38 pages • 1 hour read
Ernest HemingwayTo Have And Have Not
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1937A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Symbols & Motifs
Avoidance and Desperation
Regardless of social class, many of the novel’s characters find some maladaptive coping strategy to escape the wretchedness of their lives. The two main deckhands on Harry’s boat, Eddy and Albert, use alcohol to avoid the harsh realities of their world: Eddy’s alcohol use keeps him in a permanent state of happiness where he does not have to face his destitution, and Albert’s keeps him away from home so he does not have to face the disappointment in his family’s eyes. In addition, the group of war veterans prefer the liquid solace to facing a government that has abandoned them.
On the other end of the social spectrum, many of the “Haves,” with all their decadence and glamour, live in quiet desperation. Richard and Helen Gordon operate under a pretense of happiness while both pursue extramarital affairs—she with Professor MacWalsey, he with Helene Bradley. When Helen denounces her husband and reflects on their unhappy marriage, her observations apply just as well to the spiritually bankrupt world the characters would like to escape: To Helen, their marital conflicts symbolize amorality, sterility, and deception. The relationship leaves her broken and hopeless. She calls love a “just another dirty lie” (185). Her affair with MacWalsey is an escape from the marriage, but it symbolizes a desired escape from the world. Henry Carpenter, the young Harvard graduate on board Wallace Johnston’s yacht, cannot cope with the idea that his trust fund has been undermined by a bad investment decision and therefore contemplates suicide instead of handling the issue with clearheaded focus.
The Ocean
The first part of the novel reads like an adventure on the high seas, with murder, mayhem, and black-market dealings carrying the action of the plot. The ocean, specifically the Gulf Stream between Florida and Cuba, carries the piracy of the characters in much the same way it carries ships afloat, symbolizing a vast and wild frontier fit for a hero. The final shootout, reminiscent of a wild west showdown, forces the characters into survival mode and brings to a head one character’s journey. Harry meeting his near-end on the water, which he knew intimately and confidently, magnifies the ocean’s symbolism—it is fitting that a man, as anti-heroic as he may seem, is borne on the same waters that carried him for most of the journey.
Masculinity
Though Harry is surrounded by people for most of the novel, his shining moments are when he faces his impending death alone, save for the bodies of the Cubans on Freddy’s boat. It is this severe machismo that carries his character arc for most of the novel. Harry is not swayed by his emotions; rather, it is his natural stoicism that allows him to expertly decipher right from wrong in his mind.
The numerous acts of violence and brutality—murders, shootouts, body dumpings, and bar fights—only highlight the emptiness and desperation of the times. True men figure out their problems with violent acts, and the deaths in the novel are written without fanfare or condolences. Even as Harry meets his death, he does so without regret or pity for his situation, as if he knew that fate would catch up to a man like him eventually.
Related Titles
By Ernest Hemingway
