absolute values, which will be the same, which will be
constant at every moment of every day and every day of every week.
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Courage itself, then, is a relative value. It might be true for one moment but not true for the next. As he
expressed it in his novel Farewell to Arms: "I was always embarrassed by the words sacred, glorious, and
sacrifice and the expression in vain. Abstract words such as glory, honor, courage, or hallow were obscene
beside the concrete names of villages, the numbers of roads, the names of rivers, the numbers of regiments
and the dates, " The quotation indicates then that Hemingway is searching for concrete things that one can
feel, touch, and see. The name of a place is something that a man knows,

Ultimately therefore, for Hemingway the only value that will serve man is an innate faculty of self-discipline.
This is a value that grows out of man's essential being, in his inner nature. If a man has discipline to face one
thing on one day he will still possess that same degree of discipline on another day and in another situation.
Thus Francis Macomber in the short story "The Short, Happy Life of Francis Macomber," has faced a charming
animal, and once he has had the resolution to stand and confront this charging beast, he has developed within
himself a discipline that will serve him in all situations. This control can function in almost any way in a
Hemingway work.

    We have said earlier that the Hemingway man drinks a lot and let the Hemingway man is never a sloppy
drunk, such people as Mike Campbell in The Sun Also Rises often prove to be non-Hemingway characters.
The sloppy drunk is rejected. The man who cannot hold his liquor does not possess the proper degree of
discipline. It is fine to drink, to drink an immense amount.

But to get to the point that a man does not know what he is doing, denotes lack of the discipline that is
necessary to a code hero. If a man does not know what he is doing from having drunk too much, he is no
longer in possession of his own faculties. Thus a typical Hemingway character is a man who is always in
control of the situation, who has the discipline to handle any particular given circumstance,

This discipline functions in other ways also. For example, the Hemingway hero will often say, "don't let's not
talk about it." This means after he has performed some act of bravery he will not discuss it. Taking is
emotionalism. It is the action that is important. If you talk about the act too much you lose the importance of the
act itself, Even after two characters have made love they do not talk about it. This is a type of discipline also,
the discipline of refusing to be emotional about an event. If a character ever expresses any emotion he is often
ashamed of having done so. You lose the value of any act by talking too much about it.

The Hemingway code hero is also a person of some degree of skill. It is seldom mentioned what the
character does, but we do know that Robert Jordan in For Whom the Bell Tolls is an excellent teacher of
Spanish. We also know that Frederick Henry has been a good architect and that Jake Barnes is a highly
competent journalist. In A Farewell to Arms Rinaldi devotes himself completely to his surgical operations. It is
in the act of doing that which a man is good at doing that the code character finds himself. Rinaldi makes the
statement that he only lives while he is performing an operation. Thus the Hemingway hero will be a person
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who possesses some skill and who is highly competent at that particular skill. On the contrary, he detests
people who are mediocre. There are enough people who are like the Hemingway hero that he will not
associate with the ordinary or mediocre person. The Hemingway hero feels that if he is not accepted in one
group he makes no intentions to join that group. In The Sun Also Rises Jake Barnes cannot understand why
people like Robert Cohn keep hanging around where they are not wanted. Jake Barnes knows that there are
enough people in the world who think like him, who like him, so that he has no intention of associating with
people of another nature.

This attitude leads to the concept of the loyalty that a Hemingway hero feels for other people. He feels an
intense loyalty for a small group of people. In A Farewell to Arms we find that Frederick Henry deserts the
Italian army because the Italian army is abstract. The concept of the national government is also abstract.
However, the loyalty that he feels to his small individual group, that is, the group of ambulance drivers, is very
important. This concept is later modified in For Whom The Bell Tolls because Robert Jordan does feel a sense
of loyalty to the Spanish land. He enters the war partly for this reason. But his most intense feelings of loyalty
are for a small guerilla band with whom he works behind the lines in Spain. Again a sense of loyalty is
expressed in The Old Man and the Sea between the young boy and the fisherman. In any case, the
Hemingway hero cannot feel a sense of loyalty to something abstract, but as far as the intense personal
immediate friendship is concerned, he is totally devoted to this smaller, this more personal, group.

In conclusion, the Hemingway hero is a man whose concepts are shaped by his view of death, that in the
face of death a man must perform certain acts and these acts often involve enjoying or taking the most he can
from life. The Hemingway man will not talk about his concepts. Thus to formulate them as we have done here
is a violation of the concept. He is a man of intense loyalty to a small group because he cannot accept things
abstract. He must need the definite, the concrete. He does not talk too much. He expresses himself not in
words but in actions. Consequently, most of Hemingway's novels are based upon action. The Hemingway hero
then is not a thinker; he is a man of action. But his acts are based upon a concept of life.

Prof. Yeo, Kyung-Woo, Ph.D

Department of English Language & Literature University of Incheon, KOREA

http://www.incheon.ac.kr/~kwyeo/doc/%B9%CC%B1%B9%BC%D2%BC%B32.htm