The Start of Something

These are the first two paragraphs of a three page paper I am almost done writing. It will be the first of many in my Hemingway class. Enjoy.

My father is a misogynist. I forgive this unconditionally and it is perhaps my forgiveness of my father that facilitates my forgiveness of Hemingway. Properly, it was my father who first introduced me to Hemingway's work. He came home one day with a copy of The Short Stories. He asked me to read “The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber”. When I finished the story his first question was if I had realized that Mrs.Macomber killed her husband intentionally. In typical Hemingway fashion, I didn't answer. Well she did, he said. This is how women are. He shook his head seriously. They want to emasculate us; if they can't, they want to lodge bullets two inches up and a little to one side of the bases of our skulls.

Livid, I refused to believe that Hemingway thought all women were evil. I respect and wish to emulate his work. How could he think women were emasculating wenches wielding weapons akin to Lorena Bobbitt's kitchen knife, in the form of a 6.5 Mannlicher and words like “Dear” and “Darling”? More importantly, how could I, a woman, say I find such a man's work fascinating? Presented with this dilemma, I find myself reading Hemingway on a treasure hunt for hints. Perhaps Hemingway didn't despise women, I tell myself. He just didn't understand us.