THE REVOLUTIONIST
The revolutionist
is a story about a young man obsessed with an idea of revolution. The author’s
attitude to him is absolutely positive. He likes that the revolutionist adores
Italy and its art, it nature, he buys the pictures of Italian artists. He likes
his unstoppable desire to make a revolution. He left Hungary for Italy
notwithstanding the defeat in the revolution there. This reflects the main idea
that can be tracked through other stories about Nick Adams – the idea of
forming the immunity for all life’s
hardships. It’s thoroughly revealed in the stories about war and people who
come home after it. The revolutionist still has powers to struggle. Of course
it’s a pity that he got into jail, but the reader can guess that even after this
he will have vital powers. It doesn’t matter that revolutionists’ ideas weren’t
fulfilled and fascist got the power. It’s important for Hemingway that one can
have a great desire to live and struggle despite the circumstances.
by 8davids8
Once again I was convinced that brevity is the
soul of art. It is hard to imagine that a story, one page long, can contain so
much meaning, implication and symbolic pieces of narration. The story unfolds
to the readers a collective concept of a person committed to the ideas of
revolution. A young guy, traveling through the Europe
with no money in his pocket, is depicted with the utmost care and warmth.
He was still shy and childly admiring the
things he could see. He liked great Italian painters, even bought
reproductions, and traveled from town to town expecting to discover something
beautiful everywhere he happened to be, in everything he happened to witness. Here
we also find many symbols which are in abundance in all the short stories. The
character didn’t like Mantegna’s pictures. "Why not?” – we should ask. I
suppose the reason for that is that an Italian Early Renaissance painter Andrea
Mantegna featured his characters in an "overrealistic” way (let’s recollect his
painting "Dead Christ” which strikes the imagination with its realistic design and
natural colour rendering – this was not typical of the paintings by Giotto,
Masaccio or Piero della Francesca). That’s why the young revolutionist didn’t
fancy the Mantegnas – they were not picturesque enough for his idealistic
views. As it was, the frescoes were exactly the opposite of those pictures the
guy had in his delighted mind.
Another symbol is the railroads: they are strategic
in times of war and social revolutions, for successful economic operations, for
people to travel; but enmeshing the whole continents, connecting countries and
cities, railways are not able to connect people spiritually.
The character and his views are, evidently, a
sort of portrayal to the views of the author. Hemingway endued the man with
courage, firmness, devotion to his ideas, humbleness in face of all hardships
and frets. However, all those qualities intrinsic to revolution fighters had
not matured within this character yet. He sacredly believed in the world
revolution, but his designs were still pure and humane. He was untouched by the
taint which we now see in all those people who intend to reverse the state
foundations. (by MissJane)
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