English II Honors

Summer Assignment

You are to read The Old Man and the Sea and the accompanying explanation of the Hemingway
“Code Hero.”
Once you have read and taken notes on the Hemingway Code Hero, the life of Hemingway, and
the novel, you are to write an essay that encompasses all that you just learned.
You will respond to the following question: Based on your knowledge of Hemingway’s life and
beliefs, discuss the characteristics of a “Code Hero” and decide which characters, if any, fit into
the mold of a “Code Hero.” Justify your response with evidence from the article and from the
novel.
Your essay will be turned in to turnitin.com and will be due in September when we get back
from break.
 HEMINGWAY'S HERO

The Hemingway Hero is defined by a static set

of characteristics. These characteristics remain essentially the same throughout all of Hemingway's
works. The Hemingway Hero is always courageous, confident, and introspective. He does not let his
fears get to him. The Hemingway Hero is expressed differently in each of his novels, though.
Sometimes he is young, and sometimes old. In Hemingway's novels “The Nick Adams Stories” and “The
Old Man and the Sea”, the Hero is introduced differently. In “The Nick Adams Stories”, Nick Adams
begins as a naive, young boy then becomesthe Hero within the view of the reader as his early life and
the events that influenced his life most are the entirety of this memoir-style novel. In “The Old Man
and the Sea’, though, the old man does not develop into a hero. Santiago begins as an old man who
has already attained the Heroic qualities that he will demonstrate intentionally throughout the rest of
the story.

This is a unique and remarkable approach, and after the failure of his previous book, certainly a risky
one. The book is not a portrait; it is not static, despite that the main character's morals – his ideals-
never really change. A reader of his previous works might feel that they have seen
these characteristics in Hemingway's works before.

Nick, the main character in “The Nick Adams Stories”, is in many ways is like Hemingway himself.
Setting up camp and fishing and cooking by himself, Nick lifts his spirits by creating his own personal
utopia. He remains and is static, unchanging example of Hemingway's idealistic of heroism. In fact,
Nick Adams is probably the most autobiographical of Hemingway’s characters. Instead he relied, like
Nick Adams, on finding his own escape from reality, making his own “good place”. Like Nick Adams,
Hemingway found nature to be the best escape for him from his troubled world.

The "Hemingway Hero" was not an original invention of his. The Hero, universally, expresses one key quality:
Grace Under Pressure (GUP). Nick travels into the forests of northern Michigan to find a release from the agony
and emotional wounds the war has left him.

THE HEMINGWAY CODE HERO

Closely related to the concept of stoicism is the "Code Hero," a phrase used to describe the main
character in many of Hemingway's novels. Some critics regard Santiago as the finest, most developed
example of these code heroes.

In this phrase, "code" means a set of rules or guidelines for conduct. In Hemingway's code, the
principal ideals are honor, courage, and endurance in a life of stress, misfortune, and pain. Often in
Hemingway's stories, the hero's world is violent and disorderly; moreover, the violence and disorder
seem to win.
The "code" dictates that the hero act honorably in the midst of what will be a losing battle. In doing
so he finds fulfillment: he becomes a man or proves his manhood and his worth. The phrase "grace
under pressure" is often used to describe the conduct of the code hero.

Hemingway defined the Code Hero as "a man who lives correctly, following the ideals of honor,
courage and endurance in a world that is sometimes chaotic, often stressful, and always painful." He
measures himself by how well he handle the difficult situations that life throws at him. In the end the
Code Hero will lose because we are all mortal, but the true measure is how a person faces death. He
believes in "Nada," a Spanish word meaning nothing. Along with this, there is no after life.

The Code Hero is typically an individualist and free-willed. He never shows emotions; showing
emotions and having a commitment to women shows weakness. Qualities such as bravery,
adventuresome and travel also define the Code Hero.

Ironically, the code hero can also be afraid of the dark in that it symbolizes the void, the abyss, the
nothingness (nada) that comes with death. However, once he faces death bravely and becomes a
man he must continue the struggle and constantly prove himself to retain his manhood.

The code hero or heroine (like Catherine Barkley) must perform his or her work well to create a kind
of personal meaning amidst the greater meaninglessness. Still, life is filled with misfortunes, and a
code hero is known by how he endures those misfortunes. Ultimately, the code hero will lose in his
conflict with life because he will die. But all that matters is how one faces death. In fact, one should
court death, in the bull ring, on the battlefield, against big fish, because facing death teaches us how
to live. Along with this, the code hero must create and follow certain rituals regarding death because
those rituals help us. The bullfighter must have grace and must make his kills clean. He must face
noble animals. He must put on his suit a certain way. Similarly, a fisherman shouldn't go out too far.
He should respect the boundaries the fish have established for fishermen. Religion is helpful only in
that it provides us with rituals. But religions are wrong when they promise life after death.

If an individual faces death bravely, then he becomes a man, but he must repeat the process,
constantly proving himself, until the ultimate defeat.
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.

Throughout many of Hemingway’s novels the code hero acts in a manner which allowed the critic to
formulate a particular code.

He does not talk about what he believes in.

He is man of action rather than a man of theory.

Behind the formulation of this concept of the hero lies the basic disillusionment brought about by
the First World War. The sensitive man came to the realization that the old concepts and the old
values embedded in Christianity and other ethical systems of the western world had not served to
save mankind from the catastrophe inherent in the World War.

A basis for all of the actions of all Hemingway code heroes is the concept of death. The idea of death
lies behind all of the character’s actions in Hemingway novels.

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 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 reward of this life.

It is the duty 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 often choose to confront death. From this
we derive the idea of grace (or courage) 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. 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 be constantly avoided
in one way or another. A 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. If man wishes to live, he lives most intensely
sometimes when he is in the direct presence of death. The 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.
It is 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 for this is that for the Hemingway man sleep itself
is a type of obliteration of the consciousness. Night is a difficult time for night-itself-the darkness of
night—implies 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 or carouse or stay awake.

THE DISCIPLINE OF THE CODE HERO

If the old values no longer serve man, what values will? Hemingway rejects abstract qualities—
courage, bravery, etc. These are all just words. For example, courage may involve a single act of
courage. This does not mean that a man is by nature courageous. 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 and constant at every moment
of every day and of every day of every week.

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.

The Hemingway man is never a sloppy drunk. The man who cannot hold his liquor does not possess
the proper degree of discipline.
This discipline functions in other ways also. For example, the Hemingway hero will often say:

Don’t let’s talk about it.

This means after he has performed some act of bravery he will not discuss it. Talking 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. The same is true of talking about love.

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 Frederic Henry has been a good architect. 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 man 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.

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. He 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. He will not talk about his concepts. He is a man of intense loyalty to a small
group because he can’t accept abstract things. He does not talk too much. He expresses himself not
in words, but in actions. The Hemingway man is not a thinker, he is a man of action. But his actions
are based upon a concept of life.

Posted by S. N. Gillani

http://www.engliterarium.com/2008/11/hemingways-hero-and-code-hero.html
ERNEST HEMINGWAY - BIOGRAPHY
Ernest Hemingway (1899-1961) was one of the most significant American authors of the
Twentieth century . His novels and short fictions have left an indelible mark on the literary
production of the United States and the world. Although most often remembered for his
economical and understated fiction, he was also a noted journalist. In 1954, Ernest Hemingway
was awarded the Novel Prize in Literature. Hemingway is also known for his heroic,
adventurous and often stereotypically “manly” public persona. The myth he cultivated of himself
as a man of action aided the important Modernist reading of many of his works.
Throughout the twenties lasting until the fifties, Hemingway produced a plethora of writing. Most
of this writing was in his familiar stringent style. The economical use of words coupled with his
“believable” characterizations of the modern condition were hallmarks of his style.
On July 21, 1899, Ernest Hemingway was born in Oak Park, Illinois. Oak Park, just south of
Chicago, was the city in which Hemingway grew up. After graduating high school, he began
writing for The Kansas City Star. At the start of the First Word War, Hemingway drove an
ambulance on the Italian front. Within a year of his service, Hemingway was severely injured.
He returned to the states because of his wounds. This period would provide the material for
much of his celebrated work A Farewell to Arms.
Ernest Hemingway married Hadley Richardson in 1922. The young coupled relocated to Paris
where Hemingway had found work as a foreign correspondent. Before two years of living in
Paris, Hemingway wrote over eighty articles for the Toronto Star. Hemingway wrote about the
Greco-Turkish War and travel pieces (covering subjects including fishing and bull fighting.) In
1922, Hadley lost a piece of luggage containing Hemingway’s manuscripts. The author was
distraught over this event. The couple crossed the Atlantic to move to Toronto. In 1923,
Hemingway’s first child, John Hadley Nicanor, was born. Three Stories and Ten Poems was
published. Hemingway tired of Toronto and returned his family to Paris. He became an active
member of the so-called Lost Generation, a community of expatriates. This community included
many writers who were beginning to explore the possibility of Modernist writing. Hemingway and
Ford Madox Ford edited a review which published the work of writers like Gertrude Stein, Ezra
Pound and John Dos Passos. Ernest Hemingway and F. Scott Fitzgerald formed a close
friendship. Fitzgerald’s novel The Great Gatsbyinspired Hemingway to write larger texts.
Hemingway’s first novel The Sun Also Rises was published four years after his first arrival in
Paris.
Hemingway spent much time at Gertrude Stein's salon. In this social context, Hemingway met
influential painters including Juan Gris, Joan Miró, and Pablo Picasso. Hemingway and Stein
were cordial. Eventually their strong personalities would clash and a decades-long rift would
form between them. Ernest Hemingway and Ezra Pound met in 1922. The two men toured Italy
throughout 1923. In 1924, the writers moved on to the same street. Pound nurtured the
Hemingway. Pound also introduced the younger writer to James Joyce. Joyce and Hemingway
would go on bouts of drinking. In 1927, Hemingway sought a divorce from Richardson.
The relationship between Hemingway and Hadley began to break down as Hemingway wrote
his first novel. Hadley also discovered that Hemingway was having an affair with the American
Pauline Pfeiffer.. As Part of the divorce settlement, Hadley was to receive the revenue from The
Sun Also Rises.. After the first divorce, Hemingway married Pauline Pfeiffer. Hemingway would
end their marriage on returning from the Spanish Civil War.
In June 1928, Hemingway and his second wife had a son in Kansas City. After Pauline gave
birth, Hemingway and his family traveled to Wyoming, Massachusetts and New York. In the fall,
Hemingway discovered that his father had committed suicide. He began to have premonitions
that he would end his life by his own hand. Throughout the 1930s, Hemingway would spend his
winters in Key West, Florida. This region would become associated with Hemingway. In the
summer, Hemingway would return to Wyoming. Hemingway took advantage of the hunting and
fishing in these areas.
This love would encourage Hemingway’s sense of adventure. In 1933, Hemingway traveled to
East Africa for a safari. This trip inspired much of Hemingway’s work including Green Hills of
Africa, "The Snows of Kilimanjaro" and "The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber".
Hemingway was infected with amoebic dysentery, resulting in a prolapsed intestine. He would
take an emergency flight to Nairobi for medical treatment.
In 1936, Hemingway met a journalist in Martha Gellhorn in Key West, Florida. The following
year, Hemingway traveled to Spain to work as a war correspondent for the North American
Newspaper Alliance. Hemingway was brought into a film project as The Spanish Earth when
John Dos Passos. Dos Passos abandoned the film after José Robles was executed.
Hemingway accused Dos Passos of being a coward; however, Dos Passos was disgusted by
the brutality of the leftist republicans.
Hemingway sailed to Cuba in early 1939. While in Cuba, Hemingway lived in a hotel in Havana.
This signaled the increased effort painfully separate from his second wife. Martha Gelhorn was
to join Hemingway in Cuba. In 1940, Hemingway married Martha Gelhorn. This marriage ended
when Hemingway met Mary Walsh in Wyoming in the fall of 1940. However, he would change
his summer home to Ketchum, Idaho.
During this time, Gelhorn gave Hemingway the inspiration to pen his most celebrated novel, For
Whom the Bell Tolls. He was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize for this work. In 1941, Martha
Gellhorn accepted an assignment for Colliers magazine that required her to travel to China.
Hemingway took the opportunity to travel China.
For the second half of 1944, Hemingway traveled to the European front of the Second World
War. He was at the D-Day landing; however, he was protected as “precious cargo.” However,
some doubt the validity of the assertions that he went ashore during the Allied invasion. During
the conflict, Hemingway broke the Geneva Convention by leading an armed group of military
resistors. As a journalist, he was expressly forbidden to engage in military action. However, he
escaped punishment by claiming that he had only given advice. For his actions in the war,
Hemingway was given a Bronze Star for bravery.
On returning to Paris, he was able to heal the rift with Gertrude Stein. In London, Hemingway
met Mary Welsh, a Time magazine correspondent. On their third meeting, Hemmingway offered
a marriage proposal. The wedding occurred in 1946. During a return trip to Europe, Hemingway
became infatuated with the teenaged Adriana Ivancich. This romance would inspire
Hemingway’s bookAcross the River and Into the Trees. When the book was released in 1950, it
was received very poorly. However in 1952, Hemingway would win the Pulitzer Prize for The
Old Man and the Sea. Two years later Hemingway would be awarded the Nobel Prize in
Literature.
His mental and physical health worsened during this period. Things were made worse because
of Hemingway’s alcoholism. From 1955 to 1956, Hemingway was confined to his bed. His
doctors told him to stop drinking, but he did not comply. In 1959, Hemingway was in Cuba when
the communist party decided to nationalize the property belonging to Americans. In 1960,
Hemingway visited Spain before returning to Idaho. His mental health deteriorated. He
attempted electoroshock therapy. His mental health was at its lowest. In 1961, Ernest
Hemingway committed suicide.
Hemingway’s legacy is at times seen as being sexist and homophobic. His pursuit of a
masculine ideal has been criticized for lacking the complexity of human endeavor. Yet,
undoubtedly Hemingway’s writing and life have had a profound impact on literature.