Abstract
For F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway, alcohol was significant in both their work and their lives as a pervasive specter whose presence was dominant both thematically and in a very practical sense that neither writer seems to have fully acknowledged. In his discussion of “Madness and Society,” historian Michel Foucault briefly talks about the historical importance of the fool, touching on the fool’s significance in theatre and as represented in cultural events such as “the Festival of Folly,” about which Foucault highlights the fact that “In this festival, the social and traditional roles were completely reversed: a poor man played the role of a rich man, a weak man that of a powerful one. The sexes were inverted, the sexual prohibitions nullified” (340). Foucault then mentions one outcome of changes to such cultural practices in modern society. “In our time,” says Foucault, “the politico-religious meaning of festivals has been lost; instead, we resort to alcohol or drugs as a way of contesting the social order, and we have thus created a kind of artificial madness. Basically, it is an imitation of madness, and it can be seen as an attempt to set society ablaze by creating the same state as madness” (340). This thesis examines Fitzgerald’s novel Tender is the Night and Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises in exploring connections between alcohol use and Foucault’s idea of its role in modeling a modern form of madness; moreover, this thesis seeks to identify ways in which the drunkard manifests various characteristics of the fool and folly as historically presented in social customs and the literary tradition. In pursuing these objectives, this thesis engages ideas and scholarship from various sources, including the history and traditions surrounding the role of the fool and trickster, C. G. Jung’s notions of the trickster as an archetypal figure, Mikhail Bakhtin’s ideas regarding carnival and carnivalization of literary texts, the clinical and sociological effects of alcohol, biographical studies of the two authors in question, and literary criticism and commentary on the two novels under consideration. The first chapter—after an introduction and preliminary discussion of the fool and the trickster—analyzes the role of drunken fool in Tender is the Night among different characters as a form of shape-shifting, then examines Fitzgerald’s protagonist, Dick Diver, for trickster-figure characteristics. The second chapter looks at Tender is the Night for examples of hierarchical reversal before bringing the chapter to a close by drawing upon Jung’s ideas to discuss Dick Diver as portraying savior qualities and as a self-perceived victim of circumstance. Chapter 3 turns to The Sun Also Rises in discussing Jake Barnes and Brett Ashley as alcohol-fueled trickster figures, looking at Jake’s penchant for pranks and similarities to the mythical Winnebago Trickster before focusing on Brett’s deceptive trickery in her affairs with various men, and then addressing traditional theatrical fool motifs in relation to Hemingway’s text. The final chapter discusses comedians in the novel as descendants of the fool, giving special attention to Jake’s pairing with Bill Gorton as a comedy duo and Mike Campbell’s failed attempts at drunken humor. The chapter closes with a look The Sun Also Rises as a carnivalized text due to the profusion of alcohol and drunkenness within its pages. The thesis concludes by noting the seemingly great potential for further research to develop and critique the points made in the thesis through expansion upon, or deeper analysis of, the several avenues of research it pursues.