A Space to Be: Ability, Disability, and the Inevitability of Corporeal Decline in Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea

Abstract

On July 2, 1961, nine years after he published The Old Man and the Sea, Ernest Hemingway died by suicide in his home in Ketchum, Idaho. With his death a persona was born. To many, Hemingway represents the quintessential anti-disability writer, the author who lived for ability, who lost ability, and who ended his life when no hope of regaining ability remained. Drawing from disability scholars such as Michael Bérubé, Timothy Jay Dolmage, David T. Mitchell and Sharon L. Snyder, I demonstrate the ways The Old Man and the Sea complicates this narrative. In particular, the novella works to legitimize the disabled body, actively subverting several common narrative tropes such narrative prosthesis, the overcoming narrative, and the kill-or-cure dichotomy. In doing so, Hemingway creates a space in which the inevitable decay of the human body must be seriously and honestly addressed. Through this research, a new more nuanced picture of Hemingway emerges, one that recognizes the complicated and dynamic nature his view of the able-bodied individual took.