commitment or ‘ engagement ’ had led him to embrace a modified communism; thereafter Sartre and Camus, once comrades in Existentialism, went their separate ways.
Hemingway had never thought in terms of a social answer, or in fact, of any answer except that of his semi-stoic philosophy. This has been the most constant complaint of Marxist critics against Hemingway.
Our foregoing considerations have made it clear, however, that the question of freedom is not a social problem. It may be possible to dismiss Barbusse ’ s Outsider as a case of social maladjustment; it may be possible to dismiss Wells ’ s pamphlet as a case for a psychiatrist. But the problem of La Nausee is unattackable except with metaphysical terminology, and Camus and Hemingway tend to fall into very near-religious terms. This is a point that I must return to later in the chapter, after further consideration of our terms: freedom and unreality.
Freedom posits free-will; that is self-evident. But Will can only operate when there is first a motive. No motive, no willing. But motive is a matter of belief you would not want to do anything unless you believed it possible and meaningful. And belief must be belief in the existence of something; that is to say, it concerns what is real So ultimately, freedom depends upon the real. The Outsider ’ s sense of unreality cuts off his freedom at the root. It is as impossible to exercise freedom in an unreal world as it is to jump while you are falling.
***
For an enlargement of the position established by Camus and Hemingway regarding human freedom, it is necessary to turn to a neglected play of the 1920 ’ s, Harley Granville-Barker ’ s Secret Life. A quotation from George Sampson ’ s Concise Cam-bridge History of English Literature will make clear its relevance at this stage:
[The Secret Life] is a puzzling, disturbing post-war play [that] shows us the intellectual world reduced to spiritual nihilism. There is no clear centre of dramatic interest. The characters just come and go, and what ‘ love interest ’ there is seems entirely gratuitous. The dialogue is sometimes normally dramatic, sometimes philosophically enigmatic, as if the speakers had no other purpose than to ask riddles to which there can be no answer. Perhaps in no other volume is there so complete a revelation of the spiritual bankruptcy produced by the war. 19
The background of the play is the post-war party politics of the Liberal party. The interest centres around two main characters, the middle-aged ex-politician Evan Strowde, and Oliver Gauntlett, his natural son, who has returned from the war minus an arm. What plot the play has can easily be outlined. Before the war, Strowde had been in politics. He had quarrelled with the party leader and resigned. Now the party wants him back.
Oliver Gauntlett has been invalided from the war, gone into the City, and started to make a business career. When he is arrested at an anarchist meeting, he is glad to make the scandal an excuse for escaping from the futility of the City, It is Evan Strowde who puzzles him most. (At the beginning of the play he is not aware that Strowde is his father.) Strowde ’ s powerful intellect and great will-power should have made him a success in some field. Oliver wants to know why he has failed.
The play opens with a curious scene at Strowde ’ s house by the sea; Strowde and a group of old schoolfriends have gathered to perform Tristan und Isolde on the piano, singing the parts themselves. The performance over, they talk reminiscently of their younger days, and Salomons states his creed as a practical politician:
Salomons: Never be carried off on crusades you can ’ t finance … Don ’ t, for one moment, let art and religion and patriotism persuade you that you mean more than you do. Stand by Jerusalem when it comes to stoning the prophets. I must be off.
Eleanor: Before you ’ re answered?
Salomons: Answers are echoes. 20
Joan Westbury, with whom
Hemingway had never thought in terms of a social answer, or in fact, of any answer except that of his semi-stoic philosophy. This has been the most constant complaint of Marxist critics against Hemingway.
Our foregoing considerations have made it clear, however, that the question of freedom is not a social problem. It may be possible to dismiss Barbusse ’ s Outsider as a case of social maladjustment; it may be possible to dismiss Wells ’ s pamphlet as a case for a psychiatrist. But the problem of La Nausee is unattackable except with metaphysical terminology, and Camus and Hemingway tend to fall into very near-religious terms. This is a point that I must return to later in the chapter, after further consideration of our terms: freedom and unreality.
Freedom posits free-will; that is self-evident. But Will can only operate when there is first a motive. No motive, no willing. But motive is a matter of belief you would not want to do anything unless you believed it possible and meaningful. And belief must be belief in the existence of something; that is to say, it concerns what is real So ultimately, freedom depends upon the real. The Outsider ’ s sense of unreality cuts off his freedom at the root. It is as impossible to exercise freedom in an unreal world as it is to jump while you are falling.
***
For an enlargement of the position established by Camus and Hemingway regarding human freedom, it is necessary to turn to a neglected play of the 1920 ’ s, Harley Granville-Barker ’ s Secret Life. A quotation from George Sampson ’ s Concise Cam-bridge History of English Literature will make clear its relevance at this stage:
[The Secret Life] is a puzzling, disturbing post-war play [that] shows us the intellectual world reduced to spiritual nihilism. There is no clear centre of dramatic interest. The characters just come and go, and what ‘ love interest ’ there is seems entirely gratuitous. The dialogue is sometimes normally dramatic, sometimes philosophically enigmatic, as if the speakers had no other purpose than to ask riddles to which there can be no answer. Perhaps in no other volume is there so complete a revelation of the spiritual bankruptcy produced by the war. 19
The background of the play is the post-war party politics of the Liberal party. The interest centres around two main characters, the middle-aged ex-politician Evan Strowde, and Oliver Gauntlett, his natural son, who has returned from the war minus an arm. What plot the play has can easily be outlined. Before the war, Strowde had been in politics. He had quarrelled with the party leader and resigned. Now the party wants him back.
Oliver Gauntlett has been invalided from the war, gone into the City, and started to make a business career. When he is arrested at an anarchist meeting, he is glad to make the scandal an excuse for escaping from the futility of the City, It is Evan Strowde who puzzles him most. (At the beginning of the play he is not aware that Strowde is his father.) Strowde ’ s powerful intellect and great will-power should have made him a success in some field. Oliver wants to know why he has failed.
The play opens with a curious scene at Strowde ’ s house by the sea; Strowde and a group of old schoolfriends have gathered to perform Tristan und Isolde on the piano, singing the parts themselves. The performance over, they talk reminiscently of their younger days, and Salomons states his creed as a practical politician:
Salomons: Never be carried off on crusades you can ’ t finance … Don ’ t, for one moment, let art and religion and patriotism persuade you that you mean more than you do. Stand by Jerusalem when it comes to stoning the prophets. I must be off.
Eleanor: Before you ’ re answered?
Salomons: Answers are echoes. 20
Joan Westbury, with whom
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