Performing Manhood through Animal Killings? Revisions of Hunting as a Performance of Masculinity in Ernest Hemingway’s Late Writings

Abstract

While much of the existing critical work on Ernest Hemingway has represented him as the epitome of macho bravado, and whereas his numerous depictions of animal hunting have been often described as theatrical performances of masculinity, this article aims to question such traditional (mis)conceptions by contrasting his early work Green Hills of Africa ([1935] 2003) to two of his posthumously published texts—namely, An African Story (1986) and Under Kilimanjaro (2005). While the former text may certainly be said to conform to the traditional Hemingwayesque image of hunting as a heavily masculine performance, the two latter texts may be seen to provide radical counterpoints to this, as they not only question the traditional image of animal hunting as a trope of masculinity but also provide a more critical indictment against animal killings. Hemingway’s late texts, both fictional and nonfictional, would thus seem to point to the writer’s often unacknowledged personal and literary evolution, which goes hand in hand with his changed gender and racialized attitudes towards both women and African nonwhites, respectively. Ultimately, Hemingway’s late writings are set within a predatory context of hunting in which the type of relation to any form of otherness (be it gender, race, or animal) shifts into new discursive terrains that allow the author to reconceptualize his own white masculinity.

Wu Masculinities, Traditional Men-Dog Relationships and the Defence of the Dog-Meat Festival in Modernizing Yulin China

“…Ramirez understands doing sports with dogs as about men’s performances of masculinities, while Nurse (2020) is further concerned that certain types of masculinities allied to sport or entertainment can motivate activities such as dogfighting that abuse animals. He finds that some types of masculinities constitute not just the cause of men’s cruelty to animals but also used as their justification, which is supported in other studies (e.g., Armengol 2020; Alonso-Recarte 2020).…”

‘Real men grill vegetables, not dead animals’: Discourse representations of men in an online vegan community

“…In Extract 26, for example, the act of buying meat and hunting animals, the latter evoked through metaphoric reference to such animal-derived products as 'prey', are juxtaposed. The function of this juxtaposition is arguably to ridicule non-vegan men for their inability to embody the hypermasculine trope of the male hunter-gatherer (Armengol 2020).…”