The Primitive as Modernist Artist

Draws on psychological, anthropological, and literary theories on civilization and primitivism to analyze Cather’s The Professor’s House (1925) and two Hemingway novels, The Torrents of Spring and The Sun Also Rises. Argues that while Yogi Johnson undergoes a “primitive awakening” after meeting the Native American woman, Hemingway dismisses the conventional notion of the healing powers of the primitive. Rossetti identifies Cohn and the Basques at the Spanish fiesta as examples of primitive outsiders, concentrating on the anti-Semitism surrounding Cohn and the stereotypical representation of the ever-celebrating Basque peasants. Rossetti writes: “By placing the era’s skewed ideologies in the mouths of unreliable characters (e.g. Jake Barnes), Hemingway subtly questions the efficacy of the primitive figure.