The Consolation of Critique: Food, Culture, and Civilization in Ernest Hemingway

Draws on contemporary food theory to discuss the function of food in relation to individual and cultural trauma. Considers “Big Two-Hearted River,” “Ten Indians,” and For Whom the Bell Tolls from the perspective that food “communicates and qualifies social connection on interpersonal, cultural, and political levels.” Argues that Nick’s canned meal in “Big Two-Hearted River” is comfort food as he attempts to integrate his prewar and wartime memories, that “Ten Indians” uses food to challenge the persistence of colonialism, and that For Whom the Bell Tolls explores the frailty of civilization and the endurance of grace through agricultural metaphors