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
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)
