| Hemingway once said "A man can be destroyed, but not defeated... a man can be defeated, but not destroyed" To Have and Have not is primarily a story about the destruction of a man... one of the 'have nots' (the conchs) of Key West. The central character, Harry Morgan, constantly struggles throughout the book defying the law, even killing those who stand in his way just trying to make a living. Hemingway peels back the skin of this entire society and shows the reader what lies beneath. This is the classic Hemingway tale of the central character encountering malevolent circumstances and fighting them one by one to the bitter end. I love this book! I wish the movie version had actually been about this book, instead of what it turned out to be. A "Howard Hawks" film with an "Ernest Hemingway" title. Maybe the critics don't consider this to be his finest novel... but I've read most of his work now and I think its the best one in the bunch. |
| To Have And Have Not is too fragmentary to be Hemingway's best novel. It's divided into three episodes, which I think were written at completely different times, so Hemingway's objectives might have changed halfway through. The first episode was meant to stand on its own merits as a short story, but Hemingway liked it so much he came back to it later and added two more. That said, it's certainly a fine novel - gripping, moving and very well-written at every step of the way. It revolves around Harry Morgan, an honest man turned into a smuggler by necessity. In the context of the whole novel, the first episode serves mainly to establish his person and show what sort of man he is - his reluctance to get into illegal activities, his strength, his survival instinct and the cruelty that it sometimes results in, and his human qualities. This reads like a self-contained short story with no real point other than an action-filled scenario. The second and shortest episode is the weakest part of the novel - it's a cross-section of a day in Morgan's life after he already takes up smuggling. It certainly shows the risks he has to take, but doesn't serve to do much other than explain a certain point in the third episode. The third episode, where the real meat of the story is, is the best. It shows the further developments and the conclusion of Morgan's criminal career. It is also where the book's title comes in - here we see the contrast between those who have and those who have not. This comparison makes it easier to understand by contrast just how inevitably Morgan was driven to the life he now leads. Though Hemingway could have treated this issue by simply depicting the rich people as bad and Harry as good, he instead develops the story with tremendous emotional complexity - in a chapter dedicated to the former, Hemingway gets inside the heads of many well-off Americans and shows you their thoughts and fears. You might end up sympathizing with them more than with Harry, even though their glaring weaknesses are relentlessly brought to light. They are shown to be just as much victims of circumstances as Harry Morgan - while this does not exonerate them of their foibles, just like it doesn't exonerate him of his crimes, it makes all of them easier to understand. Nor does Hemingway paint the Marxist rebels that Morgan agrees to transport to Cuba in black and white - some are ruthless mercenaries, but some genuinely seek to make the world better, and others are just there by chance. The tragedy of the book is that all these people, who with a few exceptions really weren't bad sorts, were driven by much more powerful forces against one another, and all ended badly. Here we have Harry Morgan, a strong and intelligent man who really didn't want anything other than to have enough to subsist for him and his family, and he ends up hopelessly alone up against both the law and the lawless. His last monologue, where he ruefully summarizes his life, is one of Hemingway's finest moments. Here I must add, as an afternote, that this book conclusively proves that those people who like to claim that Hemingway's treatment of women is somehow "sexist" or "disrespectful," or that his female characters are "stereotypical" or "weak," have absolutely no idea what they're talking about. Harry Morgan's wife doesn't have a large role in the book, but there is one crucial scene that revolves solely around her. In it, she shows titanical inner strength; she is possibly the strongest character in the novel, stronger than Harry. Yes, her role in life is "stereotypical," but that is due to the _realism_ of the story - in those days, in those parts of the world, that was the way things were, and that's that. It is undeniable that Hemingway treats her with great respect, admiration and fairness. Thank you very much. |
