Symbolism in Hemingway's Islands in the Stream

Introduction: Hemingway's Autobiographical Legacy

A 1954 Nobel Laureate, Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961) has been an icon of the literary world for over seventy years. He has been called the greatest American author of the twentieth century, and his novels and short stories are among the best American classics ever written. After his death, several of Hemingway's works were published, including A Moveable Feast and The Garden of Eden. While some readers have been disappointed by his later works, many feel Hemingway was "becoming unrestrained in a new way...these works reveal and stress a complexity that may cause bewilderment or relief, depending on what perspective one adopts" (Hallengren). Nevertheless, most agree that none reflect the author's life more than Islands in the Stream, posthumously published in 1970 (Hallengren).

In Papa: A Personal Memoir, Gregory, Hemingway's third son, writes of his early life in the Florida Keys and the summers spent with his father and two brothers, Patrick and Jack (Miller). Hailed as one of the best and most honest books ever written about Ernest Hemingway, "Gregory's memoir chronicles a close and, in later years, troubled father/son relationship...portraying Papa as 'kind, gentle, elemental in his vastness...tormented beyond endurance'" (Miller). Gregory begins his memoir with a passage from Islands in the Stream that shows the physical and psychological similarities between the novel's character Thomas Hudson and his youngest son Andrew, modeled after Gregory:

"The young boy Andrew had 'a humorous face' and a 'devilish' nature, and he 'was a copy of Thomas Hudson, physically, reduced in scale and widened and shortened.' This boy also had 'a dark side to him that nobody except Thomas Hudson could ever understand. Neither of them thought about this except that they recognized it in each other' and they 'were very close to each other'" (Miller).

Thomas Hudson and the Bimini House as Symbol

Islands in the Stream consists of three parts, or episodes, following Thomas Hudson, the protagonist of the novel — "a painter with three sons by two marriages, both of which have ended in divorce" (Cowley). The first episode portrays Hudson's life on the island of Bimini in a house that "had lasted through three hurricanes...and was built solid as a ship...built into the island as though it was a part of it" (Hemingway 9–10). Hudson always thought of the house as "'her,' exactly as he would have thought of a ship" (Hemingway 11).

The life of Thomas Hudson closely mirrors Hemingway's own. The years Hemingway spent in Cuba and the Florida Keys are reflected in Hudson's lifestyle on the island. The house Hemingway describes seems symbolic of how he and his character Hudson thought of themselves — both were weathered individuals who had endured the storms of wars and marriages, much as the house had survived hurricanes. Moreover, by referring to the house as a "her," Hemingway reflects the symbolic nature of Hudson's attachment to it and suggests a possible substitute for a permanent woman in his life, much like an old sea captain whose only constant companion is his ship. The house is not only symbolic of Hudson himself — strong and weathered — but also of a familiar presence, a family to come home to.

Hemingway describes how much Hudson enjoys the house during the winter months, nestled inside against the elements, snug by the open flames of the fireplace. He writes a rather lengthy passage about the driftwood stacked outside the house:

Driftwood, Women, and Emotional Detachment

"pile of driftwood...whitened by the sun and sand-scoured by the wind and he would become fond of different pieces so that he would hate to burn them. But there was always more driftwood along the beach after the big storms and he found it was fun to burn even the pieces he was fond of. He knew the sea would sculpt more...But burning driftwood did something to him that he could not define. He thought it was probably wrong to burn it when he was so fond of it; but he felt no guilt about it" (Hemingway 11).

This passage is highly symbolic of how Hudson — and Hemingway — felt about the women in their lives. Hudson wonders why he ever left his wife, particularly his first wife, the mother of Tom, his oldest son, but then reflects that he had to, and also admits that he was still in love with the first woman he had ever been with, although he had loved many since (Hemingway 13). The driftwood seems symbolic of the women who came in and out of Hudson's life. Women had come to stay with him on the island for a time; he needed them and welcomed them. Hemingway writes that Hudson "liked having them there, sometimes for quite a long time. But in the end he was always glad when they were gone, even when he was very fond of them" (Hemingway 14).

It can be no coincidence that Hemingway used the word "fond" to describe both the driftwood and the women in Hudson's life. Like the driftwood, he enjoyed the look of a woman — like the driftwood stacked for burning — and, however fond he was of her, felt no guilt from the spark, the passion, when she left. For like the sea sculpting more driftwood, he knew a different woman would enter his life, one he would be just as fond of, or perhaps more. There was always more driftwood, and always more women to be fond of.