Readings of Gender and Madness in Hemingway’s Across the River and into the Trees and The Garden of Eden

Abstract

Hemingway indicates that there is something more to the colonel’s condition than physical injuries and a deeply rooted sense of bitterness. Renata’s refrain of “don’t be bitter” and “don’t be so rough” suggests more than her desire for a gentler version of his confession; it is not like Hemingway to repeat details, so this frequency illustrates its importance. It is not just that Cantwell’s language or his descriptions are too crude for Renata; this bitterness is indicative of a deeper injury, a mental one. To illustrate this, consider when the narration says, “Then he turned bad and he said” (Hemingway, River 224).¹ If the colonel can “turn bad,” then perhaps he can also turn bitter or rough. Being bad comes to mean more than a way of speaking; it comes to illustrate the moments in which the colonel falls into a mode of bitterness that can be seen as a manifestation of his madness.² Renata’s refrains, then, are indications of his psychic instability, a condition from which she must calm him down. Not only his confessor, she is also his therapist. Often reclining on Renata’s body as he talks, Cantwell is engaged in the process of mental recovery.