A Lacanian Analysis of Hemingway’s Search for Spirituality
Mandy Gutmann-Gonzalez
Ernest Hemingway’s spiritual journey as perceived in his writing is a psychological
struggle driven by a desire to become one with nature and return to the Real stage as defined by the
psychoanalytic theory of Lacan. By using nature as an allegory for a depth of feeling which he
calls the fifth dimension, Hemingway represents in his novels and a few short stories that the
connection he feels with nature Is much more enriching than any experience he can obtain through
organized religion. His language, time structure, and tone all point to his spiritual journey to feel
part of the oneness of the landscape, a feeling which Lacan associated with the return to the
absence of self and a connection with the mother.
Jacques Lacan was a French psychoanalyst who lived from 1901 to 1981 and developed a
psychological theory which has become very useful in literary criticism. He argued that there are
three major stages of psychological development “whereby we emerge into consciousness” (Barry
114). The first is the Real stage which begins at birth and is characterized by the child’s connection
to the mother. The child has no notion of itself as a distinct individual and instead feels a deep
sense of oneness with the mother. As the infant grows older, it acquires the ability to perceive of
itself as a separate entity and the child enters the Imaginary stage, or mirror-stage. At this point the
child becomes estranged from the mother and it is able to see itself in a mirror and acknowledge
itself as Other. The final stage is the Symbolic at which the child is born into language and society.
This stage is associated with the father figure and with the presence of authority with all the
“prohibitions and restraints” (Barry 114) which that entails. Once an individual enters the
Symbolic stage, it becomes aware of the lack and separation caused by the absence of the mother
and the person is filled with the desire to return to that lost sense of oneness. However, as long as
an individual has language and society, it cannot return to the Real, so he/she must attempt to fill
this lack through other means. The idea of the subconscious is another major part of
psychoanalytic theory, for it deals with the hidden fears, dreams, and frustrations of individuals
and the ways in which these influence our conscious life and behavior. This idea is valuable in
analyzing literature because the text can be perceived “as a metaphor which throws light upon
aspects of the unconscious” (Barry 117), allowing us to understand the motivations and
psychological development of characters in a story, the author, readers, or the text itself.
Hemingway’s novels and short stories often deal with an exploration of the subconscious
through the use of nature metaphors and his works can be interpreted with Lacan’s theory in mind.
Hemingway’s fascination with nature has a spiritual dimension as evidenced by his retreats into
the wild in his novels. These expeditions have the effect of restoring his spirits when he’s been
through emotionally draining circumstances or of healing his post-war disillusionment.
Hemingway’s desire to be one with nature results in an attempt to return to the Real stage of
consciousness: he wants to fill the lack by achieving a spiritual awareness of and connection with
the natural landscape.
The Lacanian stages of psychological development are present in Hemingway’s novels
through his presentation of nature. In her essay “Memory, Grief, and the Terrain of Desire:
Hemingway’s Green Hills of Africa,” Ann Putnam argues that “Nature in the Hemingway world is
always experienced feminine, but whether it is experienced as pastoral or tragic depends upon
whether it is perceived as bountiful mother, as mirror of the self, or as seductive Other who must
be mastered” (100). Hemingway’s perception of nature is separated into three parts which are best
explained using Lacanian terminology. His view of nature as “bountiful mother” is a reflection of
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the Real stage in which the child identifies with the mother. His portrayal of Africa as a landscape
of spiritual and “motherly” dimensions is one example of this.
When Hemingway thinks of nature “as mirror of the self,” his state is similar to that of the
Imaginary or mirror stage in which one begins to recognizes oneself as a separate entity. An
example of this stage occurs in The Old Man and the Sea, in which the old man and the fish
become mirror images of each other when the line between pursued and pursuer is blurred. This
occurs when the old man wonders whether he is capturing the fish or the fish is overpowering him,
leading him helplessly into deeper water. The fishing line is the point of connection between the
two, but is it part of the man’s fishing gear and a tool to master the fish or is it the man’s life line to
which he has to hold on to for dear life? “Fish,” says the man. “I’ll stay with you until I’m dead”
(52). This statement suggests that the man is being dragged helplessly towards his death and the
only option he has is to cling onto the line that connects him to the living fish. Furthermore, when
the fish begins circling the boat, the man is both glad and afraid because on the one hand, the fish
needs to circle closer so that the man can kill him with the harpoon, but on the other, the fish
continually teases the man, coming closer and then moving far off, and the action of circling in
closer and closer suggests that the fish is the predator and the old man is the pray. At the same time,
both the man and the fish are being circled by the moon and the sun as the days progress and the
two continue connected. This occurrence points to the timelessness of their connection.
The final, Symbolic stage in which the “seductive Other […] must be mastered” is
illustrated by Hemingway’s treatment of the kudu in Green Hills of Africa. At the moment after he
kills the kudu, Hem studies the animal, admiring its horns and caressing its soft fur, and his
descriptions acquire sexual undertones. The moment after the kill is orgasmic but also spiritual:
“The death of the kudu takes on a transcendent, spiritualized quality as the hunter and the hunted,
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sojourner and hunter become one” (Putnam 105). His desire to posses the animal by destroying it
buds from the sense of authority which characterizes the Symbolic stage.
In several of Hemingway’s stories there is a tension between material and spiritual living, a
tension which is at the root of Hemingway’s dissatisfaction with organized religion and his search
for spiritual depth in other areas such as landscape. “The therapeutic value of nature” is a theme
that’s especially present in his African stories for he perceives the African continent and it’s yet
unspoiled landscape as a “spiritual home” (Evans 151). In “The Snows of Kilimanjaro” for
instance, Harry, the main character, returns to Africa in the hope that he will experience moral and
spiritual regeneration: “Africa was where he had been happiest in the good time of his life so he
had come here to start again […He had] hoped that in some way he could work the fat off his soul”
(44). However, as he lies dying, Harry realizes that he has given up his moral standards in favor of
an easy life of comfort provided by his wife’s material wealth and that now it is too late to write
and do the work that would have given him moral and spiritual satisfaction. Harry “knows that he
is dying physically, but he knows also that he has died spiritually long before, through his choice
of carrion comfort over the lean joys of more dangerous pursuit” (Montgomery 145). Harry has
sacrificed his art and morality for the life of luxury that his wife provides, and his last moments are
spent in the regret this realization brings and in a struggle to accept it.
The struggle against materialism is again exemplified in Green Hills of Africa, in which
Hem argues that he would rather live and write in Africa where the landscape has a spiritual appeal
than live a life of luxury. He states that when writers “have made some money [they] increase their
standard of living and they are caught. They have to write to keep up their establishment, their
wives, and so on, and they write slop” (23). Hem is content to be in a place where he has space,
time, and a renewed sense of reality after the unreality of the war. Hem says that he’s glad for “The
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discomfort that you paid to make it real” (73); he needs the experience of living on the land, being
uncomfortable, and having to strive for his basic needs for it’s a challenge that revitalizes him.
To gain spiritual fulfillment, not only does Hemingway have to struggle against
materialism, but also against organized religion. In The Sun Also Rises, Jake enters a Spanish
cathedral to pray and he states that all the while he was kneeling, “I was thinking of myself as
praying, I was a little ashamed, and regretted that I was such a rotten Catholic, but realized there
was nothing I could do about it […] and I only wished I felt religious and maybe I would next
time” (97). Through Jake, Hemingway demonstrates his estrangement from organized religion, and
although the reasons for this can only be speculated, although post-war disillusionment is one
likely cause, the reality is quite clear: he is having trouble connecting with the Catholic faith and
believing that his prayers mean anything.
By contrast, when Jake goes on a fishing trip with some male friends, he experiences a
deep connection with the natural world and the simple activities of fishing and swimming
revitalize him. Of the fishes he catches, he says “I laid them out, side by side, all their heads
pointed in the same way, and looked at them. […] I took the trout ashore, washed them in the cold,
smoothly heavy water above the dam, and then picked some ferns and packed them all in the bag,
three trout on a layer of ferns, then another layer of ferns, then three more trout, and then covered
them with ferns. They looked nice in the ferns” (119-20). The loving tone of the passage and the
careful and ritualized action of putting the fish away, speak to the spiritual connection that Jake
feels to nature and the healing power of this simple exchange between man and natural world.
Later on in the book, after Jake’s lover Brett goes off with Jake’s friend Romero, Jake again finds
consolation in nature. When he goes swimming, he observes a boy and a girl which remind him of
the love he does not have. After watching them, Jake narrates “I tried several dives. I dove deep
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once, swimming down to the bottom. I swam with my eyes open and it was green and dark” (235).
At no point does Jake complain about the impossibility of his love, or curse the young couple for
reminding him of it, yet by the simple action of diving deep into the dark waters, it is clear that he
is searching for a comforting embrace in those waters and the possibility of emotional cleansing. It
is not religion but nature to which Jake turns after the emotionally draining episode Pamplona;
only the landscape can give him the spiritual peace, renewal, and comfort for which he is searching.
The disconnect between religion and spirituality in Hemingway’s mind is forcefully
presented in the last few pages of Green Hills of Africa. Hem’s admiring and spiritual description
of Africa’s landscape is juxtaposed with the bleak description of Israel’s Sea of Galilee at the end
of the story. He uses the words “flat calm,” “stagnant,” and “dreary” to describe the new location,
and he accuses the people of the “Bible” of not being good “naturalists” (294). Hem misses
Africa’s rugged beauty and is unimpressed by the Bible’s poor rendition of nature and he again
shows a reservation towards organized religion.
The connection Hemingway feels to nature comes only after a keen sense of loneliness. In
The Old Man and the Sea, Santiago feels intense loneliness when he first sets out to sea. “No one
should be alone in their old age,” he thinks “But it is unavoidable” (48). Later when he “looked
across the sea” and is unable to spot land, he “knew how alone he was” (60). In his loneliness he
speaks aloud to himself and states over and over how much he misses the boy who used to
accompany him. Later it becomes clear how far removed from land the man is when a bird arrives
looking “very tired” (54) from flying for so long. As he travels farther into the ocean, he leaves
civilization and human company behind him. But because the boy is the only person who truly
cares for him, Santiago has already experienced a disconnect from society even before he sets out
to sea. Over the course of his journey, Santiago longs for the company of the boy; he longs for a
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connection. He finally finds the connection he is looking for in nature itself: “He could see the
prisms in the deep dark water and the lines stretching ahead and the strange undulation of the calm.
The clouds were building up now for the trade wind and he looked ahead and saw a flight of wild
ducks etching themselves against the sky over the water, then blurring, then etching again and he
knew no man was ever alone on the sea” (60-1). In psychoanalytic terms, the great body of water
represents the subconscious, and in this story, Santiago’s journey across the sea is a psychological
journey necessary for the spiritual growth that comes from a sense of communion in nature. For
Santiago, it was necessary to lose himself in the great sea, for by losing himself he has gained this
new spiritual connection to nature, a reassurance that required first losing religion and society. In
Lacanian terms, it is necessary for Santiago to lose language and society in order to move out of
the Symbolic stage and back into the Real, with its sense of wholeness.
This return to the Real through the landscape is manifested in Green Hills of Africa by a
desire to possess nature, a yearning which stretches to encompass the African continent as a whole:
“Now, being in Africa, I was hungry for more of it […] the discomfort that you paid to make it real
[…] to know the language and have time to be in it and move slowly” (73). He feels the desire for
the African land “welling up again and there it is and you can never have it all and yet what there
is, now, you can have” (72) and he’s homesick for the continent without having left it yet.
To a great extent, hunting in Green Hills of Africa is driven by this very desire to possess.
In psychoanalytic terms, “The landscape as Mother, as reflection of the self, is transformed before
our eyes into the landscape as mistress, as an Other who must be possessed at all cost” (Putnam
104). There is a palpable tension throughout this novel between the desire to become one with
nature and the desire to overpower. That is, “The pastoral impulse to merge with nature is always
working against the ‘tragic’ impulse to master it” (Putnam 99). Hem perceives beauty in his
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surroundings and beauty in death and he marvels at the elegance and softness of the animals he has
killed. When he kills a kudu, he says he “smelled the fine smell of him, sweeter than an eland,
even, stroked his nose, his neck, and his shoulder, marveled at the great ears, […] looked at his
hooves” that allowed him to walk as if “on tiptoe” (234). He views the animals that he kills as
prized trophies which he wants for himself, but in order to have them he must destroy what he
desires, and he can never have the vibrant life, energy, and elegance of the live kudu. Just as he is
about to posses it, the animal dies. The impossibility of possessing the kudu thus reflects the
impossibility of returning to the Real stage after one has been initiated into language. Because
Hem can never truly posses the kudu, he continues trying. He does a double shooting of these
animals: he uses both the gun and the camera because he wants evidence; he wants to posses the
animal fully, as if the experience in itself wasn’t enough (233). Later on, he captures the moment
of the kill yet again by writing about it, and repossesses the animal by eating it and by hanging its
horns on the walls of his house.
Although true possession of the natural word is not possible, Hemingway does attain a
spiritual connection to nature through outdoor sports such as hunting, fishing, and bullfighting.
This is because Hemingway values the process of such sports as much as the result. Bullfighting
becomes ritualized, it is a dance between the matador and the bull, and the matador is judged by
how close he can get to the bull without being gored. It is not about the death of the bull so much
as the teasing that happens before its death. Hemingway’s sense of morality dictates that bravery in
the arena consists of how much the matador is willing to risk.
Often too in Hemingway’s works, the beast is perceived as non-beast to increase the
connection between humans and other creatures. In The Old Man and the Sea, Santiago puts
himself in the fish’s place, asking himself “Could it have been hunger that made [the fish]
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desperate, or was he frightened by something in the night?” (83-4) He wants to understand the fish
in order to overpower him. So before he ever sinks his harpoon into the fish, Santiago has created a
mental act of communion through his imagination. Furthermore, in Santiago’s dreams, lions are
presented as gentle, playful creatures instead of dangerous predators. This suggests that Santiago
has a sense of union with the lions and that he doesn’t need to defend himself from them. The lions
are part of his history as well as part of his subconscious and Santiago looks forward to their visit
every night.
In Green Hills of Africa, Hem’s response to killing is complex. After feeling the “elation”
of the kill, he “feel[s] a little quiet inside.” The hunter is a lonely person after the kill because
“killing is not a feeling that you share” (120). Hem also becomes highly sensitive after the kill,
acquiring a deadly clarity similar to that which comes to David after sex in The Garden of Eden.
After he kills a bull, Hem feels a tender feeling of reconnection with P.O.M. and he “understand[s]
everything,” and they are at peace again (120). Although hunting can create jealousy between the
men, when they are hunting together, hunting has the opposite effect: it is a source of bonding
between the men, a moment when they feel great emotion, as demonstrated by the thumb pulling
ritual after the kill. After Hem kills two kudu, his descriptions become more sensitive and he feels
highly connected to his surroundings as he basks in the quiet contentedness under the shadow of
his victory. “It was getting cold and the night was clear and there was the smell of roasting meat,
the smell of the smoke of the fire, the smell of my boots steaming, and where he squatted close, the
smell of good old Wanderobo-Masai,” (239) he writes happily.
The idea of the gaze is central to understanding how Hemingway’s writing works to
represent the spiritual connection he feels with the landscape. In Green Hills of Africa, Hem’s gaze
changes from linear to holistic. The linearity is played out in the gaze of the hunter whose gaze is
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focused and has the capacity to zoom in, as exemplified by the use of binoculars which do not
allow the hunter to see the periphery: there is only him and the animal and the shortest distance
between the two is a straight line. Once he has made the kill, however, Hem’s gaze shifts
dramatically, becoming all encompassing and aware of his surroundings. Even time acquires a
distinct stillness and Hem is able to be in the moment, outside of time. By being completely in the
moment, he is able to forget the concept of time, and his experience becomes timeless and
transcendental. The awareness and sensitivity after the kill bring this kind of sense of eternity so
that “In the pastoral moment, time seems to stand ‘so very still that afterwards you wait to hear it
move, and it is slow in starting’” (Putnam 104).
Just as Hem attains a holistic, all-encompassing consciousness of the landscape, he in turn
represents the consciousness of the landscape. Hem has a relationship not only with individual
animals that he is hunting but also with Africa as a whole, and in Green Hills, he weaves a text
from the aspects of the continent which give Africa its essence. He is attempting to represent
Africa’s fundamental nature, what makes the country what it is. This struggle to create a portrait of
the African landscape works because the text becomes the medium through which the landscape
speaks. It is not simply Hem’s desire to be one with Africa and his connection with its landscape
which one sees in the novel but also Africa’s unconscious itself. In Green Hills then, Hem’s
portrayal of Africa’s essence results in the landscape acquiring a consciousness of its own.
Not only is the gaze represented by a shift in Hem’s way of perceiving his surroundings but
it is also made explicit in the shifts in point of view. In “The Short Happy Life of Francis
Macomber,” point of view flows in and out of the different characters, creating a web of
interconnected consciousnesses, or a collective unconscious. The transitions between Macomber’s
mind, that of his wife Margaret, and Wilson’s are smooth and even though none of the characters
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is able to get outside of themselves enough to understand the thought processes of each other, the
text as a whole presents a strong sense of unity between their minds. Furthermore, not only does
the text delve in and out of the human characters’ minds, but it also develops the lion’s gaze with
incredible acuteness. “There was no man smell carried toward him” Hemingway narrates in third
person but from the perspective of the lion, “and he watched the object […] not afraid” (13). The
lion’s gaze merges with that of the humans so that the consciousness of humans and that of nature
becomes one. At another level, Hemingway as author had to imagine all of these points of view.
Therefore, both the text and the writer conspire in developing a sense of collective identity. The
unity that is achieved through the stream of consciousness-type merging of points of view is a
reflection of Hemingway’s desire to become one with the natural world, and the search for this
collective consciousness is an indication of his need to return to the Lacanian Real.
The unconscious as a point of unity between humans and nature is further explored in The
Old Man and the Sea where the sea becomes a metaphor of the unconscious. Psychoanalysts often
present water as a symbol of the unconscious; both water and the unconscious are mysterious and
unpredictable places where dark things lie in wait in the depths. When the old man goes out to sea,
he goes farther than he’s ever traveled before. He becomes lost in the sea and the ocean becomes a
scary place where he must come to terms with aging and death. The man’s journey out to sea is
thus a psychological journey in which he must confront his fears. Since it is a journey into his
psyche, it is a journey he must do alone; the sea is his subconscious and he must face his fears by
himself. Yet over and over, the old man speaks of how he misses the boy and wishes he were there.
His need for connection is shown through the fishing line which connects him to the fish and the
stubborn way in which he clings to the fish. His desire for oneness with the fish is a psychological
and spiritual journey, played out in the field of the subconscious, the sea. When the old man
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decides to go far out to sea, he is leaving society temporarily behind and his connections to the
established order of society is suspended while he makes his psychological journey and reevaluates
his beliefs and confronts his fears. Yet the sea not only represents the man’s unconscious, but the
all-encompassing, collective unconscious. There are many creatures that inhabit the water—turtles,
sharks, dolphins, etc.—and the organic connection between the old man and the sea is possible
because of the integration of all of these beings into one system of thought. The sea is therefore a
metaphor which culminates in the merging of what is human and the natural world.
Hemingway’s treatment of death is very telling of his sense of spirituality for he portrays
death through the use of animal symbolism which intensifies the union between man and “beast.”
The animals in his stories function as symbols, they are vessels that embrace and celebrate
Hemingway’s desire for oneness: “The spirit animal is perceived androgynously by the sojourner
as an image of wholeness and integration—at once male and female, familiar and strange, earthbound and ethereal, holding both life and death” (102). The death of the bulls in the arena is
ritualized in Hemingway’s description of the Spanish bullfights; the death of the bulls is more
about the process than the result and the matador is judged according to how gracefully and
valiantly he exposes himself to the bull. The death of the bull occurs at the moment when the
sword penetrates the animal, and at that moment, the matador and the bull are one. Thus, the death
of the bull is both sexualized and represents the union between man and nature.
In “The Snows of Kilimanjaro,” Harry’s death involves a similar unification between a
human being and a scavenger, and although he is initially scared of being consumed by nature,
Harry ends in spiritual communion with it. The hyena operates in the story as a symbol of death for
it is attracted to the camp by the smell of Harry’s decaying body (Montgomery 146) and he senses
death as “a sudden evil-smelling emptiness and the odd thing was that the hyena slipped lightly
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along the edge of it” (“The Snows of Kilimanjaro” 47). Harry is scared of rotting and being
devoured by the hyena; for once, Hemingway’s character is not prepared for the unification
between himself and nature. However, later on in the story, Harry has an out-of-body experience in
which he travels to the top of Mount Kilimanjaro. In this story, the “mountain stands for a kind of
perfection that is attainable only through death, through union with nature” (Evans 151). Therefore,
although Harry is initially frightened of becoming one with nature through death, he ends up
becoming spiritually connected to the mountains.
Because of the spiritual depth he associates with nature, Hemingway’s writing is most
lyrical when he is describing nature. He had a spiritual approach to writing and he aimed to write
in the fifth-dimension, that is, beyond time and space. He was successful in using nature as an
allegory of the spiritual interconnections between things. His accounts of nature are more than
mere descriptions and his iceberg theory was his way of representing the spiritual fifth dimension
in his writing. The fifth dimension is spiritual because once one goes beyond place and time and
just focuses on being, then one has reached a level of extreme awareness and connectivity with
one’s surroundings. This feeling of connection is what Hemingway is searching for in nature and
what he’s struggling to put down on paper in many of his stories. He knows that the mystery of the
world and of existence cannot be explained and that the only way to capture spiritual
transcendence in his writing is by using the iceberg principle. This principle consists of showing
only a portion of what he means to say and letting the reader make the connections. Thus,
Hemingway uses nature as an allegory to show what is already there but lying beneath the surface.
Throughout his works, Hemingway demonstrates a special fascination with nature which is
the place where he turns to for spiritual and emotional healing. When organized religion fails him,
Hemingway goes in search of his own moral standard and sense of spirituality. He finds this
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connection through nature, especially the African landscape, and he actively tries to connect to the
beauty and wonder that he perceives in the natural world by attempting to posses it, by identifying
himself in it, but most importantly, by perceiving the landscape as a thing from which he has been
estranged, a mother figure, with which he wishes to reconnect. Throughout his writing, he imprints
this desire: to find a sense of timelessness and awareness that will link him to the collective
consciousness.
Works Cited
Barry, Peter. “Psychoanalytic Criticism.” Beginning Theory: An Introduction to Literature and
Cultural Theory. Manchester, UK: Manchester U P, 1995. 96-118.
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Evans, Oliver. “ ‘The Snows of Kilimanjaro’: A Revaluation.” Hemingway’s African Stories. Ed.
John M. Howell. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1969. 150-157.
Hemingway, Ernest. Green Hills of Africa. New York: Touchstone, 1996.
---. The Old Man and the Sea. New York: Scribner, 2003.
---. “The Short Happy life of Francis Macomber.” The Complete Short Stories of Ernest
Hemingway. New York: Scribner, 2003. 5-28.
---. “The Snows of Kilimanjaro.” The Complete Short Stories of Ernest Hemingway. New York:
Scribner, 2003. 39-56.
---. The Sun Also Rises. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1970.
Montgomery, Marion. “The Leopard and the Hyena: Symbol and Meaning in ‘The Snows of
Kilimanjaro.’” Hemingway’s African Stories. Ed. John M. Howell. New York: Charles
Scribner’s Sons, 1969. 145-149.
Putnam, Ann. “Memory, Grief, and the Terrain of Desire: Hemingway’s Green Hills of Africa.”
Hemingway and the Natural World. Ed. Robert E. Fleming. Moscow, Idaho: U of Idaho P,
1999. 99-110.
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