Ernest Hemingway’s Recognition of Ideologies of White Supremacy, Colonialism, and Anti-Semitism in The Sun Also Rises

Abstract

Ernest Hemingway’s creation of a vilified Jewish character in The Sun Also Rises (1926) has outed him as anti-Semitic. His negative treatment of the Jewish character Robert Cohn can be read as an unpleasant portrait of Jews. Putting theories of postcolonialism in conversation with the theory of performativity, I read The Sun Also Rises (1926) as a narrative that challenges racial stereotypes generated by colonial discourses of race and ethnicity. This study challenges any claims of Hemingway’s anti-Semitism by investigating his defiance of notions of white supremacy and colonialism as inspired by scientific racism and its reinforcement and legitimization of white dominance. I contend that Hemingway’s deployment of anti-Semitic language and representations serves to illustrate his recognition and subversion of the racial hierarchies perpetuated by colonialism and scientific racism. Hemingway’s novel tends to unveil and interrogate notions of white supremacy and colonialism rather than to racialize Jews.