Beards and Masculinity in American Literature 9781138093768, 9781315106410

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Beards and Masculinity in American Literature

Beards and Masculinity in American Literature is a pioneering study of the symbolic power of the beard in the history of American writing. This book covers the entire breadth of the American literary tradition—from 18th-­century American newspapers and periodicals through the 19th and 20th centuries to recent contemporary engagements with the beard and masculinity. With chapters focused on the barber and the barbershop in American writing, the “need for a shave” in Ernest Hemingway’s fiction, Walt Whitman’s beard as a sanctuary for poets reaching out to the bearded bard, and the contemporary reengagement with the beard as a symbol of Otherness in post-­9/11 fiction, Beards and Masculinity in American Literature underlines the symbolic power of facial hair in key works of American writing. Dr. Peter Ferry is Associate Professor of English Literature at the University of Stavanger, Norway, where he teaches 19th-­, 20th-­, and 21st-­century literature. His research focuses primarily on representations of gender and masculinity in American literature alongside a continuing curiosity in the flâneur in American writing. Previous publications on these research interests are headed by Masculinity in Contemporary New York Fiction (Routledge 2015).

Routledge Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Literature

Ethnic Resonances in Performance, Literature, and Identity Edited by Yiorgos Kalogeras and Cathy C. Waegner Gerardo Diego’s Creation Myth of Music Fábula de Equis y Zeda Judith Stallings-­Ward Biotheory Life and Death under Capitalism Edited with an introduction by Jeffrey R. Di Leo and Peter Hitchcock Mythopoeic Narrative in the Legend of Zelda Edited by Anthony G. Cirilla and Vincent E. Rone D. H. Lawrence and Psychoanalysis John Turner The Anthropocenic Turn The Interplay between Disciplinary and Interdisciplinary Responses to a New Age Edited by Gabriele Dürbeck and Philip Hüpkes Beards and Masculinity in American Literature Peter Ferry Kashmiri Life Narratives Human Rights, Pleasure and the Local Cosmopolitan Rakhshan Rizwan Migrant and Tourist Encounters The Ethics of Im/mobility in 21st Century Dominican and Cuban Cultures Andrea Morris For more information about this title, please visit: www.routledge.com

Figure 0.1   Photo of Walt Whitman, known as “The Laughing Philosopher” taken by George Collins Cox in 1887.

Beards and Masculinity in American Literature Peter Ferry

First published 2020 by Routledge 52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, NY 10017 and by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2020 Taylor & Francis The right of Peter Ferry to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. Library of Congress Cataloging-­in-­Publication Data A catalog record for this book has been requested ISBN: 978-1-138-09376-8 (hbk) ISBN: 978-1-315-10641-0 (ebk) Typeset in Sabon by Apex CoVantage, LLC

Contents

ContentsContents

Acknowledgmentsix Introduction Ever-­Growing Research and Writing on Beards and Facial Hair  4 1 The Barbershop in American Literature Barbers and Barbershops in Early American Writing: Newspapers and Magazines  24 First Tales in the Barbershop  26 Barbers and Blackness: Race and Violence in the American Barbershop  35 The Barbershop and White Male Nostalgia  53 2 The Need for a Shave: Beards in Masculinity in Ernest Hemingway’s Fiction Hemingway’s Beard  69 Hemingway’s Narratives of (Bearded) Masculinity  73 Pretentious Beards in Hemingway’s Fiction  81 Men Needing a Shave: The Sun Also Rises (1927)  84 Hemingway’s Men Resisting the Beard: A Farewell to Arms (1929)  92 Americans and Their Beards: For Whom the Bell Tolls (1940) 98 Hemingway’s Fixation With Facial Hair  103 3 The Bards and Their Beards: Walt Whitman’s “Beard Full of Butterflies” in the Poetry of Federico García Lorca and Allen Ginsberg The Beard in Whitman Scholarship  112

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109

viii  Contents Influence of Whitman’s Beard  114 Beards in Whitman’s Poetry  117 First Edition of Leaves of Grass 118 Beards and Butterflies: Walt Whitman and Federico García Lorca  130 Federico García Lorca and the Beard  133 Lorca Walking With Whitman  138 Ginsberg Rediscovering Whitman (and His Beard)  145 4 The Beard, Masculinity, and the Other in the Post-­9/11 Novel 152 Queering the Terrorist Beard  154 The Global Citizen and The Contemporary Beard: Amy Waldman’s The Submission (2011)  165 Epilogue

173

Index176

Acknowledgments

AcknowledgmentsAcknowledgments

I would like to thank all my colleagues at the Department of Cultural Studies and Languages at the University of Stavanger, Norway, for their interest and support in this project. I would also like to thank the Department of Research and Innovation at the University of Stavanger for awarding me a Mobility Grant to be able to conduct research for the book at the British Library, London, in May 2019. I would like to thank the various conference organisers that allowed me to present my beards research during the writing of this book. These papers included “Monumental Beards in American Literature” at the 26th Biennial Conference of the Nordic Association for American Studies, Bergen, Norway, April 2019; “The Bards and their Beards: Walt Whitman’s ‘Beard Full of Butterflies’ in the poetry of Federico García Lorca and Allen Ginsberg” at the 42nd AEDEAN (Spanish Association of Anglo-­American Studies) conference, University of Córdoba, Spain, November 2018; and “Writing Men?: Beards and Masculinities in American Lit” at the Forskningskabaret, University of Stavanger, Norway, August 2018. An earlier version of the chapter “The Beard, Masculinity, and the Other in the post-­9/11 novel” appeared as “The Beard, Masculinity, and Otherness in the Contemporary American Novel,” Journal of American Studies, Volume 51, No. 1, February 2017, pp. 163–182.

Introduction

IntroductionIntroduction

Welcome to Beards and Masculinity in American Literature, a pioneering study of the symbolic power of the beard in the history of American writing. This sounds like a grand statement—and it is!—but this book should be judged primarily on its own terms as a celebration of the beard and its stylings in the American literary tradition. And celebration is a key word that resonates on many levels. First, the etymology of celebrate points to a range of interconnected meanings: “to assemble to honor,” “to publish, to sing the praises of,” and (the one we might argue to be the most important) “to practice often.”1 With the continued interest in beard growing, beard wearing, and beard worshipping, it seems that it is time for such a celebration of the beard, a celebration that we can expect to continue into the 2020s. And this is because pogonomania is everywhere. It seems like all men are sporting beards. Retro barbershops are popping up in all corners of our towns and cities. Major cosmetic brands are expanding into beard oils, beard waxes, and other beard sculpting accoutrements. Beard contests are happening locally, nationally, and internationally. It is hard to walk a few blocks before being faced with a proud beard wearer. And research is starting to argue for ever-­growing pogonofilia in major cities.2 Experts in social and cultural anthropology are making arguments and offering evidence that the beard continues to be regarded as a marker in ever-­more-­crowded social spaces. Regardless of our position on this seemingly innate power of the beard, what such studies do affirm is that the beard, first and foremost, is a powerful visual object. Pogonotrophy is not merely a pastime but also a passion. Men do not simply want to sport a beard but want to be seen sporting their beard. In all parts of the globe, there are various competitions and festivals which judge the hirsuteness of such beard growers. As Matthew Rainwaters demonstrates in Beard (2011), a wonderfully glossy collection of portraits of the participants in the World Beard and Moustache Championships, such pageants are of unimaginable importance for pogonophiles who seek recognition for their dedication to the growing and nurturing of their flocculent appendages. We might well argue that

2  Introduction the beard is regarded by men as a marker of masculinity. In a world in which the once seemingly natural order of men and women is being challenged, a beard, if nothing else, is regarded by some as something that women cannot do. The question remains, however, if men are actually growing beards as these markers of masculinity to reassert their position in society versus women, or, in fact, are men growing these beards to be accepted by other men? Returning to the idea of Beards and Masculinity in American Literature as a celebration of the beard, we must begin with arguably America’s greatest-­ever writer who opened arguably America’s greatest-­ever poem with such proclamations of celebration: Walt Whitman. We can also agree that Walt Whitman sported America’s greatest-­ever beard. First and foremost, this study of the beard in American literature was inspired by Whitman’s famously ever-­flowing flocculence. And Whitman’s beard has been a source of inspiration for so many writers both within and beyond the borders of the United States. From the stubble of the carpenter image projected in the first edition of Leaves of Grass (1855) to the long white locks of the elder Whitman that adorn the frontispiece of this book, Whitman’s beard remains a symbol of the values that Whitman embodies for all those who continue to reach out to him as guide and teacher. Whitman’s beard underlines the power of such glorious hirsuteness to transcend its physical form and not only to become an inspiration for everyday people but also to endure as a place of safety and sanctuary for writers searching for meaning in their own struggles with their identity and sexuality. Just as the bearded Whitman in the opening lines of “Song of Myself” states his ambition to celebrate and sing his Americanness, I celebrate myself, and sing myself, And what I assume you shall assume, For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you[,] (63) equally Beards and Masculinity in American Literature sets out in a celebration with the “you” reading this book of the most symbolic beards in the history of American writing. For the beard can only be understood within the larger social, cultural, and political discourses in which it is sported. Likewise, the engagement with the beard in the history of American literature can only be understood within careful close readings of such literary engagements with the beard within the larger social, cultural, and political discourses that were shaping the American nation at notable points in its history. It must be clarified at this early point that Beards and Masculinity in American Literature is not intended to be a history of all beards, moustaches, or whiskers in all works of American literature. The book is not intended to be exhaustive and it does not pretend to be. Rather, Beards

Introduction 3

Figure I.1  Photo of Walt Whitman taken by Mathew Brady in 1862

and Masculinity in American Literature is a celebration of the canonical beards in the key works of canonical American writers. Of course, canonical is a provocative term, and it should be taken in the spirit in which it is intended—tongue in bearded cheek. But, as I write this introduction at the end of this beards project, I get the sense that this might be a volume 1 of an ever-­growing endeavour to move onto other beards and other facial stylings on the faces and in the works of other writers from other communities that have shaped American beard history. I reflect more on this in the book’s epilogue.

4  Introduction

Ever-­Growing Research and Writing on Beards and Facial Hair To give a fuller picture of beard scholarship, it is my duty and pleasure to offer an overview of recent publications on the social, historical, and political contexts of beard growing and beard wearing. Extending beyond the boundaries of strictly national borders, these studies come together to create a scholarly community of writers and readers who want to celebrate the wonders of facial flocculence—and create our own little bit of beard history. This interdisciplinary community of hirsute investigators has most certainly been inspired by classic publications on the humble beard. One such foundational text, we might argue, is Thomas S. Gowing’s “The Philosophy of Beards.” A lecture given originally in 1785, Gowing’s words have been republished recently as The Philosophy of Beards (2014) in a wonderful hardback edition by the British Library. Gowing’s proclamations of the superiority of the beard within the realms of history still echo today: All the leading races of men, whether of warm or cold climates, who have stamped their character on history—Egyptians, Indians, Jews, Assyrians, Babylonians, Persians, Arabs, Greeks, Romans, Celts, Turks, Scandinavians, Sclaves—were furnished with an abundant growth of this natural covering. (14) Gowing continues with a full range of bearded discussion, including the physiology of the beard and its artistic division, and even offers an ambitious historical survey of the beard before ending with a final self-­ affirming statement of having offered proofs that the Beard is a natural feature of the male face, and designed by Providence for distinction, protection, and ornament. (79) Despite Gowing’s assuredness of the divinity of the beard, more contemporary writings on the wonders of facial hair began in the face of disinterest and downright suspicion. We might pinpoint Leslie Dunkling and John Foley’s The Guinness Book of Beards and Moustaches (1990) as a brave attempt to resurrect the beard at the end of the 20th century, a century in which being clean-­shaven was the norm. Their manifesto opens with a call to the imagined clean-­shaven-­faced reader who has likely been drawn to their book by the urge to realise his repressed desires: Maybe you are worried about what your friends and relations might say if you decide to grow a beard? Forget them, and do your own thing. (7)

Introduction 5 Dunkling and Foley’s book is light on scientific investigation but heavy on humour and offers wonderful examples of those from the worlds of the arts, literature, philosophy, politics, and science who were all proudly flocculent or engaged with the symbolic power of flocculence in their writing and research. As this study was produced in troubled times for the beard, a time when bearded men, as Dunkling and Foley remark, were “an oppressed minority group” (26), this book should be celebrated for its provocative and subversive powers in going against the daily shave norm. Dunkling and Foley offer support to the budding beard-­minded men who are suffering “stubble trouble” in their move toward hirsuteness: “Normal life has to continue while the beard is growing, which means that for a period of at least three weeks, the man concerned will simply look unshaven rather than bearded” (10). The beard in American writing also pops up a key point in Dunkling and Foley’s courageous call to quit shaving. They make reference to a range of writers from the American tradition who reflect on their own engagement with beard growing and beard wearing. Perhaps the most apt example is that of John Steinbeck, who “cultivated his beard as ‘pure unblushing decoration’ ” (14). Steinbeck’s proud proclamation of his dedication to the cultivation of his beard features in his travelogue Travels with Charley: In Search of America (1962): I wear a beard and moustache but shave my cheeks; said beard, having a dark skunk stripe up the middle and white edges, commemorates certain relatives. I cultivate this beard not for the usual given reasons of skin trouble or pain of shaving, nor for the secret purpose of covering a weak chin, but as pure unblushing decoration, much as a peacock finds pleasure in his tail. (39) Steinbeck appears rather impressed with himself and his beard. And he is not finished. Steinbeck shows an awareness of the gender politics in beard growing and beard wearing and, indeed, points to the common reaction of men experiencing the (self-­created) “crisis of masculinity”: “And finally, in our time, a beard is the one thing a woman cannot do better than a man, or if she can, her success is assured only in a circus” (39–40). Dunkling and Foley make strong arguments for practising “pragmatic pogonology” (12–14), underline the necessary boldness of beards (24– 25), and, indeed, are inspiring in making forty positive reasons for growing a beard (23–24). After a remarkably detailed cultural history of facial hair in British, American, European, and various other cultures, they end their study with a wonderful glossary titled “Words Bewhiskered” (115), which can only educate the reader on the various stylings and stylisations of beards, moustaches, and whiskers (115–28).

6  Introduction

 

  Figures I.2, I.3, I.4, and I.5 The wonderfully bearded presidents. From left to right, Abraham Lincoln (1861–1865), Ulysses S. Grant (1869–1877), Rutherford B. Hayes (1877– 1881), and the last president with facial hair over 100 years ago, William Taft (1909–1913). Was the wonderous facial hair sported by these presidents the secret to their success?

There was a long wait for an equally inspirational call for the importance of beard growing and beard wearing. At the turn of the millennium, Allan Peterkin’s One Thousand Beards: A Cultural History of Facial Hair (2001) bristled with its contributions to our understandings of the various discourses shaping the beard. Inspired by his own ethnographic

Introduction 7 observations while wandering the streets of Toronto, Peterkin sets out to answer his own emerging interests in all things flowing and flocculent. From antiquity to postmodernity, Peterkin burrows into the various threads of beard history touching upon the importance of facial hair of famous (fictional?) figures from Jesus Christ to Santa Claus. One particularly pogonographic stop on Peterkin’s history of hirsute fashions is the role of the beard in the formation of the United States. Peterkin quite rightly focuses on the parallels between the changes in the American nation and the changes on the face of those shaping the American nation. Peterkin cites Uncle Sam, an example, we might argue, of the developing masculinity of a new nation who suddenly had whiskers drawn on his cleanly shaven face by the cartoonist Thomas Nash in the mid-­1800s (36). Likewise, Abraham Lincoln, arguably American’s most famous bearded president, decided to grow a beard in 1860 as he “was convinced,” in Peterkin’s words, “that his chances in the upcoming presidential election would be enhanced by his wearing a distinguished beard” (36). He won. The issue of the beard and the American presidency is an intriguing one. Almost all the American presidents from Abraham Lincoln (1861–1865) to William Taft (1909–1913) wore some styling of facial hair. The only presidents to dare go cleanly shaved during this era were Andrew Johnson (1865–1869) and William McKinley (1897–1901; although it must be noted that McKinley’s mentor during and after the Civil War was the wonderfully bearded one-­time president of the United States Rutherford B. Hayes [1877–1881]).3 And dare is an unexpectedly key word here. As one study from the National Archives found, on only five occasions have bearded candidates faced clean-­shaven candidates in presidential contests, and on three of those five occasions—Ulysses S. Grant in 1868 and 1872 and Rutherford B. Hayes in 1876—the fully flocculent candidate was the choice of the electorate. Added to these good odds, beards also triumphed over moustaches on three other occasions during the 19th century. The bare-­faced president who broke the historical streak of flocculent first men of American society was Woodrow Wilson (1913–1921). Wilson followed a line of presidents who wore various stylisations of the authoritative moustache, a group that included Grover Cleveland, Theodore Roosevelt, and William Taft. In fact, Taft, who left office in 1913, holds the honour of being the last American president with any styling of facial hair—more than 100 years ago. But we can say that at particular stages in American history, especially times of turmoil and distress, the general public looked to the bearded for guidance. One apt example is the American Civil War (1861–1865). Despite being ideological adversaries, the North and South did have one thing in common: the fondness for facial hair. One overlooked Union solider who deserves attention for his commitment to his facial stylings is Percy Wyndham. Wyndham, a British national who claimed a colourful military career with the French Navy, the British Army, the Austrian Army, and the Italian Army, served with

8  Introduction

Figure I.6  Union soldier Percy Wyndham’s pointed beard

the Union Army for a time during the Civil War. While Wyndham’s time with the Union Army was nothing spectacular, his choice of facial hair pointed—quite literally—to someone who took his beard styling very seriously. Wyndham’s beard is a unique mix of a pointed handlebar moustache and a quite full and extended ducktail pointing down from the chin. What sets Wyndham’s beard apart from more traditional ducktail stylings is the lack of connection between each part of the beard. We might go further and see Wyndham’s flocculence as fragmented and separate,

Introduction 9

  Figures I.7 and I.8 Beards on the Confederate side: General J. E. B. Stuart and Robert E. Lee

something that we might read symbolically as a reflection of his own sense of detachment as a man who evidently struggled with finding his place in the world if we consider the range of armies and countries in which he served. On the other side of the battlefield, the Confederate Army included General J. E. B. Stuart, a cavalry commander, whose strong black beard reflected the strong image that he projected to his Southern supporters. Stuart worked closely with Robert E. Lee, the commander of the Confederate States Army, himself a finely bearded fellow. Stuart played a key role in many conflicts, including the capture of the equally hirsute John Brown. But Stuart’s most recognised and remembered campaign was the Gettysburg Campaign. Stuart’s ill-­fated actions contributed greatly to the Confederates’ defeat by the Union Army due to failures in planning and coordination with Lee during this campaign. Yet probably the historical hirsute figure who has had the most impact on the history of the beard and other facial stylings is Ambrose Burnside. Burnside had a turbulent time during the Civil War, experiencing both successes and failures on the battlefield, but his legacy remained in the American consciousness far beyond his service. Burnside’s thick growth down both sides of his face towards his abundant moustache remains one of the most striking facial stylings in American history, and, consequently,

10  Introduction

Figure I.9  Ambrose Burnside: originator of the mighty sideburns!

has become immortalised as one of the most iconic statements of facial hair: sideburns. Despite the beard appearing on the faces of those in positions of power in American society, various historical figures were also victimised because of their beards. Such victims of this pogonic persecution included the Quaker Joshua Evans and the Jewish farmer Joseph Palmer. Joshua Evans, an 18th-­century Quaker from New Jersey, was asked to remove his beard by his clean-­shaven Quaker acquaintances. When he refused, citing many passages from the Bible to support his beard wearing, he was

Introduction 11

Figure I.10 Joseph Palmer’s gravestone: “Persecuted for wearing the beard” Source: David Rondinone.

forbidden to travel by the ministry for 14 years. Upon his release from such restrictions, Evans made the declaration: The wearing of my beard, I believe hath been of great use in the cause I am engaged to promote; for I apprehend thousands have come to meetings, where I have been, that otherwise I should have not seen;

12  Introduction many being induced, in great measure, to come on account of my singular appearance. (qtd. in Dunkling and Foley 32) While Evans died a respected man in 1798, he was evidently treated badly by his fellow Quakers. Another infamous figure in the bearded history of the United States is the farmer Joseph Palmer. An associate of Louisa May Alcott and other Transcendental philosophers and writers, Palmer suffered pogonic oppression throughout his lifetime in Fitchburg, Massachusetts. In fact, Palmer suffered so much that his tombstone was marked “Persecuted for wearing the beard.” This persecution is very much tied up into Palmer’s ethnic background, his religious beliefs, and, of course, his beard. Palmer was looked on as a monster and a deviant, and his name was used to frighten children. Palmer’s beard was such a threat to his local community that four men armed with shears attempted to cut his flowing facial locks. In the struggle, Palmer stabbed two of the men and, after refusing to pay the fine in self-­defence of his beard, was sent to jail. In jail, Palmer wrote letters and smuggled them out to newspapers. He also continued to grow his beard. The beard was seen as an outward in-­your-­face indicator of Palmer’s nonconformity—Palmer was someone who rejected the typical habits of drinking alcohol and someone who rejected the standard views towards slavery in his support of abolition. But if we are talking about the beard in American history, then we must talk about the longest beard in American history. The longest beard grew on the face of Hans Langseth, a Norwegian immigrant, who came to the United States in the mid-­1800s. Currently held in storage in the National Museum of National History, the beard measures 17 feet 6 inches in length. When Langseth was on his deathbed, he requested that his children cut off his beard and keep it for posterity. And they did. Many years later, in 1967, Langseth’s son Russell donated the beard to the Smithsonian. The beard varies in colour and texture, the brown segments from his youthful years reflecting his vitality and strength while the yellowed parts from his later years symbolising his knowledge and wisdom. The Smithsonian magazine adds that Langseth is reported to have rolled up his beard and carried it around his neck in a pouch, or, on some other occasions, tucked it into his pocket. In 1922, Langseth’s beard was officially recognised as the longest in the United States by the Whiskerinos, and Langseth even toured for a while as part of a sideshow exhibition. Langseth grew tired of the attention, however, as well as the many disbelieving people pulling at his beard, and so he retired home with his family to focus his efforts firmly on growing and preserving his now-­famous flocculence (“The World’s Longest Beard Is One of the Smithsonian’s Strangest Artifacts”).

Introduction 13

Figure I.11  This is Hans Langseth, a Norwegian immigrant, who came to the United States in the mid-1800s.

Back to the sociological study of the beard, Christopher Oldstone-­ Moore builds on Allen Peterkin’s broad cultural history of the beard to offer a similarly focused “male-­pattern history” (1) with Of Beards and Men: The Revealing History of Facial Hair (2015). Beginning with the question, “Why do Men have Beards?” (5), each chapter focuses on a particular era in Oldstone-­Moore’s proposed beard history, the total effect of which is to see how such an everyday object is loaded with the interrelated discourses of performance and power in society.

14  Introduction Oldstone-­Moore’s study forwards Peterkin’s equally broad overview of the historiography of our understanding of the beard with a particular focus on the complex web of biological and sociological factors in such performances. Starting from the fabulously bearded Charles Darwin, Oldstone-­Moore speculates on the efficacy of Darwin’s own speculations on the reason men have beards. The first, which is widely rejected, is that men have beards for no reason at all (9). In other words, beards might be viewed as mere accidents of evolution. Oldstone-­ Moore’s second proposition is more sociologically focused in its argument that beards are actually ornamental and have developed with the purpose of charming women (10). With more sophisticated psychological, psychosocial, and indeed biological investigations into factors regarding the perceived attractiveness of beards and the awareness of the attractiveness of such adornments for the wearers themselves, scholars continue to explore the social power of facial hair. Recent studies, such as those lead by Barnaby J. W. Dixson, take a psychosocial approach to perceptions of the beard. As Dixson et al. argue in “Beards and the Big City: Displays of Masculinity May Be Amplified Under Crowded Conditions” (2017), “compared to clean-­shaven men, bearded men report feeling more masculine . . . endorse male typical gender roles in heterosexual relationships . . . and have higher levels of serum testosterone which may predict social dominance” (2). While this is difficult territory, particularly in the shifts into different disparate disciplines, there is certainly the potential for further investigation into the pogonotrophy of the beard that may power beard growing and beard wearing. Following this, the third competing theory that Oldstone-­Moore offers is the “beard as weapon” (13). Beards might be regarded, amongst men, as a tool of intimidation in attempts to establish dominance. The explanation offered for such a theory is that women are not so much attracted to the beard as an aesthetic object “but rather to the social dominance that impressively bearded men achieve over other men” (10). After reflecting on this “beard as threat” theory, Oldstone-­ Moore decides that this is equally inconclusive. As Oldstone-­Moore concludes, [t]he dream of hairological theory is a pleasant one, but it will not easily be achieved. Even if the detailed patterns of affinity and opposition were worked out for a given society, it would provide at best a kind of snapshot of social codes. It would capture a moment in the ebb and flow of human history, but not the ebb and flow itself. In fact, the meaning of facial hair is most visible in change rather than stasis. (18) Oldstone-­Moore’s note of warning here should be heeded. The beard cannot provide all the answers, but it can certainly point to certain

Introduction 15 discourses shaping the societies and the individuals within those societies at certain points in history. The visibility of the beard that Oldstone-­Moore refers to is, of course, the striking feature of such an everyday object. It is no surprise, therefore that many photo books are emerging on the beard. Matthew Rainwaters’s previously mentioned collection of pogonotastic portraits in Beard (2011) heads a list of beard-­focused photography. Rainwaters’s photos are interspersed with snapshot reflections from the subjects of his photos on their connection to their beards. Moreover, David and Angie Sacks’s more recent publication The Art of the Beard (2019) follows Rainwaters with their offering of the opportunity for the reader to comb through a collection of 200 bearded portraits and immerse him-­or herself among many eccentric facial stylings. Back to academic research and writing, recent scholarly investigations across the pond in British history and literature have turned to the beard as a rich object worthy of study. The early modern era has emerged as a fertile period for studies on facial hair. Mark Albert Johnston, in Beard Fetish in Early Modern England: Sex, Gender, and Registers of Value (2016), examines “the complex value of beards” (1) in early modern England between 1535 and 1650 with particular focus on the fetishisation of such facial hair.⁠6 Johnson sets outs to map how “beards materialise value in a wide variety of texts” within the “(re)production, adaptation, and perpetuation of cultural ideology” (1) during this period in English history. To do this, Johnston includes chapters on a diverse range of people in society, including beardless boys, bearded women, and half beards and hermaphrodites. Likewise, Eleanor Rycroft’s Facial Hair and the Performance of Early Modern Masculinity (2019) is the first study to analyse the importance of beards in terms of the theatrical performance of masculinity. Rycroft’s text focuses on the centrality of the beard in the performance of power and politics that defined masculinity during this historical period. From the youth of the beardless boys to the decline of manliness in the greybeards that defined old age in the early modern era, Rycroft offers a necessary study on the symbolic resonance of the beard on the early modern stage. There is a growing sense of the study of the beard branching out into new territories in the growing ambitions of scholars to continue trying to frame the sociological power of framing the face. One such edited collection—which inspired the writing of this book—is Jennifer Evans and Alun Withey’s New Perspectives on the History of Facial Hair (2018). The essays that make up this fine publication illustrate how manifestations of facial flocculence and its cultivation throughout history point to the symbolic power of such activities in the interrogation of difficult and complex issues such as gender, sexuality, and nationhood. The symbolic power of this study itself lies in the eclecticism of essays from beardless

16  Introduction young men in 19th-­century Spanish self-­portraits to facial hairiness in French courts with the case of Marie-­Joséphine of Savoy to whiskers at war in 20th-­century Britain. This study on beards, moustaches, and feminine facial hair with scholars from all over the world fulfils its ambition and, I would argue, the ambition of all those interested in academic study into the meaning and importance of beards and body hair more broadly. Alun Withey continues his leading research on the significance of beards and moustaches in understandings of male health and the male body in British history with his forthcoming monograph Concerning Beards: Facial Hair, Health and Practice in England c. 1650–1900 (2021). As Withey aims to argue, the three centuries after 1650 witnessed important changes in the perceptions of men’s facial hair in English society, yet little remains known about the significance of beards and moustaches or indeed their relationship to health norms, medical practice, and technology. Withey’s study covers the complex health and hygiene contexts related to facial hair, the changes in the practices of shaving, and the fashioning of the male face. Ultimately, by covering the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries, Concerning Beards details the historical shift in the view of facial hair from primarily a concern of formal medicine and practice to being a key part of new ideas of hygiene and personal grooming. In answer to this developing field of the interdisciplinary study of the facial hair in English history and culture, it must be said that there is a marked gap in scholarly works on beards in American literature and culture. And so, in light of the beards boom that is now happening in academic research, Beards and Masculinity in American Literature aims to make its modest contribution with its celebration of the symbolic power of the beard in the history of American writing. Chapter 1 begins in the only place such a study on the beard can begin: the barbershop. This three-­part chapter opens by detailing the rich history of American writing from the barber’s chair, starting with shorts and satirical tales in the earliest writing in American newspapers and magazines. These pieces reflect on the role of the barber in the lives of his patrons, not only as a trimmer of hair and a shaper of beards but also as a confidant, guide, and mentor. What is clear is that as American society changed, so did the attitudes towards the barber and the barbershop, and such writings on this unique social space in American society reflected the complexities of the wider discourses of the American nation. The second section of the barbershop chapter turns to arguably the most complex issue connected to the barbershop in American writing: race. With a sociologically and historically charged reading of selected key works of American literature, the barbershop is presented as the stage for highly charged examinations of issues of race, slavery, power, and violence in American history. With notable examples from American print, as well as short stories of Herman Melville, Charles W. Chesnutt, and William Faulkner, the barbershop is the arena in which masculinities are challenged and the underlying tensions

Introduction 17 rise to the surface. The final section of the barbershop chapter examines the perceived role of this social space as a sanctuary of lost masculinity. Turning to more contemporary works, particularly those of Don DeLillo and Cormac McCarthy, the barbershop continues as a place of restorative and regenerative nostalgia. Following the barbershop, Chapter 2 turns to arguably the most famous bearded novelist of the 20th century: Ernest Hemingway. Hemingway is most prominent within the American consciousness due to his Papa beard, considered the ultimate symbol of Hemingway’s unique brand of masculinity. Beginning with an examination of the changing attitudes of Hemingway scholars towards Hemingway’s engagement with narratives of masculinity, the chapter frames this reading of the symbolic power of the beard and the act of shaving in Hemingway’s fiction with the quite remarkable fact that the beard remains largely overlooked in Hemingway studies. As the chapter argues, despite the establishment of the bearded Hemingway as the seemingly impenetrable image of a staunch and unmoving masculinity, Hemingway experienced a more complex relationship with the beard, and this manifests most strikingly in his fiction. With a close reading of Hemingway’s three most famous men—Jake Barnes, Frederic Henry, and Robert Jordan—in his three most famous novels—The Sun Also Rises (1926), A Farewell to Arms (1929), and For Whom the Bells Tolls (1940), respectively—Hemingway’s men contribute to three particular bearded narratives: questioning the pretentiousness of the beard, recognising and rejecting the symbolic power of the act of beard wearing, and repeatedly voicing the need for a shave. Ultimately, the chapter illustrates the need to continue challenging the narrative of the attachment of the ultra-­masculine Hemingway to his ultra-­masculine beard. Just as Hemingway is arguably America’s most famous bearded novelist, America’s most famous bearded poet is certainly Walt Whitman. As Chapter 3 argues, Whitman’s beard holds a unique symbolic power beyond the pages of his poetry and beyond the borders of the United States. From the stubble in Whitman’s performance as a poet of the people in the first edition of Leaves of Grass (1855) to the flowing locks as America’s bard in his later years, Whitman’s powerful flocculence has been the central feature of the image that we continue to hold of Whitman. This chapter argues that Whitman’s beard has been grasped by poets who reached out to Whitman as a guide and teacher in their own struggles with the isolation and loneliness that they felt in their public and private lives. With a close reading analysis of Federico García Lorca’s queering of Whitman’s famous flocculence in “Ode to Walt Whitman” (1930), a re-­imagining of Whitman that created the quite beautiful and enduring image of Whitman’s “beard full of butterflies,” the chapter also turns to Allen Ginsberg (who reconnected with Whitman through Lorca’s ode) with a critical analysis of “A Supermarket in California”

18  Introduction (1955), Ginsberg’s paean to old graybeard Whitman. Whitman’s beard transcends its physical existence to take on a symbolic power for Lorca and Ginsberg, who reach out to their “courage-­teacher,” calling for him to walk with them on the streets of the United States. Like many before and after, Lorca and Ginsberg use Whitman’s beard as their compass. The final chapter underlines the continued engagement with the beard in American literature with the complicated imaginings of the bearded Other in post-­9/11 American fiction. As the American novel attempted to make sense of a changing American society in a changing world following the atrocities of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, these novels looked for a visual marker of the Otherness that motivated such attacks—and these writers turned to the beard. Drawing on readings from key writers of the era, such as John Updike, Mohsin Hamid, and Don DeLillo, this chapter begins by arguing that novels considered key works of post-­9/11 fiction rely on the reductive rendering of the terrorist beard as an irrefutable representation of Otherness. Despite this trend, one novel—Amy Waldman’s The Submission (2011)—emerges as a beacon with its nuanced engagement with the beard. Waldman’s novel underlines the power of the beard as a visual marker to embody the contradictions and complexities of a changing American masculinity now performed beyond the physical borders of the United States on the global stage. Moreover, Waldman’s narrative engagement with the beard illustrates how the beard is more than a sign of opaque Otherness but is, in fact, emasculating and sexualising as well as playful and political. Ultimately, as American literature continues to move beyond the physical borders of “the nation” to see American masculinity as something now performed within global networks, Waldman’s novel illustrates how the beard must continue to be placed at the centre of scholarly conversations on the performance of masculinity on a new global stage. Beards and Masculinity in American Literature ends with an epilogue that points to the potential for continued studies on the beard (and all facial stylings!) in studies of American literature and culture. As mentioned before, this study is self-­consciously canonical with inclusions of the heavyweights of American writing—from Mark Twain to Walt Whitman to Ernest Hemingway to Don DeLillo. But there is so much more to be written and so many more beards to be grown (or, indeed, shaved off!). Rather than being the last word on facial flocculence in American literature and culture, Beards and Masculinity in American Literature hopes to be one of the first spurts of what will be an even fuller field of interdisciplinary studies on such an everyday object as the humble beard. Very soon there will no longer be such a patchy history of beards, moustaches, whiskers, and all things hair in American writing.

Introduction 19

Notes 1. These definitions of celebration are inspired by inclusions in the Merriam-­ Webster Dictionary, Cambridge Dictionary, Collins Dictionary, and ety monline.com. 2. There is a lack of specific research on this complex issue. Research that has been conducted has argued that the evidence shows that the argument that beards and body hair enhance men’s attractiveness is very mixed. See Valentova et al. for such discussion. 3. For a wonderful infographic on the complex history of facial hair and the American presidency see Dan Kopf’s “It’s been more than a century since a US president had facial hair” post on qz.com.

Works Cited Dixson, Barnaby J. W. et al. “Beards and the Big City: Displays of Masculinity May Be Amplified Under Crowded Conditions.” Evolution and Human Behaviour, vol. 38, no. 2, Mar. 2017, pp. 259–64. Dunkling, Leslie and John Foley. The Guinness Book of Beards and Moustaches. Guinness Publishing, 1990. Evans, Jennifer and Alun Withey, editors. New Perspectives on the History of Facial Hair. Palgrave, 2018. Geiling, Natasha. “The World’s Longest Beard Is One of the Smithsonian’s Strangest Artifacts.” Smithsonian.com, 14 Nov. 2014. Accessed 4 Oct. 2019. Gowing, Thomas S. The Philosophy of Beards. British Library, 2014. Johnston, Mark Albert. Beard Fetish in Early Modern England: Sex, Gender, and Registers of Value. Routledge, 2016. Kopf, Dan. “It’s Been More Than a Century Since a US President Had Facial Hair.” qz.com, 19 Feb. 2017. Accessed 15 May 2019. Oldstone-­Moore, Christopher. Of Beards and Men: The Revealing History of Facial Hair. U of Chicago P, 2015. Parkinson, Hilary. “FHF: The Beard Gap.” National Archive: Pieces of History, 22 Oct. 2010. Accessed 6 Sept. 2019. Peterkin, Allan. One Thousand Beards: A Cultural History of Facial Hair. Arsenal Pulp Press, 2001. Rainwaters, Matthew. Beard. Chronicle Books, 2011. Rycroft, Eleanor. Facial Hair and the Performance of Early Modern Masculinity. Routledge, 2019. Sacks, David and Angie Sacks. The Art of the Beard. Schiffer, 2019. Steinbeck, John. Travels with Charley: In Search of America. 1962. Penguin, 1980. Valentova, Jaroslava Varella et al. “Mate Preferences and Choices for Facial and Body Hair in Heterosexual Women and Homosexual Men: Influence of Sex, Population, Homogamy, and Imprinting-­Like Effect.” Evolution and Human Behavior, vol. 38, no. 2, Mar. 2017, pp. 241–48. Whitman, Walt. “Song of Myself.” The Complete Poems, edited by Francis Murphy, Penguin, 2004, pp. 63–124. Withey, Alun. Concerning Beards: Facial Hair, Health and Practice in England c. 1650–1900. Bloomsbury, 2021.

1 The Barbershop in American Literature

The Barbershop in American LiteratureThe Barbershop in American Literature

The barbershop is a unique social space in society.1 If we think of a barbershop, we think of crewcuts or pomaded quiffs, of sculpted sideburns or lusciously oiled beards, of tattoos and chains and motorcycle helmets. The inside of the barbershop is wood panels, red leather chairs, and memorabilia of rock stars, actors, and sporting heroes nailed to the walls. You can even enjoy craft beers and IPAs. The outside of the barbershop is marked by the symbolic power of the barber’s pole (see Figure 1.1). All in all, the barbershop is proudly masculine. The barbershop is again regarded by men a safe space to celebrate these archetypes of manhood and manliness, a sanctuary from the perceived threat towards their masculine identities in everyday life. And the data support this. The Bureau of Labor Statistics projects a growth of 10.1% of the barbershop industry up to 2024, compared to the national average of 6.5% over the same period.2 The barbershop is a cornerstone of the service industry to men, but it sells more than a sharp haircut or a quick trim of the beard; the barbershop sells a sense of the collective, a sense of camaraderie for men in their shared struggle of finding ways to perform and affirm their masculine identities which, in men’s eyes, have never been more unstable. And this resurgence in the social significance of the barbershop for many men is because the barbershop is a place of socialisation. For young boys, it is most likely the first all-­male place they visit. Brought there by their fathers, grandfathers, or other male guardians, the masculine codes of their particular community are presented and performed to the young boys in the barbershop. Through story and conversation, through magazines and music, and through discussion and debate, young boys turning into young men learn what is expected of them in their community. And the barbershop is the ideal arena to perform these masculinity forming rituals. If we have the barbershop, then, of course, we have the barber. The barber shoulders a range of responsibilities from behind the barber’s chair (see Figure 1.2). While barbering is a trade defined by its skill set— cutting and trimming and washing and waxing—there are other essential skills that the barber must cultivate. While the barber appears to be

The Barbershop in American Literature 21

Figure 1.1  The barber’s pole outside the barbershop

22  The Barbershop in American Literature

Figure 1.2  The barber’s chair

actively working on improving the client’s exterior, he is often working just as hard on his client’s interior. Barbering is an intimate profession in all aspects, not only in the physical sense but also in terms of the emotional and psychological support a barber must offer each individual client. The barber is many men to his many customers: he is a talker, a listener, a therapist, an advisor.3 And these skills are essential for building the necessary trust with each client. Barbering requires a level of trust and confidence for a client to sit still or lay prone while another human being slides a sharp knife down his face or across his throat. And so, in this unique setting, the client is sure to show his trust and confidence in the barber by discussing personal and professional issues with this stranger during the few minutes that they share together. In many ways, the client expects the same confidentiality arrangement that they might share with a doctor or priest or rabbi. Ultimately, being a barber is more than mastering the scissor or the razor; it is mastering the minds of men. The history of the barber and the barbershop in the United States is a complicated one. What has remained constant throughout this time is the central role of the barber in the changing face of American society. As Victoria Sherrow notes in An Encyclopedia of Hair (2006), in earliest colonial America, the barber took on extra duties, not only cutting the hair of his customers but also cutting into their bodies in his extended role as physician and surgeon (have you ever wondered where the red and

The Barbershop in American Literature 23 white of the barber’s pole comes from?) (52). During the 1700s, barbering was an occupation tied to the complex discourses that were beginning to shape the formation of the American nation, particularly race and slavery. In southern states, African American slaves adopted hair-­cutting and beard-­clipping duties for many years, before the first free African American men finally began to open barbershops.4 Unsurprisingly, the racial tensions that underpinned changing ideas in American society often emerged as incidents of serious if not fatal violence in the barber’s chair. After the Civil War, immigrants from Europe brought barbering back to the fore in American society and began to challenge the African Americans who were “cutting along the color line.”5 This was the period when certain groups of African Americans flourished by focusing on gentile society, their barbershops decorated to the highest detail to serve white society men. The barbering profession continued to thrive, and soon barbers certified their professional status by founding the Barbers’ Protective Union in 1886 in Columbus, Ohio. A year later, the Journeyman Barbers International Union, known today as the Barbers, Beauticians, and Allied Industries International Association, was formed in Buffalo. In 1893, A. B. Moler founded the first barber school in Chicago and produced the first textbooks on barbering. If men wanted to become barbers, they had to attend classes on cutting and shaving techniques, face treatments, and the sanitation of their instruments (Sherrow 53–54). The move into the 20th century saw laws passed to further regulate the training and licensing of the barbering profession. As barbering was enjoying the benefits of greater professionalisation, American society was beginning to change. The turn to the 20th century saw a growing pressure for men to be clean-­shaven. While it might be expected that this societal shift would have helped the barbering trade to prosper, the reality was that the barber faced a serious challenge from the Gillette razor. Wanting to appear like the fresh-­faced Hollywood stars on billboards or like the clean-­shaven presidents who dominated this time in the history of American facial hair, the early decades of the 20th century, with rapid industrialisation and the emergence of the clean-­ cut white-­collar worker, meant that it was quicker and easier for men to shave themselves in front of their own mirrors at home. Post–World War II, however, saw the emergence of diverse counter-­culture styles of grooming. The rise in long hairstyles for men, and sometimes even longer beards, led many barbershops to go out of business in the 1960s and 1970s (Sherrow 54). The 1980s and 1990s saw a change in the gender dynamics of the barbershop, with women making up half of all student barbers. Now in the new millennium, the barbershop has enjoyed a recent resurgence in social significance. As I mentioned at the beginning of this chapter, recent times have seen barbershops once again thrive as places that sell a masculinity-­affirming experience. The barbershop is more than its four walls, its leather seats, or even its red-­and-­white pole.

24  The Barbershop in American Literature The barbershop is a sanctuary from the pressures of everyday society. It is a place where men feel they are not being challenged from their often self-­created “Other.” The barbershop is a place where men feel they can be the men they ought to be. Throughout the history of American literature, the barber and the barbershop have been tied into the major narratives that have shaped the American literary tradition. It is worth stating, at this early juncture, that the intention of this chapter is not to be exhaustive. Such ambitions are simply not realistic within the restrictions of a single chapter. Neither is it the intention to offer a historical mapping of such literary engagements. Rather, following extensive research on barbershops in American writing, the intention is to explore and discuss the rich symbolic power of the barbershop in a wide range of writing—from works of social commentary and satire in early American newspapers, the highly charged narratives of race and violence in short stories or poetry in American magazines, or indeed the return to the barbershop in more recent works of contemporary American fiction. These three strands of the rich narrative of barbershop writing will be the focus of this multisectional chapter with the aim of demonstrating the need to celebrate the barbershop is a sociologically charged stage for the examination of the dynamics underlying the formation of masculinity in particular moments in American history, culture, and society.

Barbers and Barbershops in Early American Writing: Newspapers and Magazines Two pieces in one edition of the New York–based National Magazine; Devoted to Literature, Art, and Religion (1853) offer a window into the polarising views of the barber and the barbershop in early American writing.6 The first, “Beards and Barbers,” illustrates an admirable awareness of the importance of studying and understanding the barbershop with the declaration: “beards and barbers are historical.”7 Beginning with a compact history of the bristling tensions caused by the natural (f)act of hairs growing on a man’s face, the piece signposts the bitter war between the Tartars and the Persians over “the growth and management of the beard,” underlines the symbolic power of the beard in civilisations throughout history by namechecking the Greeks, the Jews, the Gauls, and the English and, indeed, points to the social, political, and historical development of one of the oldest trades of in history of humankind: barbering. The contributor sources the origins of the barbershop as a social space in Rome and Sicily before the emergence of the “honourable body” of “barber-­chirurgeons” in Great Britain in the time of Edward IV. Crossing the pond to the United States, the article discusses how barbering was an occupation tied to the complex discourses that were beginning to shape the formation of the American nation. Not only does the piece reflect on

The Barbershop in American Literature 25 the historicity of the barbershop, but it also offers interpretations of the symbolic resonance of many of the accoutrements that are unique to the barbershop, from the interior décor to the exterior accessories such as “the pole, with its painted fillet of blue or red.”8 Yet the overall tone of this article is one of reproach regarding the common barber of a developing American society. Once regarded as “a man of science and philosophy,” the barber is now “the cheap barber, with his pole, his jack-­towel, his small looking-­glass, his windsor chair, his copy of the weekly paper, his pictures of a bear, his birds,—nearly all barbers have birds,—and his endless flow of intelligence and small talk. Talk!—all barbers talk.”9 In this very same issue of The National Magazine, another piece proclaims the need for greater appreciation of the important role of the barber in the formative years of the United States. In “A Few Words Upon Beards,” the writer displays a keen awareness of the value of the barber and the barbershop.10 Following the quip in the previous article that the barber is no longer a man of science and philosophy, the author of this piece salutes the beard as a symbol more telling than any ancient artefact which the archaeologist might find or any grand theory with which the philosopher may enlighten us; in fact, the contributor underlines the sociological power of a few hairs on a man’s face as indicators of the functioning of society, and, just as important, the role of the barber within that society. While the article acknowledges the changing attitude toward the barber and his apparent fall from grace, now “weltering in his lather,”11 tellingly, the contributor predicts a rise in the cultural currency of such “civilized chins” as symbols of status and masculinity. The beard, in all its stylisations, is recognised as something to be upheld in order to project a certain image of the self. Moreover, the article implies that cultivating and maintaining a tidy style of facial hair is in itself a sign of civility, one of the central components in the legitimacy of American values, particularly American democracy. Therefore, the barber, in cutting the hairs on a man’s head and deftly trimming follicles on his face, inhabits a key position in the functioning of new American communities: “the barber, no longer condemned to reap the barren crop of a stubble-­ field, shall be restored to his pristine dignity as the artistic cultivator of man’s distinguishing appendage.”12 Ultimately, the barber is shaping the face of American civilised society. While these two mischievous pieces play on the divisive view of the barber at one particular period in American history, they capture the main thread that weaves through the history of the barber and the barbershop in American writing: the idea of the social space of the barbershop as the site for the dramatisation of the complex history of American masculinities and the crises that characterise particular historical moments. There are two points to address immediately from this premising statement: First, the plurality of masculinities is key here—writers from the richly diverse sections of American society employ the barbershop as the setting

26  The Barbershop in American Literature for their explorations of the discourses that shape the socialisation of men in their particular communities. Second, the suggestion of a crisis of masculinity is, certainly, a recurrent argument in the critical examinations of men and their masculine identities in numerous disciplines and fields of study. While I am wary of adding to the cry of such hardships for those who are often the most privileged members of society, the research that has driven the writing of this chapter—both primary research of the archives of American magazines, periodicals and newspapers, as well as informed (re-­)readings of literary fictions—points to the barbershop as a stage for the dramatisation of certain tensions underpinning the performance of masculinities, including hegemonic masculinities, and, indeed, the crisis that is often the driving force behind these tensions. The point should also be made that this “crisis” that is often set as the motive for the performance of the characters in such scenes is, for want of a better term, a critically conscious crisis; that is to say, the authors are not simply manufacturing a crisis as a motive for the manipulation of their characters in these scenes but are using such scenes to critique what “crisis” means for individual men and their collective view of their masculine identities. Ultimately, what emerges in these narratives is the symbolic power of the beard and the barbershop in narratives that explore the main issues connected to the negotiation of masculinities, namely race, class, social mobility, and social order. And the barbershop is presented as the ideal stage for these moments of unique intimacy—be it physical, psychological, or sociological—between American men.

First Tales in the Barbershop Tales of the barbershop first appeared in American writing as far back as the 18th century in the most popular productions of the day, namely newspapers, magazines, and periodicals. An early mention of the beard in an American newspaper came on May 23, 1789, in the Gazette of the United States. Tellingly, the beard, or lack thereof, and the method of removing such facial hair, are immediately set as markers of identity and, in this case, as early symbols in the enduring narrative of the beard as a marker of Otherness. In the piece on “Aborigines of America,” the commentator remarks on the methods of the natives of American soil to appear like their new white neighbours, a slight, no doubt, against their lack of civilised manliness. As the reporter tells us, they stand with “their faces smooth and free from beard”; however, this is not due to shaping the typical shaving utensils but “owing to a custom among them of pulling [the beard] out by the roots.”13 In the March 1788 edition of The American Museum; or, Repository of Ancient and Modern Fugitive Pieces & c. Prose and Poetical, an untitled poem carried across the Atlantic Ocean offers what seems like a quite light-­hearted fable, but one that illustrates how issues of race, class,

The Barbershop in American Literature 27 and social ordering of men in society permeate the writing and reading of such transatlantic tales.14 The poem tells the story of a barber in York, England, who once kept a monkey in his barbershop. While Jacko the monkey is initially there for the “amusement” of the barber and his patrons, the animal quickly develops the human abilities of “observation,” “imitation,” and “mimicking.” This inevitably leads Jacko to try out his barber skills on other animals that happen to wander into the barbershop. He lathers the cat and attempts to shave her whiskers but does little more than leave a gash. Jacko then makes his mark on a dog that happens to saunter in, leaving it “howling round and bleeding.” Undeterred by these incidents, and having seen the barber shave himself, Jacko the monkey sits down in the chair. As the speaker tells it, Jacko “drew razor swift as he could pull it, / And cut, from ear to ear, his gullet.” The moral of the story is rather apt within the parameters of a study on beards and barbershops in American writing: Who cannot write, yet handle pens, Are apt to hurt themselves and friends. Tho’ others use them well, yet fools Should never meddle with edge-­tools.15 There is a telling analogy here, the resonance not only in terms of the place of the barber in society or barbering as a trade in the early stages of a developing American society but also in the literary connections of the barbershop as a stage for the dramatisations of major issues of the day. In the poem, barbering is seen as a worthwhile trade, one which benefits many men, but there is also the warning that barbering appears very simple, so simple, in fact, that many might think a monkey may very well be tempted to try it not only on other animals but also himself. On a literary level, the symbolic richness of the barber analogy resonates with relation to the purpose and process of writers and writing. While the act of writing is certainly a worthwhile craft, one which provides a service to society and indeed one that appears straightforward, the act of writing also has the potential to do great harm not only onto others but onto the writer himself. In the final years of 18th-­century America, parodies in newspapers emphasised the social currency of a well-­ trimmed appearance and a greater appreciation of the role of the barber in such presentations. Two concerned tonsors, quite serendipitously named Stephen Strapandscrape and Tobias Tamehair, call for a law that ensures “all Shavers (vulgarly called Barbers) to demand and receive respectively for every such beard they shall take off, double the sum hitherto accustomed.”16 The pride in such crafted bearded bushiness resonates in a sonnet printed in the Gazette of the United States and Daily Evening Advertiser which celebrates the “majesty of manhood, still unshorn.”17

28  The Barbershop in American Literature The move into the 19th century saw a rise in the number of pieces that used the barbershop for anecdotes, flash fiction, small essays, and various reflective pieces that scrutinised the very ethos of what it meant to be American and, in particular, an American male. The cultural cache of barbershop writings is evidenced with the frequent feature of such topics in one of the most successful periodicals of the era: The Port-­Folio. Created and edited by Joseph Dennie, the first volume of The Port-­Folio promised a series on barbers and barbershops. The first entry of “The Barber’s Shop” (1801) series offers a treatise on the centrality of such an establishment in contemporary discussions of the progress of American men. As the speaker reflects, [t]he exchange and the beer-­house oft witness the inquisitive sport of man. But of all the lounges, where idleness may yawn, or curiosity peer, where the Marplots of the hour may unburthen their own brain, or pry into a neighbour’s, none seems, to have been frequented more than the Barber’s shop.18 What emerges from this satirical take on the power of the mind of the ordinary man, is the gendered nature of the “curious mind” of such patrons. While “the pride of man has limited the operation of curiosity to the female mind,” the speaker warns that “man has not reflected that there are occasions, on which he acts under its impulse.” Gender discourses, then, are brought to the fore in the performance of the men within the barbershop. Such prying men folk are satirised for appearing too feminine in what is, one might expect, the most masculine-­affirming establishment in such towns. Despite this satirical social commentary, and its exposé of the gender dynamics that underlie such writing set in the barbershop, it is quite sad to see that the series appears to have been abandoned as soon as it was launched, with not even a second instalment of “The Barber’s Shop” appearing in print. But the barber, and the history of barbering, was certainly a topic of interest in these early decades of the 19th century. In an exercise of what can only be read as brazen self-­promotion, certain pieces mused on the importance of newspapers for barbershop clientele.19 These articles also discussed the changing role of the barber and the medical origins of the barber’s pole.20 By the time of the arrival of the barbershop on American soil, the pole had taken primary place in front of the shop, where, as was written in Dennie’s The Port-­Folio, the pole “told the passengers, that within ‘a vein might be breathed,’ or a ‘beard mowed.’ ”21 Deeper reflections on the barber’s pole also appeared later in The Literary Companion. A leisurely literary wanderer on the streets of New York, aptly named The Lounger, tells of his curiosity to find out as to why a pole, rather than another object, should, first of all, be mounted outside of the barbershop and, second of all, why it should be

The Barbershop in American Literature 29 striped in such a serpentine manner.22 Notably, no mention is made of obvious phallic connotations. Another thread from this time is the number of pieces in newspapers and magazines that feature visits to barbershops in foreign lands. Expeditions to German,23 Spanish,24 French,25 and Greek26 barbershops feature throughout this period. Moreover, many tales focus on the other side of this issue, with warnings of the changing face of barbering in the United States due to the incessant arrival of immigrant barbers. Pieces such as “The Whiskered Barber,” a short sketch of the experience of a professor, a man of high standing in society, with a French barber, offer a light-­ hearted comic tale injected with the tensions with the arrival of more Others to take over what had been American entrepreneurial pursuits. In this case, the speaker remains so incredibly outraged by the attitude and service of the foreign barber that he laments how “this trade has been most woefully perverted and has fallen from its original dignity and high standing.”27 Neither was barbering outside of the difficult relationship that American held with its British fatherland. In one comedic tale, “Prince of Wales and the Barber,” the young “embryo king” arrives in Boston and enters a barbershop. With the barber absent, he has his beard shaved off by the barber’s wife, whom the Prince of Wales “vouchsafed” with a “comely kiss.” As the Prince of Wales leaves the premises, he runs into the barber himself, who gives the British monarch a royal beating.28 The act of barbering was a feature of the changing focus towards the power of appearance in the United States during the 19th century. The barbershop features in many cutting pieces on male vanity, notably “Speculation in Whiskers; Or, Shaving in a Broker’s Office,” in which a man named Jenks, a fellow “who had a tolerably favourable opinion of his personal appearance,” is persuaded to part with one half of his whiskers for a certain sum and then made to repay double the price to shave it all off.29 There were also articles that underlined the influence that the barbershop was having on the young men, particularly in terms of the expectations of themselves calling for the removal of “licentious pictures” in certain public places, including barbershops. The correspondent calls attention to the fact that “in various public places in our City—in barbers’ shops, groggeries, &c.—pictures of the most licentious character, calculated to influence the passions of Young Men, are constantly exhibited.”30 Even during this period, the socialising power of the barbershop and its influence on impressionable young men is identified and critiqued. Unfortunately, such changing attitudes towards barbering and the barbershop as the 19th century moved forward apace also included the barber. These included warnings of the perceived barbarity of the barber! In one piece, the speaker, echoing earlier days of the profession when the barber did more than simply trim hair, lets fly with his frustration with the “BLOOD-­LETTING BARBER,” the “CHIRUGEON,” and the

30  The Barbershop in American Literature “fierce little wretches armed with a soap-­box and razor!”31 The vitriol continues: “Oh! that our BARBERS were men of compassion and bore in mind that the unhappy chins they operated upon, belonged to sensitive beings.”32 In a final call of quite startling brutality, the speaker proclaims, “In a word—they must first be murdered by their own scalping knives, drowned in their own soap suds, and buried in their own powder!”33 While this incendiary piece might seem out of place, the middle decades of the 19th century saw murder and massacre as prominent features in barbershop writings, entangled in the emerging narratives of race and violence, the significance of which is examined later in this chapter. Despite these outbursts of disdain and derision towards the barber, it is during this period that the dominant trope of barbershop writing—that of the barbershop as a place of safety and sanctuary for the everyday male— is established. One notable piece, titled “Meditations in a Barber’s Shop” (1832), appeared in the New-­England Magazine, a publication that also published the writings of many literary people from the period, including Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr., and Nathaniel Hawthorne (Hawthorne himself used the barbershop as a symbolic space in his Grandfather’s Chair series in the 1840s).34 This meditation presents the barbershop as a sanctuary for men to take a few moments and reflect on their sense of self, and crucially, the piece also celebrates the role of the barber in supporting such men. Here, as the main figure, Mr. Willis, reports, “I will gather up and preserve my reflections, though, as there is no Testament in the room, I must record them on the tablets of my brain, to be afterwards transferred to a sheet of common paper.”35 In fact, the speaker continues to champion the role of this “tonsorial artist”36 in not only improving the physical appearance of the men in society but also improving their psychological condition by simply listening to them. This, in the speaker’s view, is the barber’s main duty. The barber is the “philanthropic artist,”37 a modest man to true merit, content in the impact that he makes on everyday men: “And such is his daily life— constantly making men happier and better—seeing them arise, from under his hand, more satisfied with themselves and the world.”38 The speaker continues to wax lyrical about the humble barber: his mind is a dainty piece of Mosaic—a tessellated pavement, inlaid with fragments of various forms and colours. Here a bit of politics, there a bit of poetry; here a little law, there a little physic. . . . He can discourse to a farmer, of bullocks; to a merchant, of ships; to a broker, or stocks, and to a fine gentleman, of himself.39 Put simply, the barber “sees a man’s character as well as his person.”40 And yet the speaker laments how these finely tuned social skills, these abilities of observation and interpretation of the feelings of the patrons and their sense of selves in a changing American society, are no longer

The Barbershop in American Literature 31 considered of value: “He has fallen upon evil times. He is shorn of the honours that were once his. The world is changed to him.”41 Indeed, there are also stories of the exploitation of barbers. On this occasion in particular, our barber profiler reports the barber puts too much trust into the moral fibre of his clients and lends the substantial sum of 50 dollars to one new “gentleman” patron. The gentleman in question offers to repay the barber by check, but inevitably, the check bounces, and the gentleman disappears into the New Orleans crowd.42 Various tales, comedic or otherwise, sympathise with the plight of the barber, warning that the barber is not a machine but a human being, and it is important for the customer to also let the barber talk.43 This sense of “tender melancholy” underpins the view that barbers are no longer treated with the same reverence as in earlier periods but are now regarded as tonsorial tortures. This changing attitude towards the barber—to see the barber as more of a nuisance than a source of guidance—continues throughout the 19th century. This view is dealt with directly in the barbershop writings of a certain Mark Twain. Twain, of course, sported one of the most recognisable stylings of facial hair in the history of American writing, namely the white walrus moustache. But Twain appeared to have little time for beards. In “About Barbers,” Twain’s speaker opens with the telling lines: All things change except barbers, the ways of barbers, and the surroundings of barbers. These never change. What one experiences in a barber’s shop the first time he enters one is what he always experiences in barbers’ shops afterward till the end of his days.44 The piece bemoans the stress of getting “the best barber” or having to occupy a small space with clientele who are “silent, unsociable, distraught, and looking bored, as men always do who are waiting their turn in a barber’s shop.” The barbers are giving equally short thrift by Twain’s speaker in the text. They are criticised for their lack of attention, their lack of professionalism, their stubbornness, their heavy-­handedness, and, of course, their blunt razors. Twain’s satirical tale on the experience in the barbershop is preceded by a more caustic commentary in “Barbarous,” which appeared a few years before in the New York Sunday Mercury.45 Twain’s short piece opens with the declaration: “If I do not get a chance to disgorge my opinions about barbers, I shall burst with malignant animosity.” The next line is even more vicious: “Barbers are an unholy invention of Satan, and all their instincts are cruel and revolting.” Twain’s speaker remarks on their pride towards their “unwholesome breath,” their heavy-­handedness, and their intelligence (or lack thereof) and even scoffs at their right to vote (due to the Republican government, no less). The piece pulls apart the “degraded nature” of the barber and encapsulates the abhorrence that public opinion appears to have for the profession.

32  The Barbershop in American Literature These strong feelings towards barbering permeate Twain’s humorous tale of his travels in Innocents Abroad; or, The New Pilgrims’ Progress (1869). In one scene, titled “A Barbarous Atrocity,” Twain searches for a barbershop on the streets of Paris, an experience that he expects to be of the highest gentility. In fact, this is one of his life’s ambitions: “From earliest infancy it had been a cherished ambition of mine to be shaved some day at a palatial barber-­shop of Paris” (113). Inevitably, however, the experience is not what dreams are made of. Twain returns to the tropes mentioned in “Barbarous”—the incessant lathering, the suds in the mouth, the rake of the blunt razor, the blood, their enjoyment of such torturing. Twain leaves the establishment refusing the offers or a haircut with the stinging remark: “I denied, with withering irony, that it was sufficient to be skinned—I declined to be scalped” (115).46 Miscellaneous engagements with the barbershop in American newspaper and magazine writings continued throughout these middle decades of the 19th century during what was a testing time for the barber. By then, the barbershop had lost some of its social standing. After the Civil War ended in 1865, immigrants from Europe brought barbering back to the fore in American society. Working alongside these immigrants were African Americans, who were cutting along the colour line. But social commentators and enthusiastic scribblers still turned to the barbershop for their cutting critiques of the discrepancies in American society. In one piece, titled “Shavings,” the clients congregated together as they wait for their turn to criticise the American railway prices and ticketing.47 In one particularly comical skit, an artist named Beard arrives in Louisville, Louisiana, and enquires about the political position in Kentucky, having claimed to have been in a barbershop there and overheard the barber and a client discussing the fact that they did not allow too much “abolition talk,” “secession talk,” or “union talk.”48 Another, titled “Bank: A kind of barber’s shop, where the pocket is shaved instead of the face,” tells the story of a man confused as to what establishment he has entered.49 As the story goes, “[t]he teller informed him that he was in the wrong ‘shop.’ ‘You are in a bank, sir, not a barber’s shop.’ ‘Bank, eh!’ ejaculated the stranger, ‘hang me, they told me it was a shaving shop!’ ”50 Barbering was also tied to the issues of citizenry and rights of barbers to cut the hair of their patrons on Sunday51 while others, in later years, would support the barbers who abstained from trimming patrons on the Sabbath.52 The second half of the 19th century saw a number of changes in relation to writings on the barbershop that certainly pointed to wider changes within American society. On one hand, writers began to lament the lost past of “their” barbershop. In “Manners Upon the Road,” the figure of the “Old Bachelor” complains that “the barber’s shop is no longer what it used to be”; that is, it is no longer a social place for men to congregate, celebrate, or commiserate about the changing face of society. And the barber himself is at the centre of such transformations. As the

The Barbershop in American Literature 33 “Old Bachelor” mourns, rather than the “genius of gossip and good-­ humor,” the barber, once the voice of reason, wit, and humour, now stands “silent.”53 This longevity of the symbolic power of the beard in all discourses of writing in the 19th century is perhaps best encapsulated by one sketch in which it is revealed that a man had made a promise not to shave until a Democrat was elected as president. Following the election of Stephen Grover Cleveland as the 22nd president of the United States in 1884, and almost three decades of growth(!) that saw his beard reach below his knees, the man enters a barbershop to be shaved in order to present the hairs to Mr. Cleveland.54 In the later years of the 19th century, the beard faced certain resistance, mainly due to concerns regarding the hygiene of beard growing and beard wearing. From newspapers to magazines to periodicals to medical journals, the issue of the germs and bacteria in the barbershop became a topic of rich discussion. Barbershops were considered “contagion shops” for various skin diseases, with The Atlanta Medical and Surgical Journal warning that “[t]he unhygienic manner in which the large majority of these shops are managed would certainly seem to make them ‘contagion shops’ for various skin diseases”:55 For the good of the public we believe that men should be educated to see the error of being attended in barber-­shops by men who themselves look uncleanly and use instruments which pass over a hundred faces in one day without even being cleaned.56 The message during this period was clear: that a man should learn to shave himself. This “Barber Shop Contagion” extended to scares of ringworm and other affections of the scalp, transmitted by the cushioned headrest, brush, and comb.57 The barbershop was regarded as a “menace to health” and the call was made to regulate the operation of the barbershop.58 Practical guidance was therefore offered to the barbers to maintain a sanitary establishment, some obvious pieces of advice, such as disinfecting utensils, using alcohol to clean apparatus, while some were somewhat crucial for a man holding a razor to a patron’s neck: “the barber himself should be free from epilepsy, spasms of any kind, drunkenness, and infectious diseases.”59 Following these preoccupations, it was reported later in 1899 that a law was passed in Missouri requiring barbers to keep the regulations prescribed by the State Board of Health.60 But there was again a reaction against the changing attitudes towards beard wearing in the 1880s. One extensive piece in The St. Paul Daily Globe, titled “Smugmugism Reigns,” laments the growing taboo of beard wearing. The piece reports that these men are “discussing the advisability of depriving themselves of their hirsute appendages” in a time “when the beard is becoming and sets off to advantage the face of the individual wearing it.” The article sets out what it sees as valid reasons for the

34  The Barbershop in American Literature wearing of the beard, be it “because they improve their general appearance” or even those “who desire to appear older than they really are.” There are also health reasons, with certain men “who are obliged to wear them because of throat affections, or faces so tender as not to permit of being shaved frequently.” But the article focuses on a certain group of men, “the older heads,” who NEVER SHAVE OFF THEIR BEARD. The piece calls to the example of Stanford Newel and ridicules his apparent obsession with his “mutton chops,” an obsession that runs so deep that he would as soon as quit the Republican Party as “think of bidding adieu to his side partners.” Joe Wheelock, the editor of the Pioneer Press, and Matt Breen, the baseball slugger, are also given due attention due to their cultivation of their whiskers. The final section reflects on the actions of the young bearded man in the barbershop. He enters such establishments “with feelings of trepidation,” worried about how others will see him after the event. And indeed, such men emerge from the barbershop and their friends pass by them, and even their girlfriends and wives struggle to forgive them. But, as the piece ends, its laments the fact that “the fashion for the young man just at this time, then, is the cleanly shaven face, and if you want to be in the popular swim be sure to get shaved.”61 A final challenge to the barbershop in the later years of the 19th century was a challenge led by women. One piece details the experience in a “Woman’s Barber Shop” on the streets of uptown Broadway in New York City. During this period, reflecting the gendered aspects of the public and private spheres, the barbershop was a very public place of masculine beautification while such practices for females were kept within domestic limits. But this piece in the Bostonian publication works hard to celebrate the “little similarity” with a man’s barbershop. The atmosphere and decoration in such an establishment are described to the highest point of feminine splendour with the apparent intention of indirectly criticising the staleness of the masculinity that lies heavily within men’s barbershops of the period. (Walt Whitman, of course, wrote around this period that the barbershop was always “something that turns stale and musty in a few hours anyhow.”62) The female barber of this piece is celebrated as a unique figure, one whose capabilities go far beyond those of her male counterparts. As the speaker reports, probably there isn’t a woman in the entire town that knows so much of human nature, or has a greater fund of personal anecdotes and reminiscences of the ladies whose names fill the columns of the society papers, than this merry philosopher.63 Reports of Honey Brook, a female barber, who is regarded as “an expert in the tonsorial line,” led to an increase in men coming for a shave, in some cases up to three times a week!64 The masculinity-­affirming nature of the barbershop is also an issue that appears. In The Richmond

The Barbershop in American Literature 35 Palladium and Sun-­Telegram, one piece appears affronted by the rumour of the possible opening of a women-­run barbershop in Richmond. As the report quips, [c]an’t you just see some of the old gallants sauntering into a feminine barber shop late Saturday night, with a week’s growth of beard on their faces, to have their chins tickled for about fifteen minutes by the fair knights of the steel and brush?65 Unfortunately, there is little further development of the narrative of the female barber in American society, due, we can imagine, to the strict delineations of gender in society at this time. Still, as this article notes, it is a curious detail worth mentioning that only adds to the richness of beards and barbershops in the history of American writing. From this overview of the rich history of the barbershop and the barber in the early years of American writing, it is evident how such a unique social space and how such a unique social figure featured prominently in the American consciousness. From sketches of the complex role of the barber in society to fantastical fictions on wild happenings in the barbershop, the barber and his place of work were seen as being ideal for social commentary or satirical critique. Ultimately, such pieces underline the symbolic power of the barbershop and the barber in literary reflections on the functioning of American society in the formative years of the United States.

Barbers and Blackness: Race and Violence in the American Barbershop From the very beginnings of American writing, the barbershop has been a stage for the literary examinations of race, slavery, and violence. While the barbershop is often a place of comradery and community, it is also a place of contention and conflict, a place of rising anger and contempt— most often for the Other. In such scenarios, the Other may be the one holding the razor, or indeed, the Other may be the one who is lying prone in the chair. The barbershop, we must remember, is also a place of self-­ reflection, both in terms of the individual looking at himself in the mirror or indeed in a more communal sense in terms of the role of these men as representatives of their communities. The plurality of these conversations and communities in the barbershop is significant here. The barbershop has proved to be a place of plurality with writers from canonical and non-­canonical groups regarded as representative of their ethnic and racial backgrounds engaging with this powerful stage for their narratives on race and violence (and masculinities!). As it would be overly ambitious to attempt an in-­depth literary history of such writings, this literary analysis is framed around a considered selection of three key works that

36  The Barbershop in American Literature signpost the history of the engagement with the barber and the barbershop. What these texts have in common, ultimately, is the shared stage in the barbershop to offer narratives that engage to great success with the complex and complicated issues of race, slavery, and violence. In the African American community, the barbershop is often a safe space where African Americans can celebrate their culture, listen to music, discuss the problems that they face as black men, and cut and style each other’s hair and beards. In other words, the African American barbershop is a place of socialisation and masculinisation. This formative power of the barbershop in the African American communities is no apparent than in the fiction of Langston Hughes. A leading poet in the Harlem Renaissance, Hughes engages with the barbershop as a space that shapes and is shaped by discourses of masculinity in his first published novel, Not Without Laughter (1930). Set in the early years of the 1900s, the barbershop is a formative place for the protagonist, Sandy Rogers, a small boy from a rural town in Kansas. When Sandy takes on a Saturday job in a local black barbershop, these few hours within the four walls of this place of staunch masculinity have a profound effect on him. Used to the feminine elements of the domestic environment at home, the barbershop opens Sandy’s eyes and ears to another part of society: “The barber-­shop was a new world to Sandy, who had lived this far tied to Aunt Hager’s apron-­strings” (132). Even the description of young Sandy is feminised. Up to this moment he has been “the dreamy-­ eyed boy” under the influence of dominant women, but now he was in a different place of masculine socialisation: “But the barber-­shop then was a man’s world, and, on Saturdays, while a dozen of more big laborers awaited their turns, the place was filled with loud man-­talk and smoke and laughter” (132). There is talk of sports, politics, women, and God, and, of course, race, with the patrons teasing Sandy about the light colour of his hair compared to the dark tones of his skin. And the influence of the black barbershop in the African American community has a rich history shaped by the wider discourses of American society. As Quincy T. Mills writes in his seminal study of the black barbershop Cutting Along the Color Line: Black Barbers and Barber Shops in America (2013), “[t] he modern black barber shop joined black churches, beauty shops, and the black press to anchor the black public sphere in the twentieth century” (3). One important point to make regarding the African American barbershop is the fact that the barbershop should not be confused as a public space detached from the forces shaping society, including economic forces. While such spaces facilitated public discourse, there were also businesses, part of what Mills calls “the black commercial public sphere” (4). In other words, the black barbershop was not simply a grooming place simply by social interaction, but it was a business driven by market forces. These distinctly American market forces shaped the African

The Barbershop in American Literature 37 American barbershop from the very beginning. From the location of the shop, the decoration, the service offered by the barber, or the relationships with the clientele, be they black or (exclusively) white, these forces underpinned the spread of the African American barbershop and the tensions that arose in the black barber shop. The most striking tension in the 19th-­century black barbershop was the emergence of the “color-­line barber,” that is, as Mills tells us, “men who “shav[ed] white men at the expense of black men” (61). Despite appearing as a serene space of servility, these barbershops were contested spaces. The black barber faced significant ambiguities in terms of his own identity while providing these intimate services. Not only was barbering a transformative act in a very physical sense in terms of improving the aspect of the black or white client whom the barber was working with, but it was also transformative on the level of the barber in terms of it being a performance that brought to the fore the pressing issues of the day, namely race, slavery, and power. Barbering also forced the black barber to deal with his tenuous position as a pillar of the community, a representative of his own people and yet a representation of his own people in the eyes of the often-­affluent white customers whom he was servicing. For the black barber to be successful, certainly in terms of financial success, he had the almost impossible task of coming to terms with what

Figure 1.3  Cutting along the colour line: black barbers and their white patrons

38  The Barbershop in American Literature W. E. B. Du Bois later conceptualised as the African American experience of “double consciousness” and knowing that his success depended on grooming the underlying prejudices in these racial ideologies. As Mills argues, race functioned on three different levels in the barbershop: biologically, socially, and culturally (9). And the black barber became an expert on how to manoeuvre within these complex positions. The complex historical, social, and cultural narratives of the black barber feature prominently in fictional works that recognise the hugely symbolic nature of barbering in the context of discourses of race, slavery, and violence in the United States. Such studies of literary engagements with race, slavery, and violence in the barbershop will likely start with Herman Melville’s “Benito Cereno” (1855). And understandably so. “Benito Cereno” is a seminal text that underscores the black barbershop as the setting for literary explications of the wider tensions in antebellum American society, namely those of race and slavery. In fact, as the literary scholar Robert S. Levine remarks, “arguably, [‘Benito Cereno’] is the pre-­ Civil War antislavery masterpiece” (111). The power of “Benito Cereno” is perhaps best illustrated by considering its influence on writers of future generations who used the barbershop as a setting for their stories driven by power and subservience. But before “Benito Cereno,” race, slavery, and violence, as well as other interconnected discourses, were already striking themes in everyday American writing. The barbershop first appeared as a setting in literary shorts published in American magazines, periodicals, and newspapers. These sketches presented the intense underlying tensions that pervaded American barbershops in the early to middle decades of the 19th century that often manifested in acts of extreme violence in the barbershop. One such example is “A Narrow Escape.”66 This sketch tells the story of the anonymous writer “The Captain,” who, after disembarking his vessel in Mobile, Alabama, decides that he needs to have his “beard of week’s growth reaped” (4). In only a few words, this quite ordinary errand turns into a scene that bristles with a range of complex issues associated with the black barber and his white client. It is not only racial tensions that characterise the closeness of the white client and the black barber, but, in an enrichment of the symbolic power the setting of the barbershop, the sexual tension underlying such an intimate interaction as well. What is noticeable immediately when reading “A Narrow Escape” is that the focalisation of the narrative is through the eyes of the white seaman. This, of course, is analogous with Melville’s celebrated “Benito Cereno.” But this is also an important starting point to set out a reading of the “A Narrow Escape” itself. The first striking element of the barbershop short is the sailor’s description of the “bright mulatto” who is to shave the seaman. The fact that the barber in the story is a mulatto, in other words, half black and half white, perhaps the son of a slave woman and her white master, should not be overlooked. Already the

The Barbershop in American Literature 39 story underlines the complex backgrounds of these barbers and the inner tensions that the barber is forced to mask with his professional manner. While it might be tempting to focus on the seemingly professional manner of this barber in the opening moments of the story, a set-­up, no doubt, for the horrific actions of the barber in the final moments, a closer reading of the first details the sailor shares are telling. There is the strong suggestion of an immediate sexual attraction to the barber. Straight away the sailor admits to the reader that the barber is “a good-­looking young fellow” (4). The first physical characteristic that the sailor focuses on are the barber’s eyes: “His eyes were large, black, and lustrous, I thought” (4). Certainly, the image of such “lustrous” eyes could be primarily due to the difference between the barber’s dark eyes and what we might well assume to be the blue eyes of the sailor, but the sexual undertones also emanate from such a description. These tensions increase with the sailor feeling that the barber “was a long time lathering my face” (4), to which the barber ambiguously replies that the sailor’s beard “was a long beard, and that he knew what it was about” (4). The story then turns to a discussion regarding the freedom of the barber. The sailor inquires if the barber is the boss of this establishment, to which the barber confirms that he does indeed run the shop. But the barber also confirms that he must pay his “master” a sum of twenty dollars a month “for my time” (5). Strikingly, the barber rejects the Captain’s suggestion that he must be looking forward to one day having enough money to buy his freedom: “ ‘As for that,’ he replied, ‘I care little. I have all the liberty I want, and enjoy myself as I go along’ ” (5). The Captain appears astonished at such a claim and asks the barber if he would be happy for his wife and children to be slaves? The barber again is certain: he would prefer them to remain as slaves “ ‘because they would be better off than if they were free’ ” (5). The tension in the tale is amped up to the next level following this discussion. By this time, the barber has put down his lathering brush and has “commenced running his razor over the strop, and looking at the blade every time he drew it across the leather” (5). The eyes are again a key trope in the narrative—for the Captain, now feeling uneasy about the conversation and his assumption that the barber would want to be free, an assumption that surely implicates him in their enslavement, notices the change in the barber’s eyes: “His hand trembled a little, and his eyes absolutely burned like coals of fire. I did not feel uneasy, but I could not avoid watching him closely” (6). The Captain continues to watch the barber as the barber begins the shave. The Captain notices how the barber continues to grow more and more uneasy, his eyes “as bright, but not as steady as when I first observed them” (6) as the barber slowly and ominously makes his way to the Captain’s chin. Once the barber reaches the Captain’s chin, the narrative shifts from one focused on race and slavery to one suggesting the palpable threat

40  The Barbershop in American Literature of violence. The barber makes the telling comment: “Barbers handle a deadly weapon, sir” (7). While the Captain laughs this off, the barber insists “how easy it would be for me to cut your throat” (7). Nothing comes of this heightened drama, however, and the Captain soon leaves the chair unscathed. But the twist in the tale arrives when an elderly gentleman enters the shop and takes the Captain’s place in the vacant chair. The Captain, who now has his back to the client and the barber, hears a shriek and turns around to see “the unfortunate gentleman, covered with blood, his throat cut from ear to ear, and the barber, now a raving maniac, dashing his razor with tremendous violence into the mangled neck” (8). The story ends with the gentleman’s death and the fate of the murderous barber, found to have been drinking heavily the night before, ultimately unknown. The ending to “A Narrow Escape” raises questions as to why the barber spared the life of the narrating Captain. Was it because the Captain engaged in conversation with the barber? Was there something deeper in the connection between the Captain and the barber? Or was it a case of pure chance? Moreover, why did the barber, still a slave to his master, reject the idea of freedom? Did he see it as something that was unrealistic? Or was he frightened to reveal such ambitions? There are so many questions raised by this rich tale, but at the very heart of the narrative is the suggestion that one of the major themes in barbershop fiction is the underlying threat to the life of the white American male who puts his life into the hands of those who outside of the barbershop have very little power. What we can infer from “A Narrow Escape,” although the story is brief, is an awareness of sociological power of such literary engagements.67 The barbershop, as it would come to proven in subsequent tales, emerged as a remarkably powerful setting for such intimate interactions between the white American male and the Other, between the oppressors and the oppressed, between the privileged and the powerless. This dramatisation of such tensions is at the very heart of arguably the seminal work of American literature to deal with race, slavery, and violence in the barbershop: Herman Melville’s “Benito Cereno.”68 Melville’s tale centres on the inability of Captain Amasa Delano, the captain of an American merchant ship—notably named The Bachelor’s Delight— to recognise that a revolt has occurred on the San Dominick, a slave ship captained by Don Benito Cereno. Delano is unable to see that it is Cereno’s servant, the black slave Babo, who is now leading the ship. And this is presented to the reader in the set-­piece scene in the story— the barbershop scene. While Melville’s text shares many parallels with “A Narrow Escape.” “Benito Cereno” complicates these issues further with the clever use of dramatic irony. Melville employs Delano as the necessary lens to satirise the naivety and ignorance of those in positions of privilege in American society. And the barbershop is the stage for such critical commentary.

The Barbershop in American Literature 41 In the lead-­up to the barbershop scene, Melville leaves many clues as to the naivety of Captain Delano. While the text employs a third-­ person narrator, the narration is limited to the perspective of Delano, an approach that enables Melville to weave in the dramatic irony that critiques the obliviousness of an American society happy to revert to the “tranquilizing thoughts” (82) when faced, as Delano is on various occasions, with the realities of inevitable unrest due to the treatment of black slaves. This is no more so the case than in the highly charged shaving scene in the ship’s makeshift barbershop. With Captain Cereno in the chair, and Babo ready to start the shave, Melville begins the satire of the naïve attitude of American society. The scene starts with a reflection from Delano that encapsulates the American attitudes towards black men and women that Melville’s text presents: There is something in the negro which, in a peculiar way, fits him for avocations about one’s person. Most negros are natural valets and hair-­dressers; taking to the comb and brush congenially as to the castinets, and flourishing them apparently with almost equal satisfaction. (98) Delano riffs on the barber Babo’s “docility,” a docility “arising from the unaspiring contentment of a limited mind” (98). Melville raises the tension in the scene even further with Delano’s attitude that such blacks are “indisputable inferiors” (98). Watching Babo at work in the barbershop, Delano even starts to get somewhat sentimental about the ownership of such black people, comparing them to pets: “seeing the colored servant, napkin on arm, so debonair about his master, in a business so familiar as that of shaving, too, all his old weakness for negroes returned” (99). The true weakness that Melville is suggesting with the barbershop scene is the inability of Delano to notice the charade in front of his very eyes. This charade is symbolically charged in terms of the fact that the servile black barber, who normally in such scenes occupies a place of apparent power with the razor in his hand over the exposed throat of the white client, is a very real threat while still a symbolic one that subverts the true power discourses in American society. In fact, Babo is enacting the true power relations that are at play on the boat that Captain Delano is observing but is unable to see. The reality of this is very much apparent to the reader, as indeed it is to Delano, who notices the reaction of Cereno to Babo’s handling of the razor: “Not unaffected by the close sight of the gleaming steel, Don Benito nervously shuddered; his usual ghastliness was heightened by the lather, which lather, again, was intensified in its hue by the contrasting sootiness of the negro’s body” (99–100). The resounding irony, therefore, lies in Delano noticing the

42  The Barbershop in American Literature symbolic power of such an image but, in his insolence, rejecting such interpretations of the act of shaving he is witnessing. The tension in the scene reaches its peak when Babo, perhaps accidentally but perhaps not, cuts Cereno as he shaves him. Moments before, Babo offers a warning while the steel of the razor “glanced nigh at the throat” of Cereno: “You must not shake so, master.—See, Don Amasa, master always shakes when I shave him. And yet master knows I never yet have drawn blood, though it’s true, if master will shake so, I may some of these times” (100). This is a wonderfully loaded warning working on two levels. Not only does it point to the fact that if Cereno is afraid of Babo the barber, and continues to shake, then it is very possible that he will be cut but also that if Cereno does not continue to be afraid of Babo, the leader of the ship, and reveals to Delano the details of the revolt, then again Babo is in a position to draw as much blood as he wishes. And, of course, Babo inevitably does draw blood after Cereno shakes following Delano’s continued questioning of the credibility of the story that Cereno has been telling him: [J]ust then the razor drew blood, spots of which stained the creamy lather under the throat; immediately the black barber drew back his steel, and remaining in his steel, and remaining in his professional attitude, back to Captain Delano, and face to Don Benito, held up the trickling razor, saying, with a sort of half humorous sorrow, “See, master,—you shook so—here’s Babo’s first blood.” (101) The reader can very well suspect that this is not Babo’s first blood and Cereno’s terrified reaction to seeing his own blood dripping onto the lather is a reminder of the blood that has been spilled up to this point and confirmation of the underlying power that Babo holds. As the scene concludes, Cereno, powerless in the chair, continues the show for Delano and continues to tell the invented tale of what happened on the ship. While there is a seed of doubt in Delano’s mind as to the truthfulness of the story, Delano’s blindness to the very real dynamics of the performance in front of him means he is unable to imagine that a black slave would, in fact, have the aptitude or drive to overcome his state of repression and look to be the one in power. Again, as the narrator remarks, focalising Delano: “But then, what would be the object of enacting this play of the barber before him?” (102). But this is exactly the point—not only in this tale but in all fiction which engages with the barber and the barbershop—that all such barbershop scenes are performative in terms of how they play with the underlying tensions between the actors in these situations of unique intimacy who might be considered, at various historical points, as enemies. Within the literary and historical context of “Benito Cereno,” it may well be argued

The Barbershop in American Literature 43 that Melville’s fictionalisation of such historical events that occurred in the decades before in the mid-­19th century was a warning against the continued ignorance of those in privileged positions in American society towards the treatment of black people. While Melville’s story is often lauded as a text about race and blackness, which, of course, it is, it is also a story about whiteness and the privilege enjoyed by white Americans, a privilege that masks the realities of American society, the realities that Captain Delano on the American merchant ship is unable to see. But it is not even as straightforward as that. The suggestion that Delano is unable to see the realities of the mutiny in front of him is not exactly accurate. Rather, Delano is able to recognise certain inconsistencies, but the “blind attachment” (98) that he characterises in these “indisputable inferiors” (98) is actually a deeply ironic statement in light of his own blind attachment to the ideas of seemingly natural white supremacy that is played out in front of his very eyes in the theatre of the barbershop scene. And we can take the symbolic power of this performance of the black barber in “Benito Cereno” further. Douglas Bristol, in Knights of the Razor (2009), offers a fine history of black barbers that illuminates the experiences of African Americans trying to negotiate their position in American society during slavery and segregation. At the centre of their experience, as Bristol explains, was the sense of what W. E. B. Du Bois would come to term as “double consciousness” in how these men projected an image of themselves in the public sphere that catered to the image that white men held about them in order for these black barbers to ensure a sense of private ownership over their own identities as black men and becoming citizens in a rapidly changing antebellum American society (41–70). The performance of Babo, one of control and cleverness and simmering tension and warning, could be read as this type of necessary performance of black barbers. In an earlier article, “From Outposts to Enclaves: A Social History of Black Barbers from 1750 to 1915,” Douglas Bristol argues how black barbers were very much aware of the power of performing in the barbershop. And this power brought significant financial and societal wealth in the 19th century. The black barber knew that to compete against white barbers, they must perform their subservience, offering a gentility that affirmed the superiority of the white customer (596). And they did so to great reward. So, just like Babo (in an admittedly highly dramatised sense), everyday black barbers developed the necessary persona in order to exploit the expectations of their white clientele to turn the simple ritual of shaving into a lucrative performance that exploited what had become, and would continue to be, the “blind attachment” of white customers to their black barbers. But, as Bristol quite rightly warns in Knights of the Razor, “the duplicity of black barbers should not be mistaken for insincerity” (69). Black barbers, as their entrepreneurial successes during this period illustrate, understood the rules of the game and worked hard within those parameters to make

44  The Barbershop in American Literature a success of themselves. They used white racial stereotypes to cultivate such relationships with white men and establish their standing within American society. As Bristol sums it up, “[r]ather than being confidence men, black barbers were knights of the razor, complex figures whose bravado and wit dispelled the gloom surrounding them” (69). The black barbershop continued as a microcosm of the public sphere in the post–Civil War era (51). One short story that continues the narrative of the barbershop and the black barber as America rediscovered its own identity in the post–Civil War period is Charles W. Chesnutt’s “The Doll.” “The Doll” is set in middle of the era of the “color-­line” barbershop. As Quincy T. Mills argues, African American communities labelled these barbers as “color-­line” barbers as not only did these men exclusively shave white men but they also shaved white men at the expense of black men (61–62). Because of this, color-­line barbershops were spaces where the continued imbalance in social relations between black and white men in everyday America were played out through the performance of the subservient black barber and the affluent white customer. In simpler terms, the white patron held much more power than the black barber, and the white patron used the ritual of the visit to the barbershop to perform and reaffirm this power while implicitly reproducing antebellum racial superiority (61–62). And Chesnutt’s “The Doll” deals directly with the issues of race and violence in these color-­line type of establishments. Charles W. Chesnutt has an important place in the history of American writing, particularly within writings that tackled race relations in the post–Civil War era. The first African American writer to be published in The Atlantic in 1887, Chesnutt, an American of mixed heritage, offered a unique insight into the racial dynamics of American society during the post-­Reconstruction period and into the Gilded Age. Chesnutt published three works of fiction and a biography before abandoning writing to start a stenography business to support his family. “The Doll” was one of the last four stories that Chesnutt published, all in the NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People) magazine The Crisis. With echoes of Melville, and the other stories that featured in newspapers and periodicals that dealt with the underlying tensions of violence and racial equality in the black barbershop, “The Doll” examines the very real issues that black barbers faced as the United States tried to find its identity at the turn of the century. At the very centre of the drama and tension in “The Doll” is the confrontation in the barber’s chair between the northern barbershop owner and black man, Tom Taylor, and Colonel Forsyth, the southern politician who the barber is about to shave. As the story unfolds, we find out that Tom Taylor has built this business for himself following the tragedy of the brutal murder of his father; of course, in the final twist in the tale, it is revealed that the man who murdered Tom Taylor’s father is Colonel Forsyth, sitting now with his

The Barbershop in American Literature 45 throat exposed in Tom Taylor’s chair. What heightens the tension as the story reaches its climax is the manner in which the narrator reveals that, in fact, both men know who the other man is—this, in turn, forces the barber to decide between taking this opportunity for revenge or focusing on his responsibility as a barbershop owner to his family, his workforce, and his neighbourhood who depend on him. “The Doll” is a story of binaries: North versus South, black versus white, freedom versus slavery. But it also a story of the growing ambiguities that hold up these binaries. It is a story about the complexities of identity, power, and performance. And, indeed, the performance of this power through language. Underpinning the conflict between North and South is “the Negro question,” namely the integration of black people into society. Through Colonel Forsyth, Chesnutt satirises the views of the natural servility of black people, lines that echo those of Melville’s Captain Delano: The Negro’s place is defined by nature, and in the South he knows it and gives us no trouble. . . . They are born to serve and to submit. . . . They have no proper self-­respect; they will neither resent an insult, nor defend a right, nor avenge a wrong. (795) The final comment here, of course, is highly charged and sets up the dilemma that Tom Taylor will have to face later in the story. While the Southern politician believes that it is their essential docility that prevents African Americans from avenging a wrong, it is, as Bristol’s sociohistorical study of the black barber argues, the necessities of displaying a wilfulness to please the white men in society in order to maintain some sort of position in society, a necessity that Chesnutt’s story points to. “The Doll” captures the necessity for black barbershops to offer the genteel experience to affluent white customers. Chesnutt dedicates a wonderfully descriptive passage to introduce the interior of the shop. The black barber’s pride in the creation of such surroundings emanates from the narration: The shop was the handsomest barber shop in the city. . . . The floor was of white tile, the walls lined large mirrors. Behind ten chairs, of the latest and most comfortable design, stood as many colored barbers, in immaculate white jackets, each at work upon a white patron. (795) The atmosphere and ambience are ones of gentility and civility. And this is noted: “It was very obviously a well-­conducted barber shop, frequented by gentlemen who could afford to pay liberally for superior service” (795). Although “committed by circumstances to a career in

46  The Barbershop in American Literature personal service,” Tom Taylor has wrestled with the powerful American ideology of the “self-­made man” and overcome the restraints of American society to integrate wholly into American society: “he had lifted it by intelligence, tact, and industry to the dignity of a successful business” (796). This is so much the case that Tom Taylor has made an acquaintance of the judge who has accompanied the colonel to the barbershop on this day and has been there many times before to discuss the issues of the day with the barber on various occasions, including race relations. The charade that underlies the necessity of such performances of both barber and client—the acts of accepted positions of authority and subservience—is quickly played on by the two main characters. Aware of who the barber is, Colonel Forsyth begins his goading. Starting with his ironic request, “I want a close shave, barber” (795), the politician knowingly enters into a performance of his perceived superiority based on his confidence in the fixed positions of white and black in society. And this is exactly Chesnutt’s critique. In contrast to Melville, or perhaps in an inverted continuation from Melville’s satirisation of the wilful ignorance of the everyday American people, Chesnutt critiques the total awareness of those in positions of power in society of that very power that they hold over black people. The colonel, a southerner in a northern town, where the development of race relations is more nuanced, continues once settled into the chair with a towel wrapped tight around his neck: The Negro Question is a perfectly simple one. . . . Let the white man once impress the Negro with his superiority; let the Negro see that there is no escape from the inevitable, and that ends it. The best thing about the Negro is that, with all his limitations, he can recognize a finality. (796) Not only is the colonel stating his southern outlook in this scene, but he is also performing this power that he knows he has over the black barber. In other words, he is airing his views that the barber is also aware of the seemingly innate functioning of society despite northern progress, and so must accept his subordinate position and remain impassive. The narrator notes this “impassive countenance” (796) that the judge appears to witness on the face of the barber following every utterance. This impassiveness remains until the colonel begins to recall every detail of that fateful night he murdered Tom Taylor’s father. Revelling in his performance, the colonel, thickening his southern drawl (“suh”) and using racial epithets, finally breaks the barber’s impassivity. And it is the judge, the personification of law and reason and justice, who notices “the sudden gleam of interest that broke through the barber’s mask of self-­effacement, like a flash of lightning from a clouded sky” (797). Tom

The Barbershop in American Literature 47 Taylor now realises the power that he holds with the razor at the colonel’s neck and faces his dilemma: The brown boy who had wept beside his father’s bier, and who had never forgotten nor forgiven, was now the grave-­faced, keen-­eyed, deft-­handed barber, who held a deadly weapon at the throat of his father’s slayer. (799) And this is the main dilemma that Tom Taylor faces at this point, the dilemma that black barbers faced during this period of American history. Just as in other barbershop narratives, the moment arrives when the black barber glimpses through the various masks that all actors in society wear and must consider the reality: [W]hile under the keen razor lay the neck of the enemy, the enemy, too, of his race, sworn to degrade them, to teach them, if need be, with the torch and with the gun, that their place was at the white man’s feet, his heel upon their neck; who held them in such contempt that he could speak as he has spoken in the presence of one of them. One stroke of the keen blade, a deflection of half an inch in its course, and a murder would be avenged, an enemy destroyed. (800) The voice that emerges is highly charged and resonates on various interconnected levels. First, the use of free indirect narration is particularly telling. On one level, it obviously allows the inner workings of the black barber’s mind to be unleashed on the page, a moment of intimacy between the reader and the text, a strengthening of sympathy for the barber. But it also confirms his entrapment—his entrapment textually with such feelings and emotions only allowed to be expressed indirectly while still under control of the omniscient, if sympathetic, power of the text. Moreover, it also affirms the entrapment of the barber within the system that is structured to ensure his inevitable servility. The barber’s voice becomes filled with the language of violence and hatred, a voice that sounds remarkedly similar to the voice of the colonel who, not without significance, was free to air his views just moments before to the barber and the judge. And Judge Beeman, representative of common law and decency and citizenship in his seemingly progressive northern city, as well as chairman of the local Jacksonian Club, is not excused from such views. The judge is aware of the change in emotion of the barber, and he appears to patronise the quite natural reactions of any human being under the circumstances: “[A]nd he had found colored people prone to sudden rages, when under the influence of strong emotion, handy with

48  The Barbershop in American Literature edged tools, and apt to cut thick and deep, nor always careful about the colour of the cuticle” (800). Ultimately what stops Tom Taylor for exacting revenge is the realisation of the progress made by African American men in both the public and private spheres. At the most difficult moment for Tom Taylor, when the “homicidal impulse” (801) is at its strongest, he looks around at the barbershop, and it is the bricks and mortar of the shop that he has built that stops him for giving in to such an impulse. Just like many African American men before (and after) him, Tom Taylor was “a representative man” (801), a personification of the fight that black American men had had to endure. Once again, the richness of the barbershop narrative resonates. Not only does Tom Taylor feel he is representing African Americans, but he feels that he is equally representing the black barber. In the final passages, Chesnutt’s text not only appears to be a celebration of the strength of African Americans in their daily struggle, but it also appears as a celebration of the strength of black barbers to fight unfair economic forces tinged, no doubt, by intrinsic racism, to establish the black barbershop as a unique social space in American society. As the text reflects, [s]hould he slay this man now beneath his hand, this beautiful shop would be lost to his people. Years before the whole trade had been theirs. One by one the colored master barbers, trained in the slovenly old ways, and been forced to the wall by white competition, until his shop was one of the few good ones remaining in the hands of men of his race. (801) As Bristol notes in Knights of the Razor, this was the era when the black barber held a particular position of great influence, and enjoyed, both literally and figuratively, a unique, intimate relationship with many influential white guardians.69 Tom Taylor is very much aware of this responsibility and the freedom, in all senses, that proprietorship of a barbershop gives to him and to his family. And, indeed, family is the important word here; for in the final moments of the story, just as Taylor is giving in to the dark thoughts of slaying the colonel who has been goading him throughout the shave, he happens to see his daughter Daisy’s doll (the doll of the story’s title), and the thought of not wanting to let her down by leaving her without a father or a mother (as his wife is already dead) stops him from using the razor. While this may seem a sugary ending to “The Doll,” it is laced with defeat and frustration. What Chesnutt’s story achieves is not only to be particularly provocative in its commitment to the illumination of the workings of American society and the realities of racial prejudice and discrimination (something, it is believed, which stopped “The Doll” from being published in The Atlantic), but the success of the text can also be

The Barbershop in American Literature 49 found in how it leaves the reader with the feeling that this is just how it is to be.70 The white man of social standing is able to air his highly bigoted views in public, even within the genteel surroundings of a high-­class barbershop, but the black barber is fated to keep his thoughts and feelings hidden beneath his white coat and apron. The revelation at the end of the story that the colonel knew exactly who the barber was and knew that he would not act on the opportunity for revenge, even after being goaded about the murder of his father by the murderer himself, leaves the reader with a strange feeling of uneasiness. If we are looking for a sociologically charged message at the end of the story, it is not one of triumph or hope or expectation—there is no redemption for Tom Taylor (or is there?)—rather, it appears to be one of silent acceptance of the workings of American society and the black barber’s “double existence” within it. Or, to end on a more optimistic note, perhaps it is closer to what Frederick Douglass noted when talking about slaves and their masters: “they suppress the truth rather than take the consequence of telling it, and in so doing prove themselves a part of the human family” (qtd. in Bristol 2009, 67). And, indeed, as Bristol observes, to deal with the impact of such a double existence, “black barbers, who enjoyed more freedom, certainly had a variety of other, more fulfilling roles outside their shops, such as father, husband, leader, and mentor, so that had more ways to distance themselves from their job” (67). Tom Taylor describes himself as all these things in the story—father, husband, leader, and mentor—and perhaps the ultimate message to take from the text is that while color-­line barbers faced the difficulties of trying to negotiate their position in relation to their white customers while working in the barbershop, it was their work outside of the barbershop in their local communities, in both the public and private spheres, that justified the struggles and strains that they faced every day behind the barber’s chair. Added to this historical narrative of the black barber and the black barbershop is the role that the black barber played in local black communities is the subject of Paul Laurence Dunbar’s “The Scapegoat” (1904). Dunbar’s short story engages in the changing role of the black barbershop in local African American communities. The narrative of the protagonist, Robinson Asbury, is one layered in the ideologies of the American Dream and the “self-­made man.” Rising from bootblack to owning his own barbershop, Asbury, in an efface to the colour-­line barbers operating downtown, opens his own shop where he feels “it would do the most good,” and this is in the very centre of his local black community. Because of this success, Asbury begins to make contact with the important men in society and, eventually, is selected by a local white politician to manage the black constituency. Just as the colour-­line barber walked the tenuous tightrope in the barbershop between white and black, Asbury walks an even more precarious tightrope within the black community itself. Such interactions with the white political machine brought the black barber

50  The Barbershop in American Literature power, privilege, and the opportunity to move within more prominent circles in society. And this was not because of the barber’s political intelligence or political acumen; rather, it was because the greater powers in political circles recognised the potential of black barbershops serving a black clientele as places of huge influence in the African American community. And, as Mills argues, these “New Negro” barbershops would cement themselves as a fixture in the black community in 20th-­century United States.71 Within the parameters of performing black masculinity, the black barbershop emerged as a discursive space for the creation of communities and the construction of the self. The interrelation of cultural practices in such a small space—the intimate nature of giving or receiving a haircut or shave; the conversations between barber, customer, and the waiting patrons or indeed other men who simply see the barbershop as a place to hang out, and fundamentally the power of the simple acts of looking and observing in the barbershop—be it looking at the customers while you wait or looking at yourself in the mirror, are all coded acts that are fundamental to the creation, perception, and negotiation of identities. The confluence of such acts, both passive and active, are at the centre of such cultural exchanges in the black barbershop and give rise to the cultivation of such communities (Alexander 135–37). Writers in the South also turned to the barbershop to explore the continuing narrative of race and violence in their communities well into the 20th century. William Faulkner’s “Dry September” (1931) is one of these tales. “Dry September” is the story of the assassination of a local black man, Will Mayes, following the accusations that he violated a white woman, Minnie Cooper. And the barbershop plays a central role in the story. However, in a notable change to previous key narratives identified earlier, the violence in this story is spurred by the hysterical discussions of frantic white patrons in a white barbershop. Henry Stribling, also known as Hacksaw, is the owner of the barbershop, and Faulkner masterfully plays on the role of the barber in the community with uncomfortable ambiguities in the performance of Hacksaw inside and outside the barbershop particularly in relation the barber’s role in Will Mayes’s fateful end. The opening of “Dry September” sets up the premise of the story: underlying racial tensions drive a group of white men to seek revenge for an attack on a local white woman despite the fact that none of these men know what actually happened. And the barbershop is the setting for the rapid escalation of this male hysteria. The first voice in the story is that of the barber Hacksaw. But Hacksaw is not named immediately; he is simply “a barber” (169) set as the apparent voice of reason in the story. As mentioned in the opening sections of this chapter, the barber, in the developing narrative of barbershop writing, has often been considered as a conduit of common sense. And there are two crucial points here that illustrate the complicating power of Faulkner’s narrative and justify its

The Barbershop in American Literature 51 inclusion in this discussion: First, “Dry September” problematises the image of the barber. It would seem that the barber is indeed the voice of reason with his first lines offering advice to be careful: “ ‘Except it wasn’t Will Mayes’ . . . ‘I know Will Mayes. He’s a good nigger. And I know Miss Minnie Cooper, too’ ” (169). Moreover, in the face of the growing anger of his rough and ready clientele, the barber Hacksaw remains calm, even when his customers repeatedly question his sexuality (“damn nigger-­lover” [170]) or, indeed, the colour of his skin (“You are a hell of a white man” [170]). But, as the narrative progresses, Hacksaw not only joins the gang of white men but also participates in their initial attack on Will Mayes. The barber, therefore, is not a beacon of judiciousness but is a man seemingly equally shaped by the discourses of racial hatred and suspicion in his barbershop. Second, the labelling of the energy in the scene as “male hysteria” is surely not accidental. The barbershop in Faulkner’s story, a social space that would be like to be regarded as the most masculine of settings, is the place of such rampant hysteria. Hysteria, of course, is a loaded term, for hysteria, in its essence, is regarded as feminine and traditionally associated with a female madness. Faulkner’s short story, therefore, subverts the masculinity associated with the barbershop, one often rooted in ideals of wisdom, reason, or stoicism. In contrast, the youths in the shop are adamant of their truth and the underlying feeling that they must act continues to build momentum until the mighty crash of the barbershop door swinging open and the towering appearance of McLendon, an ex-­army commander with his rousing exclamation: “Well . . . are you going to sit there and let a black son rape a white woman on the streets of Jefferson?” (171). Faulkner cleverly includes a moment of hesitation from one of the young men who remembers that Minnie Cooper had made a similar accusation before and asks McLendon if he can be really sure it happened. McLendon, employed by Faulkner to represent the archetypal white voice of mob justice and retribution in the town retorts, “ ‘Happen? What the hell difference does it make? Are you going to let the black sons get away with it until one really does it?’ ” (171). This appears to illustrate irrevocably the internalisation of the distorted discourses of distrust and bigotry towards African Americans in this southern town. But Faulkner complicates the conviction of McLendon further. It is important to note that this performance takes place in the doorway of the barbershop, not inside the barbershop nor outside the barbershop but in the liminal space between rational society and this social space of performative masculinity. And, in the final scene, with McLendon returning to his home to his wife, the reader learns that this is indeed, on one level, a performance by McLendon. In more intimate domestic surroundings with his wife, his actions reveal the impact of such expectations on the role he should play in society upon his treatment of his wife. Ultimately, we might argue that McLendon’s narrative in the text, along with Hacksaw, is one of performance. McLendon sees

52  The Barbershop in American Literature it as his duty to lead the men in his town. And this differs greatly with the barber Hacksaw. Faulkner underlines this contrast poignantly at the end of the first part of the story. Hacksaw, with his razor poised, advises the group to find out the facts first before acting. McLendon’s fury at such a suggestion is so intense that the narrator knowingly remarks, “They looked like men of different races” (172). When the action continues with the men having left the barbershop, Hacksaw runs to join them and gets into the car as they set off to find Will Mayes. There is a charged ambiguity in the barber’s actions. Why would he go with the men? At first, it would seem he is intent on stopping them. Hacksaw pleads Mayes’s innocence while they are in the car and even suggests the culpability of Minnie Cooper. But when they apprehend Will Mayes and put him in handcuffs, even the barber joins the others in striking Mayes as he lies helpless with his hands secured behind his back. Furthermore, after the mob get Mayes into the car, Hacksaw ignores Will Mayes’s pleading. Indeed, Will Mayes, the man whom the barber always referred to by name in the text, now becomes “the Negro” and is repeatedly referred to as “the Negro.” Ultimately, in Will Mayes’s moment of need, when there may still have been time for the barber to do something to save a man he was adamant was innocent, the barber Hacksaw kicks open the car door and, risking serious injury, jumps from the moving vehicle onto the dirt road, abandoning his responsibility and leaving this innocent black man to face his fate. The poignancy in Faulkner’s story is the ambiguity that he inserts into the narrative. The story revolves around rumours and whispers, with certain characters strangely certain about what has happened or not happened. The text itself performs this ambiguity markedly, with the range of narrative voices, switching from the narrator in the barbershop to the narrator introducing Minnie Cooper’s backstory to the narrator in McLendon’s car to the narrator in the town square where Minnie Cooper faints after learning of the fate of Will Mayes to the final narrator, who ends the story with McLendon arriving home to his wife after carrying out what they regarded as their mission. Such a textual approach with a myriad of competing voices underlines the power of perspective in issues of race and violence in society during these difficult years in the South, where mob justice and lynching were still commonplace. Ultimately, Faulkner sets the heightening of male hysteria in the barbershop, the place where issues of identity are fiercely contested, and the performance of such masculinities is paramount. The barbershop once more is the catalyst for violent action—surrounded by their own self-­reflections, the white men in the barbershop are faced with the image of themselves that they feel society expects of them, or, perhaps, the image of themselves that society has conditioned them to see. As Faulkner’s story ultimately demonstrates, the barbershop has a unique power to push men

The Barbershop in American Literature 53 to perform their own imaginings of their masculinities amid the stale air and pomade. This triumvirate of barbershop narratives from Herman Melville, Charles Chesnutt, and William Faulkner, along with “A Narrow Escape,” the exemplar of the literary shorts on the black barbershop that appeared in American newspapers and periodicals, illustrate the overarching power and prominence of themes of race, slavery, and violence in barbershop writing. All these texts, in their own uniquely powerful ways, use the barber and the barbershop to incredible effect to offer a sociological critique of the underlying tensions in American society. The barbershop is such a symbolically charged setting that writers driven to write about race during the antebellum, post–Civil War, Reconstruction, and post-­Reconstruction periods employed the barbershop as arguably the main character in these narratives. Ultimately these texts demonstrate that not only is the barbershop a powerful stage for the acting out of the ambiguities that underlie what at first glance appear to be clear binaries between men in American society, but the barbershop is essential to explore how these ambiguities create significant tensions that manifest, in these fictionalisations, as acts of extreme violence. The power of the barbershop is the power to place men in the most intimate of settings and have them take part in a ritual rich in apparent power and subservience, one that satirises, subverts, or represents the discourses underlying race relations in society, and in doing so, affirms the power of barbershop narratives in American writing.

The Barbershop and White Male Nostalgia We are living in an era of white male nostalgia. Recent developments in American politics have illustrated how nostalgia is at the forefront of the American consciousness. The election campaign of the current president of the United States was driven by the campaign slogan “Make American Great Again,” encapsulating this sense of longing for an idealised lost past. In the views of a certain demographic of men in society, traditional masculine virtues have been undermined by a feminisation of society and the growing influence of minorities. The barbershop, for many men, has once more become a place of sanctuary away from the perceived threat to manhood and masculinity. Scholarship on representations of men and masculinities continues to recognise this narrative of white male nostalgia in American literature and culture. Since the 1990s, such research has identified a range of narratives in literature, from a sense of victimhood due to perceived attacks on the white male to writings of white male liberationist narratives.72 But, as Tim Engles argues in White Male Nostalgia in Contemporary North American Literature (2018), there are also some white male authors who offer narratives that centre on the recovery or restoration from any modern-­day malaise of masculinity. These texts and authors, as

54  The Barbershop in American Literature Engles suggests, “constitute a literary counter-­history of the era’s anxious white masculinity” (8). While it is not my intention to examine the redemptive power of such narratives of white male nostalgia, what is notable in literary texts that explore issues related to contemporary masculinity is the barbershop as a setting for key scenes. And this makes sense—the barbershop is the place where men can go to feel protected from the outside world. The barbershop is the place men can sit and read masculine-­affirming magazines, share stories, and feel more secure in themselves. For a few hours, these men can reconnect to an (often-­imagined) past built on conventional masculine virtues. What I am interested in is how the barbershop is used in such narratives of nostalgia. To fully appreciate the role of the barbershop, I would argue that Svetlana Boym’s concepts of “Restorative Nostalgia” and “Reflective Nostalgia” are essential for the reading of such fictions. As Boym states, these two “tendencies” of nostalgia are a way to give shape and meaning to this longing for an idealised past or, in such cases, an imagined past. And the barbershop is a key space for this longing. Boym sets out these kinds of nostalgia thus: Restorative nostalgia puts emphasis on nostos and proposes to rebuild the lost home and patch up memory gaps. Reflective nostalgia dwells in algia, in longing and loss, the imperfect process of remembrance. (41) The restorative and the reflective elements of the barbershop are striking. We might argue that the barbershop is the ultimate place of Reflective Nostalgia—the barbershop is a place of mirrors and mimicry, a stage for remembering and longing. Certainly, the barbershop itself might be interpreted as itself a place of Restorative Nostalgia, being a physical manifestation of the desire to restore a lost past, particularly if we think of the vintage masculine ornamentation that normally adorns its walls. In these narratives of contemporary American fiction, the barbershop is a powerful place of Reflective Nostalgia as it enables the characters to engage in such activities of longing or remembrance. As Boym sets out, “Reflective Nostalgia is more concerned with historical and individual time, with the irrevocability of the past and human finitude” (49). This notion emerges in these contemporary barbershop narratives in terms of masculine identity, temporality, and mortality. Moreover, the nostalgia in the barbershop is also a nostalgia that is defined by relationships. It is a longing for lost relationships, most notably between father and son. Or, indeed, it is a place for the nostalgic performance of visit of the father and son to the barbershop driven by the belief in the lost importance of this ritual. Ultimately, the barbershop in these fictions is a site of algia, this

The Barbershop in American Literature 55 sense of longing for something that is lost and something that is deemed essential for the understanding of the masculine self. One work of contemporary fiction that is driven by the reflective and restorative nostalgia of the barbershop is Don DeLillo’s Cosmopolis (2003). Cosmopolis is an unsettlingly prophetic narrative that explores the impact of a financial crash (not unlike the global economic catastrophe that would occur in 2008) on the billionaire asset trader Eric Packer. Packer is a man at the centre of everything—“When he died he would not end. The world would end” (6)—and Cosmopolis plays out Packer’s struggles with his masculine identity. The narrative begins when Packer wakes up one morning in the year 2000 and decides that he must cross town to get a haircut in a barbershop. But this is not just any old barbershop; rather, this is the barbershop that Packer visited with his father when he was a child. Of course, the desire for a “haircut” is symbolic on many levels—a “haircut” within the financial sphere refers to the reduction in the value of an asset when used in certain deals, and Packer’s sense of self revolves around his trading of assets. But he also embarks on this Joycean journey because a haircut is necessary for him to gain a greater sense of self. In other words, Packer needs the reflective and the restorative nostalgia of this barbershop in his family’s district of Hell’s Kitchen. The first issue with Packer’s desire to visit the barbershop is the need to cross New York City. This trip is the ultimate expression of the complexities defining his masculine identity. First and foremost, Packer travels in his white stretch limo, a car that was not only “oversized” but also “aggressively and contemptuously so, metastasizingly so, a tremendous mutant thing that stood astride every argument against it” (10). Moreover, this is one of the busiest days in the city—this very same day sees the visit of the president, an anti-­globalisation riot, and the funeral for a recently deceased rap star. But Packer is insistent on the necessity of the journey. When Shiner, Packer’s chief of security, argues, “Have the barber go to the office. Get your haircut there. Or have the barber come to the car. Get your haircut and go to the office” (15), Packer counters with the nostalgic power of the barbershop: “A haircut has what. Associations. Calendar on the wall. Mirrors everywhere. There’s no barber chair here. Nothing swivels but the spycam” (15). This barbershop is the very antithesis to everything that surrounds Packer every second of every day. Cut off and cocooned within the stretch limo, with data spinning on the screens that surround him, this archetypal Wall Street male needs to go to the place that connects him to something, that is a place of linear time with a calendar on the wall, a place where a person is forced to see who they really are in a plain glass mirror, a place of associations to the past. The return to the barbershop is driven by the connection of the barbershop to Eric’s family history with the fact that the barber not only cut Eric’s hair when he was a child but his father’s hair as well.

56  The Barbershop in American Literature Barbershop scenes also feature in Cormac McCarthy’s novels as settings for the critical examination of masculinity, including, of course, the father–son relationship which features prominently in McCarthy’s Pulitzer Prize–winning novel The Road (2006). The barbershop also features in earlier McCarthy fiction with such barbershops places of self-­reflection and self-­examination. These barbershops are also places of escape and self-­restoration. In McCarthy’s fourth novel, Suttree (1979), the protagonist, the fisherman Cornelius Suttree, arrives in the town of Knoxville and decides to visit a barbershop. Suttree requests a “shave, haircut, shine” and gives clear instruction to the barber: “don’t spare the smellgood” (301). The effect of the barbershop is telling—the barbershop is a place of resurgence, not simply for his physical well-­being but also his mental well-­being and his sense of his masculinity identity: Suttree lay in deep euphoria, his legs crossed at the ankles, his new shoes easy on the nickleplated grating of the footrest. He listened dreamily to the pop of the razor on the strop. He half dozed in the chair while the barber pulled his face about, the razor slicing off the hot lavender foam. Peace seeped through to Suttree’s bones. . . . The barber raised him up and began to trim his hair with scissors. . . . No one spoke. Suttree’s dark locks dropped soundlessly to the tiles. Gentle barber. He drifted. (301) There is wonderful barbershop poetry in these lines, such as “the pop of the razor,” “the razor slicing off the hot lavender foam,” or indeed the image of the “Gentle barber.” Suttree’s thoughts and feelings enter and merge with the narrative here to celebrate the recuperative power of such visits for Suttree’s sense of his embattled masculinity. The barbershop returns in a McCarthy text in an intimate scene in his Pulitzer Prize–winning novel The Road (2006). The Road is a dystopian lyrical narrative in which a nameless father and son try to stay alive in a post-­apocalyptic United States. It is a narrative of endless movement, a father and son trying to escape the inescapable. After several traumatic episodes, including evading a group of marauders and the father having to kill one of the group in order to protect himself and his son, the father and son discover a bunker filled with food, clothes, and other necessities. It is notable that one of the first things that the father does is fashion a makeshift barbershop. This is not surprising when we notice that hair is a recurring trope in the novel. When possible, the father washes the boy’s hair, combs the boy’s hair, or sits and strokes the boy’s hair (77, 78, 156). It is not surprising, therefore, that McCarthy’s text features a barbershop scene. In the

The Barbershop in American Literature 57 bunker, during a brief moment of pause, the father sits his son down takes on the role of the barber: He sat the boy on the footlocker under the gaslamp and with a plastic comb and a pair of scissors he set about cutting his hair. He tried to do a good job and it took some time. (161) The nurturing of the son in this intimate ritual is clearly important for the father. And so is the validation of his son’s approval. When the father finishes, he shows his work to the son: When he was done he took the towel from around the boy’s shoulders and he scooped the golden hair from the floor and wiped the boy’s face and shoulders with a damp cloth and held a mirror for him to see. You did a good job, Papa. (161) The father also takes time to barber himself. Of course, in The Road, the beard has a pragmatic function rather than the more common everyday performative function as the beard in this novel is a form of protection against the elements. Cutting his hair, trimming his beard, and shaving himself with a plastic safety razor, he looks at his reflection in the mirror. But he is unsure of his appearance. While the father reflects that “he seemed to have no chin” (161), the boy remarks, “Will you be cold?” (161). The point is, of course, that the barbershop is the place for self-­rejuvenation, in body, mind, and spirit for both father and son. Returning to DeLillo’s Cosmopolis, the barbershop is also a fundamental part of the father–son relationship. The destination for this quest of Reflective Nostalgia can only be the barbershop in Hell’s Kitchen as this is not only the place of Packer’s past, but, more important, the barbershop is the place that evokes his father’s past. Only by returning to the barbershop on the streets of Hell’s Kitchen can Packer “[feel] what his father would feel, standing in this place” (159). Rather than a celebration of the rituals of the barbershop, Packer’s visit is driven by Packer’s attempt to reconnect to his lost past. The sense of Packer stepping outside of his self-­defining networks is immediately apparent. Normally existing in a world that he has planned to the millisecond, Packer finds the barbershop closed; however, one knock brings Anthony Adubato, the barber, to the door. The uncanny sense of the inevitability of the visit, one that works to further destabilise the seemingly rigid systems of meaning in Eric’s cocoon of the stretch limo is hinted at in their initial exchange. When Packer confesses, “I woke up

58  The Barbershop in American Literature this morning and knew it was time,” the barber answers, “You knew where to come” (160). This barbershop in Hell’s Kitchen is a relic of a particular past. The contrast of the interior of the barbershop with the high-­tech interior of Eric’s stretch limo is telling: the barbershop has “paint was coming off the walls, exposing splotches of pinkish white plaster, and the ceiling was cracked in places” (160). The text also suggests the calming effect of the old barbershop artefacts, such as “the oil company calendar on the wall. The mirror that needed silvering” (161). For Eric, therefore, this barbershop is a place of pure Reflective Nostalgia, a space seemingly untouched by the market forces of globalisation and the technological accelerations that are changing not only the structures of society and Eric’s experience of that society but also Eric’s sense of self. This barbershop is such a safe place that Eric feels he can reveal everything to the men in there with him: “It felt right to expose the matter in this particular place, where elapsed time hangs in the air, suffusing solid objects and men’s faces. This is where he felt safe” (166). The significance of the rituals in the barbershop for Packer is also crucial here. Packer has come to this barbershop not simply for the obvious haircut but also for the nourishing narratives of the barber. The barber’s stories about Packer as a boy, and those about Packer’s father, are central to the power of this particular barbershop: “Eric had heard this a number of times and the man used the same words nearly every time with topical variations. This is what he wanted from Anthony. The same words” (161). Also, in line with Philip Roth’s sense of the rituals of the barbershop tied into ideas of male mortality, the death of Packer’s father is also a significant topic of discussion.73 This mortality, of course, is opposite to the sense of perpetuity that Eric seems to experience, or expects to experience, as a man defined by the digital world and therefore disconnected with the very materiality of his body. As well as being a crucial part of Packer’s narrative, this scene features other key elements of the historical narrative of the barbershop, specifically the barbershop as a democratising space. Soon after Packer arrives and reconnects with Anthony the barber, they decide to invite Packer’s driver into the shop. In a narrative defined by difference—particularly Packer’s disconnection with everyday discourses and everyday people— the barbershop is the social space in which these men from diverse ethnic, cultural, political, and economic backgrounds can socialise and interact. They engage in social rituals together, eating and drinking and sharing stories from their lives. It is here that Packer’s driver and the barber find out that they were both taxi drivers in New York City. While the other men continue the chat about their lives and experiences trying to survive in the city, Packer, who is occupying the barber’s chair, begins to truly relax. With these men talking and laughing and enjoying each other’s company, the barbershop once again becomes a place of comfort and

The Barbershop in American Literature 59 familiarity. It is in this ambience unique to the barbershop that Packer, for the first time in the text, is finally able to relax and fall asleep. When Eric wakes up, the text continues to engage with the richness of the barbershop as a symbolic stage for self-­analysis and self-­reflection. The first thing Packer does is look at himself in the mirror. This is a moment of naked reflection, a moment to consider the realities of his existence outside of the protective casing of his white stretch limo. But still, after “taking it all in,” and “remembering who he was,” one detail complicates the seemingly naked impact of this moment, namely how Packer “lingered on the image” (165). Image is a key word here—even though Packer has stepped out of his stretch limo and has reached out to make a connection to his past, he still cannot see his self as something real. Just as he sees himself inside the stretch limo constructed by the data that swirls around him, even here, in the most humanising of social spaces, Eric can only see himself as an “image,” in other words, a representation, more specifically, a representation of his external self. It is at this moment that the barber shares the story of Packer’s father’s family who grew up on this street, a story of hardship and poverty and struggle, a story that Packer ultimately realises that he cannot identify with. Instead, all that Packer has is this superficial image and a sense of self that will be always anchored in the present. Packer’s visit to the barbershop reaches its climax when he finally sits properly in the barber’s chair to get his haircut. The barber engages in the various rituals associated with the barbershop experience. As we are told, the barber “billowed the striped cape. He squirted water on Eric’s head” (169). The two men quickly shift to everyday barber chat as the barber Anthony starts to snip the hair on one side of Packer’s head. However, Packer’s sudden jump from the barbershop chair and announcement that he needs to leave bursts the barbershop bubble and restores the narrative of Cosmopolis to its inherent theme of asymmetry. Despite the huge role that the barber has played in the history of Packer’s family, Packer is unable to allow the barber to finish his job. Of course, the symmetry is very important to the barber—not only does it signify a good job, but it also reflects ideas of ordinance and civility. But the barber does not hold the same importance in Packer’s world. In this moment, the text presents the barber through Packer’s eyes, and we see how “Anthony looked very small, suddenly, with the rake comb in one hand, clippers in the other” (169). Ultimately, the text not only clearly points to the restorative and reflective powers of the barbershop, but it also seems to point to the inability of the barbershop to save Packer. Packer’s last words to the barber before he leaves: “I’ll come back. Take my word. I’ll sit and you’ll finish” (170), are just that—words—as Packer, who does submit to the Reflective Nostalgia of the barbershop to a certain degree, appears to reject any suggestion of Restorative Nostalgia from this visit. Even the barbershop is unable to save Packer from his fate.

60  The Barbershop in American Literature

Notes 1. There is a point to be made about the choice of barbershop rather than barber shop in this study. From my research, the first mentions of this establishment in the 18th century and the early years of the 19th century used barber shop. The one-­word version, barbershop, did not come into common usage until the 20th century. Throughout this chapter, and indeed the entire book, I will use barbershop. This may seem a moot choice, but I feel that it reflects the larger point that the barber and his shop are intrinsically connected and the fact that the true identity of each is dependent on the other. 2. See https://datausa.io/profile/soc/395011/#growth (Accessed 26 Oct. 2018). 3. On the online web page Data USA, the skills listed for the barber are “active listening,” “critical thinking,” and “monitoring,” all of which are deemed vital to the barber’s “service orientation.” While it is to be expected that the majority of barbers would come from a business education background, it is again telling that the second and third areas of interest for barbers behind business are education and psychology. 4. See Douglas Bristol’s Knights of the Razor: Black Barbers in Slavery and Freedom (2009) for an insightful discussion on the complex history of African Americans and barbering. 5. This quotation is a pointer to Quincy T. Mills’s excellent book Cutting Along the Color Line: Black Barbers and Barber Shops in America (2013). 6. Throughout the chapter, I include the full reference to each piece from either a newspaper, magazine, and periodical in an end note. Primarily, this referencing decision has been made to help the reader to access the data quickly and easily; however, it is also the case that these pieces were published anonymously, and so it would be somewhat distracting to include each reference in the Works Cited without an author to lead each reference entry. 7. “Beards and Barbers.” The National Magazine; Devoted to Literature, Art, and Religion, vol. 2, no. 3 (Mar. 1853), p. 226. 8. “Beards and Barbers” 226. 9. “Beards and Barbers” 228. 10. Reprinted from The Albion, a Journal of News, Politics and Literature, vol. 11, no. 51 (18 Dec. 1852), p. 602. 11. “A Few Words Upon Beards.” The National Magazine; Devoted to Literature, Art, and Religion, vol. 2, no. 3. (Mar. 1853), p. 136. 12. “A Few Words Upon Beards” 140. 13. “Aborigines of America.” Gazette of the United States (23 May 1789), p. 48. 14. The fable was reprinted in The Boston Weekly Magazine in 1817 with the title “The Monkey, Who Shaved Himself and His Friends.” The Boston Weekly Magazine, Devoted to Polite Literature, Useful Science, Biography, and Dramatic Criticism, vol. 1, no. 50 (20 Sept. 1817), p. 200. 15. The American Museum; or, Repository of Ancient and Modern Fugitive Pieces & c. Prose and Poetical, vol. 3, no. 3 (Mar. 1788), p. 279. 16. “Advertisement Extraordinary.” National Gazette (30 Apr. 1792), p. 211, Philadelphia, PA. 17. “On My Beard: A Sonnet.” Gazette of the United States and Daily Evening Advertiser (31 Mar. 1795), Philadelphia, PA. 18. “The Barber’s Shop: No.1.” The Port-­Folio, vol. 1, no. 4 (24 Jan. 1801), p. 28, Philadelphia, PA. 19. “Barber’s Pole.” The Jeffersonian Republican (12 May 1841). 20. “Barber’s Pole.” 21. “The Barber’s Shop,” p. 29. Further reflections can be found in “Barber’s Pole.” The Emerald, or, Miscellany of Literature, Containing Sketches of

The Barbershop in American Literature 61 the Manners, Principles and Amusements of the Age, vol. 2, no. 64. (18 Jul. 1807), 343. 22. “The Origin of the Barbers’ Poles.” The Literary Companion, vol. 1, no. 3 (Jun. 1821): 44. Reprinted with the title “Trimming and Phlebotomy.” Boston Medical Intelligencer, vol. 2, no. 44 (15 Mar. 1825): 178. 23. “The Barber of Gottingen.” The Port-­Folio, no. 287 (Sept. 1826), p. 186, Philadelphia, PA. Reprinted in The New-­York Mirror: A Weekly Gazette of Literature and the Fine Arts, vol. 4, no. 20 (9 Dec. 1826), p. 153; The Atheneum; or, Spirit of the English Magazines, vol. 6, no. 6 (15 Dec. 1826), p. 209. 24. “The Barber of Cadiz.” Holdens Dollar Magazine of Criticisms, Biographies, Sketches, Essays, Tales, Reviews, Poetry, etc., vol. 3, no. 4 (Apr. 1849), p. 229. 25. “The Barber of Paris.” Robert Merry’s Museum, vol. 5, no. 6 (Jun. 1843), p. 176. 26. “The Greek Barber.” The New-­England Galaxy and United States Literary Advertiser, vol. 15, no. 790 (8 Dec. 1832), p. 1. 27. “The Shrine.” Literary Inquirer, vol. 1, no. 17. (13 Aug. 1833), p. 136. Reprinted in The Hartford Pearl and Literary Gazette, vol. 4, no. 3 (3 Sept. 1834), pp. 24–25. 28. “Prince of Wales and the Barber.” Trumpet and Universalist Magazine, vol. 20, no. 50 (27 May 1848), p. 200. 29. The Ottawa Free Trader, 30 Jul. 1847, Ottawa, IL. Also appears in Wilmington Journal, 30 Jul. 1847, Wilmington, NC; The Somerset Herald and Farmers’ and Mechanics’ Register, 17 Aug. 1847, Somerset, PA; The Kalida Venture, 17 Aug. 1847, Kalida, OH. 30. “Licentious Pictures.” New-­York Daily Tribune, 9 Feb. 1846, New York, NY. 31. “Original Communications: Barbers.” The New-­ England Galaxy and United States Literary Advertiser, vol. 7, no. 352 (9 Jul. 1824), p. 3. 32. “Original Communications: Barbers” 3. 33. “Original Communications: Barbers” 3. 34. In the early 1840s, Nathaniel Hawthorne wrote Grandfather’s Chair, a series of books for children on early American history. Using a narrative technique called “imaginative authority,” Hawthorne placed the chair in these stories to pique the interest of children in a “lively and entertaining narrative” on the history of the United States. In one such tale on the signing of the Declaration of Independence, Hawthorne has the chair appear in a barbershop in Boston kept by a Mr. Pierce, “who prided himself on having shaved General Washington, Old Put, and many other famous persons” (230). According to the grandfather in the text, “there is no better place for news than a barber’s shop. All the events of the Revolutionary War were heard of there sooner than anywhere else” (230). The barbershop serves its purpose in Hawthorne’s story as an ideal space to remark on the different men in American society at the time, from politicians to pastors to clergymen. It is a place of communication and camaraderie as “the incidents of the Revolution plentifully supplied the barber’s customers with topics of conversation” (230), before the announcement of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. See Nathaniel Hawthorne. The Whole History of Grandfather’s Chair. Thomas Y. Crowell & Company, 1898. 35. “Meditations in a Barber’s Shop.” New-­England Magazine (Nov. 1832), pp. 404–8, Boston. 36. “Meditations in a Barber’s Shop” 405. 37. “Meditations in a Barber’s Shop” 405.

62  The Barbershop in American Literature 8. 3 39. 40. 41. 42.

“Meditations in a Barber’s Shop” 405. “Meditations in a Barber’s Shop” 406. “Meditations in a Barber’s Shop” 406. “Meditations in a Barber’s Shop” 406. Masonic Mirror: and Mechanics’ Intelligencer, vol. 1, no. 22 (21 May 1825), p. 4. 43. “Barber Shop Etiquette.” The National Police Gazette, vol. 33, no. 68 (11 Jan. 1879), p. 6. 44. “About Barbers” originally published in the Galaxy, Aug. 1871. Also found at https://americanliterature.com/author/mark-­twain/short-­story/ about-­barbers. 45. “Barbarous.” New York Sunday Mercury (24 Mar. 1867). 46. https://ia800208.us.archive.org/33/items/innocentsabroad04twaigoog/innocentsabroad04twaigoog.pdf. 47. “Shaving.” The Oasis, 7 Sept. 1895, Arizola. 48. “Beard.” Cincinnati Daily Press, 4 Dec. 1861, Cincinnati, OH. 49. “Bank: A Kind of Barber’s Shop, Where the Pocket Is Shaved Instead of the Face.” Liberty Advocate, 13 May 1841, Liberty, MI. 50. Green-­Mountain Freeman, 24 Jan. 1850, Montpelier, VT. Also appears in The Cecil Whig), 16 Feb. 1850, Elkton, MD. 51. “Liberty of the Citizen: Influence of Modern Inventions and Improvements.” The Free Enquirer, vol. 1, no. 13 (21 Jan. 1829), pp. 102–3. 52. “The Barbers of Cincinnati.” Western Christian Advocate, vol. 4, no. 14. Cincinnati, OH. 53. “Manners Upon the Road: An Old Bachelor.” Harper’s Bazaar, vol. 3, no. 3 (15 Jan. 1870), p. 34. 54. “News Comments.” Bismarck Weekly Tribune, 21 Nov. 1884, Bismarck, Dakota, n.d. 55. Also see “The Barber-­Shop as a Source of Contagion.” Druggists’ Circular and Chemical Gazette, vol. 38, no. 5 (1 May 1894), p. 115. 56. “Hygiene in Shaving and Hair-­Dressing Parlors.” The Atlanta Medical and Surgical Journal, vol. 15, no. 1 (1 Jan. 1899), pp. 749–57. 57. “Barber Shop Contagion.” Popular Science, vol. 29, no. 7 (1 Jul. 1895): 98. Reprinted in The People’s Health Journal of Chicago, vol. 11, no. 9 (15 Sept. 1895), p. 3. Also see “Danger in the Barber Shop.” Popular Science (1 Apr. 1897), p. 94. 58. “The Barbershop as a Menace to Health.” The Sanitarian, vol. 41, no. 346 (1 Sept. 1898), p. 235. 59. “Medical Progress: A Sanitary Barber-­Shop.” Medical News, vol. 72, no. 21 (21 May 1898), p. 656. 60. “Sanitary Regulations of the Barber Shop.” The People’s Health Journal of Chicago, vol. 15, no. 12 (15 Dec. 1899), p. 6. 61. “Smugmugism Reigns.” St. Paul Daily Globe, 15 Apr. 1888, Saint Paul, MI. 62. Walt Whitman. “169. A Fine Afternoon, 4 to 6.” Prose Works. 1892; Bartleby.com, 2000. 63. “Curious and Other Matters: In a Woman’s Barber Shop.” Ballou’s Monthly Magazine, vol. 69, no. 4 (Apr. 1889), p. 340. 64. “Honey Brook’s Fair Barber.” The Benton Weekly Record, 15 Jun. 1882, Benton. 65. “Local Women Promoters.” The Richmond Palladium and Sun-­Telegram, 25 Aug. 1909, Richmond, IN. 66. The source for the reference to the text is “A Narrow Escape.” Augusta, vol. 15, no. 30 (29 Jul. 1847), pp. 4–8. Other identified sources for this story include: “A Narrow Escape.” Plain Dealer, 15 May 1847, p. 3, Cleveland, OH; “A Narrow Escape.” Albany Evening Journal, 19 May 1847, 18, 5207,

The Barbershop in American Literature 63 p. 2, Albany, NY; “A Narrow Escape.” Morning News, 29 May 1847, III, 171, p. 2, New London, CT; “A Narrow Escape.” The People’s Advocate, 2 Jun. 1847, VII, 42, p. 1, New London, CT; “Real Life. A Narrow Escape.” Philadelphia Inquirer, 11 Mar. 1848, p. 1; “Adventure in a Barber’s Shop. A Thrilling Sketch.” Barre Gazette, 6 Feb. 1852, 18, 31, p. 1, Barre, MA. 67. For example, The Daily Crescent, a newspaper in New Orleans, Louisiana, reported on May 30, 1848, in the jailing of John Formantin, a “free man of color and a barber by trade,” who, after suffering a beating from a drunk client, William Spriggs, “dealt him a dreadful wound on the throat, cutting him nearly from ear to ear.” Another piece, “Badly Cut,” reports of an altercation between “two colored barbers,” one the current proprietor and one the previous proprietor, in which a young white gentleman receives a gash from a thrown pitcher. See “The Throat Cutting Case.” The Daily Crescent, 30 May 1848; and “Intelligence of Negroes.” The Vermont Telegraph, 1 May 1839. 68. Melville examined the symbolic power of barbering on the high seas in earlier work. Melville dedicates an entire chapter to barbering in White-­Jacket, published five years before the serialisation of “Benito Cereno” in Putnam’s Monthly. The chapter, titled “Men-­Of-­War Barbers,” deals with the risks and restrictions involved in barbering on sailing vessels during uncertain times. 69. See Bristol, Knights of the Razor, 41–70. 70. See Mills 74 for a discussion of the publication of “The Doll”. 71. See Mills 147–86. Also see Melissa Victoria Harris-­Lacewell’s Barbershops, Bibles, and BET (2004), a study of socialisation in the African American sphere that uses ethnographic and statistical evidence to investigate how interactions in black barbershops shape and are shaped by ideologies, beliefs, and attitudes. 72. See “Introduction: Making American White Male Again” in Engles 2018. Also see Savran 1998, Sally Robinson’s Marked Men: White Masculinity in Crisis (2000), Jason E. Pierce’s Making the White Man’s West: Whiteness and the Creation of the American West (2016); Nicola Rehling’s Extra-­ Ordinary Men: White Heterosexual Masculinity and Contemporary Popular Cinema (2009). 73. In Philip Roth’s final Zuckerman novel, Exit Ghost (2007), the character Amy Bellette retells the final moments of Zuckerman’s mentor, the writer E. I. Lonoff. Almost unable to speak, Lonoff indicates that he wants “to be clean,” and so Amy finds him a barber to have that experience for the final time: “When it was over I showed the barber the door and gave him twenty dollars. When I got back to the bed Manny was dead. Dead but clean” (153).

Works Cited Alexander, Bryant Keith. Performing Black Masculinity: Race, Culture, and Queer Identity. Altamira Press, 2006. Boym, Svetlana. The Future of Nostalgia. Basic Books, 2001. Bristol, Douglas. “From Outposts to Enclaves: A Social History of Black Barbers from 1750 to 1915.” Enterprise & Society, vol. 5, no. 4, 2004, pp. 594–606. ———. Knights of the Razor: Black Barbers in Slavery and Freedom. John Hopkins UP, 2009. Chesnutt, Charles W. “The Doll.” Charles W. Chesnutt: Stories, Novels & Essays, The Library of America, 2002, pp. 794–803.

64  The Barbershop in American Literature DeLillo, Don. Cosmopolis. Picador, 2003. Engles, Tim. White Male Nostalgia in Contemporary North American Literature. Palgrave, 2018. Faulkner, William. “Dry September.” Collected Stories, Vintage, 1995, pp. 165–84. Harris-­Lacewell, Melissa Victoria. Barbershops, Bibles, and BET. Princeton UP, 2004. Hughes, Langston. Not Without Laughter. Dover Thrift Editions. 1930. Levine, Robert S. “Reconsideration: Teaching the Multiracial Classroom: Reconsidering Meville’s ‘Benito Cereno’.” MELUS: Multi-­Ethnic Literature of the United States, vol. 19, No. 1, Spring 1994, pp. 111–20. McCarthy, Cormac. The Road. Picador, 2006. Melville, Herman. “Benito Cereno.” 1855. Billy Budd, Bartleby, and Other Stories. Penguin Classics, 2016, pp. 55–37. Mills, Quincy T. Cutting Along the Color Line: Black Barbers and Barber Shops in America. U of Pennsylvania P, 2013. Pierce, Jason E. Making the White Man’s West: Whiteness and the Creation of the American West. UP of Colorado, 2016. Rehling, Nicola. Extra-­ Ordinary Men: White Heterosexual Masculinity and Contemporary Popular Cinema. Lexington, 2009. Robinson, Sally. Marked Men: White Masculinity in Crisis. Columbia UP, 2000. Roth, Philip. Exit Ghost. Vintage, 2007. Savran, David. Taking It Like a Man: White Masculinity, Masochism, and Contemporary American Culture. Princeton, 1998. Sherrow, Victoria. An Encyclopedia of Hair. Greenwood Press, 2006. Twain, Mark. The Innocents Abroad. Bancroft and Company, 1869. Whitman, Walt. “169. A Fine Afternoon, 4 to 6.” 1892. Prose Works, edited by Ed Folsom, Bartleby.com, 2000.

Figure 2.1 Ernest Hemingway’s most famous image: the Papa beard Source: Photograph by Yousuf Karsh, Camera Press London.

2 The Need for a Shave

The Need for a ShaveThe Need for a Shave

Beards in Masculinity in Ernest Hemingway’s Fiction

Ernest Hemingway’s beard bristles as the key feature of Hemingway’s image as American literature’s most (in)famously bearded novelist. And yet the beard remains an overlooked and underappreciated trope in Hemingway’s fiction. This chapter engages with a range of Hemingway texts to critically analyse the role of facial hair in the performance of masculinity of Hemingway’s male characters. Framed around the narratives of three of Hemingway’s protagonists—Jake Barnes in The Sun Also Rises (1926), Frederic Henry in A Farewell to Arms (1929), and Robert Jordan in For Whom the Bell Tolls (1940)—this chapter underlines the important but complex role of facial hair in Hemingway’s narratives of masculinity. This flocculently focused approach challenges the narrative of the beard as an infallible indicator of masculinity in discussions of Hemingway and his work, something that the still-­resonant image of the black-­and-­white-­bearded Hemingway helped establish. In contrast, this chapter argues that Hemingway’s male characters display an acute awareness of the problematics underpinning the everyday performance of beard wearing. From Hemingway’s first successful shorts to his posthumously published works, Hemingway’s men contribute to three particular beard narratives: questioning the pretention of the beard, recognising and rejecting the symbolic power of the act of beard wearing, and repeatedly voicing the need for a shave. Ernest Hemingway is considered one of the bearded heavyweights of the American literary tradition. This is primarily due to what Debra Moddelmog calls the “special brand of masculinity” (“State of the Field” 16) that Hemingway projected throughout his career.1 And this brand of masculinity was central to Hemingway’s celebrity. Atypical of many literary authors, Hemingway experienced his fame during his lifetime. As Hemingway scholar Scott Donaldson remarks in his study Fitzgerald & Hemingway (2009), “Hemingway died the most famous writer of his time, and (we can confidently say now) the most famous writer of the twentieth century” (15). Hemingway’s literary successes were certainly aided by his exploits away from the page. There were the adventures and the encounters around the world, the four wives, his time in the Second

The Need for a Shave 67 World War, the trips to Africa, and his time in Paris and elsewhere in Europe. There were also the famous images of the Hemingway in Life magazine and the Atlantic Magazine, the portraits in the New Yorker, and numerous other publications. And, of course, there was Hemingway’s beard. But before the beard, first and foremost, Hemingway’s celebrity was due to his writing. Hemingway started as a journalist, working for the Kansas City Star when he was still in high school. After returning from the First World War, he accepted an offer to write for the Toronto Star. Hemingway’s first forays into fiction came soon after with two short story collections, Three Stories and Ten Poems (1923) and In Our Time (1925). In Our Time, in particular, contains some of Hemingway’s most significant short works, including Hemingway’s first engagements with the beard and facial hair, such as “Indian Camp” and “The Doctor and The Doctor’s Wife.” The move to longer works began Hemingway’s literary ascension. Hemingway’s novels enjoyed great success both commercially and critically. The Sun Also Rises (1926), Hemingway’s first novel, enjoyed sales of 1.17 million in hardback and 1.1 million in paperback. A Farewell to Arms (1929) did even better, selling 1.8 million copies in hardback and a further 1 million in paperback.2 Other key texts, such as For Whom the Bells Tolls (1940), Across the River and Into the Trees (1950), and The Old Man and the Sea (1952), for which Hemingway won the Pulitzer Prize in 1953 and was a contributing factor to his award of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1954, enjoyed similar success. Due to such commercial and critical attention, many Hemingway novels were adapted for the silver screen. The projection of the Hemingway leading man of the strong and stoic masculine hero in American cinema–America’s most immediate and most impactful art form—powered Hemingway’s popularity as the archetypal early 20th-­century American male. Fundamental to the popularity of the Hemingway persona was Hemingway’s own words. From 1933 to 1936, Hemingway wrote 25 essays for Esquire, all of which dealt with particularly masculinity-­affirming activities. These included bull-­fighting, boxing, fishing, hunting, politics and, of course, writing.3 Hemingway was considered an emblem of masculine heroism: from the reports of his life and his adventures, as well as from his fiction and non-­fiction, he was seen as a boxer, an athlete, and a worldly reporter. He was also a man of war, a hunter, and a hard-­drinking, cigar-­smoking man about town. Living up to this image of himself seemed to be a great issue for Hemingway. And proving his masculinity seemed to be a preoccupation. As the New York Times reported in the piece “Hemingway Slaps Eastman in the Face” in 1937, when critic Max Eastman infamously questioned Hemingway’s manhood in an essay titled “Bull in the Afternoon,” Hemingway reacted. Following Eastman’s accusations of Hemingway sporting “false hair on his chest”—“Come out from behind that false hair on your chest, Ernest. We all know you” (np)—Hemingway

68  The Need for a Shave is reported to have confronted Eastman in Max Perkin’s office at Scribner’s. There, Hemingway ripped open his own shirt to prove he had chest hair, “persuaded” Eastman to open his shirt to prove that he had none, and, in a flash of anger after seeing Eastman’s volume of essays on Perkins’s desk, lifted the book that included such a scandalous questioning of his body hair and hit Eastman square in the face with it. As Hemingway’s fame grew, so did the myth. Hypermasculine Hemingway appeared on magazine covers in the 1950s.4 Pulp magazines promoted the “image of Hemingway as he-­man,” which, as David Earle notes, “has proven resilient, continually seductive in the popular media” (4). As well as the number of biographies, critical studies, and various others literary pieces examining every element of Hemingway’s life continuing to surge, beyond the academy Hemingway has even featured as a character in works of fiction.5 Moreover, there is the complex issue of the “Hemingway style” of writing. Strychacz discusses the complex relationship between the perceived masculinity in Hemingway’s pared-­down prose. As Strychacz argues, Hemingway’s style “allowed scholars to speak of masculinity in terms of stylelessness, and therefore to express their yearning for an essence of masculinity beyond discourse” (85–86), even though, as Strychacz notes, “it quickly became apparent that Hemingway’s style could not support such an interpretation” (86). Peter Schwenger takes this further, suggesting a “fundamental ambiguity in Hemingway’s writing style: Hemingway’s style is in one sense an extension of the masculine values he depicts: the constraint of emotion, the stiff upper lip, the macho hermeticism. At the same time, that style preserves in each story a truth that one is made to feel can never be fully known. That quality of truth is one that has already been denominated feminine, eluding as it does any masculine control. Masculine reserve thus modulates imperceptibly into feminine unknowableness. (50) These “masculine properties of Hemingway’s style” (87) then that Strychacz refers to seem to be indicative of Hemingway’s role as a heroic masculine icon and a further component of the fabled Hemingway Code of primitive aggressive virility. Ultimately, this “Hemingway Style” has been somewhat predictably reduced to an algorithm in our digital age and monetised into a web page and app.6 Hemingway’s influence on literature continues to extend beyond it. Hemingway’s image as the (bearded) face of 20th-­ century American masculinity continues to be capitalised on with skin care products, shaving utensils, and beard-­grooming products all being sold under the Hemingway brand.7 This is not surprising in the least for the myth and legend of Hemingway is not solely due to his commercial and critical

The Need for a Shave 69 literary successes, his considerable literary merits and influence (including his “Hemingway style”), or, indeed, his seemingly extravagant and masculinity-­affirming personal life; rather, a large part of the image of Hemingway as the face of American literature is due to one aspect of Hemingway in particular: the Hemingway beard.

Hemingway’s Beard Hemingway’s beard has been established as an essential feature of Hemingway’s image as one of the faces of 20th-­century American literature. First and foremost, the beard is the key part of Hemingway’s most resonant image—that of “Papa Hemingway.” Papa Hemingway was first celebrated as the patriarchal figure with the “Papa beard” in Malcolm Cowley’s piece “A Portrait of Mister Papa” in Life magazine (January 10, 1949). Such an appearance in Life had a significant impact on the American public consciousness. As Moss writes, “the power of Life during the 1940s and 1950s to enshrine a specific image in the collective mindset of American and world audiences was almost unrivalled” (88). So Hemingway’s Papa appearance at this point was fundamental in establishing Hemingway as the hallmark of American masculinity. Another key image of the bearded Hemingway appeared in the Atlantic Magazine in 1957. Equally as impactful as the Papa Hemingway image, this portrait of Hemingway by Yousuf Karsh (which appears at the beginning of this chapter) projected the various faces of Hemingway in one black-­and-­white image. As James Plath writes, this photo captured the multifaceted persona Hemingway cultivated: the expatriate, the savvy traveller, the insider with all the information, the friend of movie stars, the war correspondent, the two-­fisted drinker and brawler, the skilled big-­game hunter, the record-­setting saltwater angler, and the writer who, like his subjects, appeared to confront death in order to feel more alive. (66) This reading of a simple black-­and-­white image might seem like an eager over-­interpretation, and perhaps it is, but it illustrates the perpetual resonance of the Hemingway image that appears to attract such desires for decoding and deciphering. There is less focus upon the first photos of a young 18-­year-­old Hemingway smiling into the camera from his hospital bed in Milan, Italy, in July 1918; or, indeed, the subsequent photos of Hemingway convalescing. The wartime photos of the often-­bearded Hemingway eating breakfast or boxing are also rarely mentioned. Despite Hemingway appearing in a number of publicised images, the Papa beard images of Hemingway, in particular, held a unique magnetic power.

70  The Need for a Shave The Papa beard image of Hemingway is still regarded as the quintessential image of Hemingway today. As Suzanne del Gizzo points out, this white-­bearded Hemingway has been used in the commercial marketplace as a “conservative and sanitised version of the author” (124). It is certainly plausible that Hemingway, and those around him, recognised the beard as a marketing device that would be a powerful visual. This is the case even though the final Papa beard images of Hemingway showed a frailer and failing man. The shots with Fidel Castro, in particular, are striking. Hemingway scholarship suggests that Hemingway’s Papa beard had a very pragmatic purpose, especially during this time in Cuba, as the beard was one way for Hemingway to protect his sensitive skin from the strong sun.8 Even though the beard was central to the Hemingway persona in Cuba, in the photos with Fidel Castro, the contrast of Castro’s fuller, darker, and well-­attended beard with Hemingway’s thinner, whiter, and notably scruffier Papa beard betrays the image of the bearded Papa Hemingway. That being said, people prefer to hold on to the idealised image of Hemingway and his beard. Put simply, the Papa beard still endures as the quintessential feature of Hemingway. As David M. Earle writes, “Hemingway’s image and presence were used again and again as a symbol of virile masculinity. It was Papa as pin-­up” (61). It might also be rewarding to consider Hemingway’s self-­awareness of his beard from his own writings. The reoccurrence of the beard in Hemingway’s perception of his self, and that of his friends and acquaintances, is evidenced in Hemingway’s Selected Letters 1917–1961 (2003). Hemingway makes direct reference to the images that he projects with his beard on his travels. On various occasions, the beard is connected to images of Jesus Christ. In a letter to Sylvia Beach, Hemingway quips that the beard he is sporting makes him a Christ-­like figure: “I have gotten such a wonderful beard that every time I get near a frontier am arrested [sic]. It looks like a cross between Jo Davidson and Christ” (146). And it was not just Hemingway who made such connections to Jesus Christ. Dearborn comments how Hemingway’s decision not to cut his hair or trim his beard during a trip to Austria for Christmas 1924 led to the locals calling Hemingway “The Black Christ” (172). In another note to Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas, Hemingway emphasises how his beard makes him look like sculptor Jo Davidson: “I have grown a fine Jo Davidson beard to break my falls with” (147). Hemingway is also aware of the social and political connotations of beard wearing in these letters. In one such letter to F. Scott Fitzgerald in 1927, Hemingway hints at the Otherness in having a beard at this time in the United States. As Hemingway comments, “[o]n acct. being so laid up so long started a fine beard which is now almost rabbinical. May keep it until come to the States but doubt it” (268). In these self-­reflective notes, Hemingway suggests that the beard can be regarded as a display of masculine virtue and a sign of camaraderie

The Need for a Shave 71 and friendship. Reaching out to the painter Waldo Peirce in 1927, Hemingway invites him to come visit, stating, It is still snowing and looks like the real thing. Come on down. I have a three and a half week’s beard and if you come down there will be two of them in town. Bumby is willing to grow a beard but can’t make it. (267) Peirce was considered the most flamboyant and outgoing of all of Hemingway acquaintances, with Dearborn describing Peirce as “the most colourful of the lot, sporting long moustaches and a full beard, a big man with a big belly and Rabelaisian attitudes and appetites” (253). But Peirce eventually removes the beard. In a letter to Maxwell Perkins in 1929, Hemingway asks how their mutual friend Waldo Peirce looks now that he is without a beard. Getting straight to the point, Hemingway shares his view that Waldo’s decision to shave his beard is “a loss to the world” (311). In another letter to Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, Hemingway reveals his opinion of the beard as a projection of wisdom, mentioning that he hopes to live to an old age to be “a wise old man with a white beard” (449–50). Equally in another letter to Archibald MacLeish in 1930, Hemingway makes the comment “That was a hell of a blow to me because I’d always thought of the Nobel Prize as something that you got when your beard was long and white and you needed to put your grandchildren through Devil’s Island” (331). The beard, therefore, has certain significations for Hemingway—there are certain religious symbolisms in the beard, growing a beard with peers is seen as a form of male bonding, a beard is a way of demonstrating inner masculine virtues despite the breakdown of the male body more generally, and indeed, the white beard is seen as a sign of wisdom in old age. Hemingway critics have also challenged Hemingway’s beard posing throughout the years. Lillian Ross, in her New Yorker profile “The Moods of Ernest Hemingway,” which appeared in the year following Hemingway’s appearance in Life magazine, uses the beard not as a sign of Hemingway’s masculine virility, but as part of his real-­life dishevelledness. Although Ross makes the claim in her book Portrait of Hemingway (1961) that both Hemingway and Ross herself were surprised by the reaction of the public to her profile of Hemingway, Hemingway does appear in a somewhat different light. Ross concludes that people reacted in such a way because “they didn’t like Hemingway to be Hemingway. They wanted him to be somebody else—probably themselves” (xx). And perhaps that is true. But her portrait of Hemingway, despite the suspicion of it being rather flattering overall, is revealing. Hemingway’s white Papa beard is a key part of the initial description of Hemingway when Ross first encounters him and his wife Mary (who refers to Hemingway only

72  The Need for a Shave as Papa) at the airport. The next day, when Ross goes to see Hemingway in his hotel room, she notices that “his beard looked more scraggly than it had the day before” (27). When Ross asks Hemingway how he might be when he is older, Hemingway makes the point: “I wouldn’t have any long beard” (34). However, as Ross notes, in that same moment, Hemingway stops and runs “the back of his hand along his beard, and looks around the room reflectively” (34). Indeed, Ross returns to the beard again to subvert any sense of the beard as a majestic ornament of Hemingway’s masculinity. In one particular moment, they all enter an elevator together: In the elevator, Hemingway looked even bigger and bulkier than he had before, and his face had the expression of a man who is being forcibly subjected to the worst kind of misery. A middle-­aged woman standing next to him stared at his scraggly white beard with obvious alarm and disapproval. ‘Good Christ!’ Hemingway said suddenly, in the silence of the elevator, and the middle-­aged woman looked down at her feet. (38) Ross’s entertaining profile sheds a different light on the Hemingway beard and underlines how the beard features in the less triumphant “moods of Hemingway.” Either way, the beard is always there in any discussion or story or tale about Hemingway. The beard is always set as a marker—either as a mask of underlying issues or as a manifestation of stirring troubles. Mary V. Dearborn’s comments in her recent biography of Hemingway follow this narrative. Reflecting on a photo from 1939, years before the establishment of the Papa beard in Life magazine, Dearborn displays cynicism towards how we should read Hemingway’s facial stylings. Dearborn makes the point that Hemingway grew “a long and bushy beard” during his thirties and forties “like many lonely men who grow facial hair when they are isolated and/or bored” (463). Dearborn continues to challenge the narrative of the triumphant flocculence on the face of the pin-­up Hemingway: With the beard he looked strangely different, almost another person; without it, age showed its inroads. Ernest was well on his way to the famous Papa visage of the 1950s—overweight, cheerful-­looking, his (considerably more groomed) beard and thinning hair both white. In 1944–45, he had definitely reached middle age and looked, in fact, well past it. (463) Dearborn suggests in fact that Hemingway at this time was in fact not overly attached to his beard, and, in fact, was happy to shave it off when

The Need for a Shave 73 the time came in 1944, a reading that problematises the established narrative of the undisputable association of Hemingway’s beard and his image of his masculinity.

Hemingway’s Narratives of (Bearded) Masculinity To fully appreciate the importance of the beard in the complex narratives of masculinity that Hemingway engaged with both on and off the page, it is essential to appreciate the scholarly progress in the field of Hemingway studies towards gender and masculinity. That said, this is no simple task. As the development of the approaches to reading Hemingway’s fiction has shown, the representations of men and masculinities in Hemingway’s fiction are wide-­ranging and varied. These fictional figures are complex and very often contradictory. And their performance of their masculine identities is certainly complicated. Put simply, the representations of masculinity in Hemingway’s writing are challenging—both in terms of challenging the reader’s perception of Hemingway the author and challenging the reader’s perception of a Hemingway text. I very much share the position of Hemingway scholar Thomas Strychacz, who argues in the essay “Masculinity” in the collection Ernest Hemingway in Context (2013) that the great variety of approaches to reading Hemingway’s texts—approaches that are often coloured by the peritextual pop-­culture (pre)conceptions of the author’s irrefutable manliness—make it difficult to pin down exactly what Hemingway’s texts say about masculinity and male sexuality. It is important to not be distracted by the idea of “The Hemingway Code,” that is a set of traditional morals and macho beliefs which appear to determine the performance of Hemingway’s men in certain situations, as well as being the ideals that appear to be the very essence of Hemingway himself. As Strychacz reflects in Dangerous Masculinities (2008), with regards to the idea of Hemingway the writer, “a Hemingway Code works so powerfully because it mediates the problems associated with primitive manhood on the one hand, and with effete intellectualism on the other” (93). Such a view towards Hemingway as the embodiment of some type of code of masculinity can make it difficult to focus our attention on what is the most important element in the study of representations of men and masculinities in Hemingway’s writing: the Hemingway text. It is important to approach Hemingway’s texts as texts; in other words, to not be seduced by the peritextual ornamentations which, in my opinion, include lines of scholarly argument that Hemingway’s novels are, on one level, autobiographical, and therefore contain certain truths about Hemingway; or, indeed, that they hide such inner revelations about Hemingway’s views on men and masculinities. As Stephen P. Clifford laments, “the promotion of the Hemingway (Code) Hero may well be the most unfortunate development in Hemingway criticism” (142). Clifford, following

74  The Need for a Shave on from Philip Young, is right to suggest that this image that we have of the author continues to distort readings of his texts as having only one narrative—the Hemingway Code Hero trying to live up to some image of manly perfection and therefore measuring his performance on his ability to demonstrate grace under pressure. In answer to this approach to reading the performances of masculinity in Hemingway’s fiction, a key message can be found in David Wyatt’s call for the need to separate the (bearded) Hemingway from the text. As Wyatt quite shrewdly warns, [w]e misread Hemingway when we reduce him to the champion of a ‘code’ or the rhetoric of ‘not talking’; nowhere in his early work does he recommend to us the behaviour of his central characters. He takes upon himself instead a much more difficult task: portraying the cost of the performance of being male. (54) I would follow Wyatt in saying that we need to be careful in how we judge the authorial input and the suggestion of autobiographical undertones. While in no way should this be interpreted as a call for the death of the author, if we treat Hemingway texts as texts, then it is possible to argue that they are much more complex in their representations of the performance of men and their masculine identities. Indeed, focusing on Hemingway’s chief protagonists, namely Jake Barnes, Frederic Henry, and Robert Jordan—as I do in this chapter—illustrates how Hemingway’s texts, particularly with regards to the beard and shaving, challenge the suggestions of the existence of codes of masculine behaviour for men to follow. As the field of Hemingway Studies has begun to recognise, the Hemingway text problematises the meaning of masculinities and reveals the complexities that underpin the troubled and troubling performance of the Hemingway male character. And the beard plays a key role in such performances. The first close readings of gender and masculinity in Hemingway’s texts emerged in the second half of the 1970s. Feminist scholars began to challenge the established Hemingway narrative of the macho writer projecting visions of masculine virility in his novels. It was here that critics, informed by determined questioning of gender and power, began to challenge the “Masculine Code,” appropriated as the “Hemingway Code,” through informed critical analysis of the performance of the men in Hemingway’s texts. The majority of the critiques from this period were confrontation, and understandably so. Following the promotion of the patriarchal image of Hemingway for many decades, and his infallible position at the head of the 20th-­century canon, it is only logical that such an overarching narrative would be met with eager resistance. And it was. Interestingly, even now, certain Hemingway scholars still hold on to the

The Need for a Shave 75 idealised image of Ernest. Laurence W. Mazzeno, whose The Critics and Hemingway: 1924–2014 (2015) is a major source of information and inspiration for this discussion, historicises these informed re-­readings of gender and masculinity in Hemingway’s writing in the 1970s as “The Feminist Assault” (102). Citing a number of feminist scholars, Mazzeno suggests that these critics took a “special delight in taking shots at Hemingway” as “Hemingway had become the personification of the macho image of primitive men partaking in male-­only bonding rituals” (102). Perhaps what Mazzeno fails to see is that these “feminist jabs” (103) are the first essential steps towards a necessary challenge to well-­established narratives of Hemingway and his fiction. Mazzeno refers to one of the best-­regarded critiques from the time, Judith Fetterly’s essay on A Farewell to Arms, to lament that “there is hardly a kind word for Hemingway in Fetterly’s resistant reading” (104). First of all, why should there be? Second, this article made a significant impact by not only challenging the performance of masculinity of the male characters in Hemingway’s fiction but also bringing due attention to the role of the female characters in Hemingway’s texts. And third, Fetterly’s reprimand, in both her 1977 essay and the section on Hemingway in her subsequent publication The Resisting Reader: A Feminist Approach to American Fiction (1978), demonstrated that Hemingway’s canonised texts were open to challenge and that it was the role of the informed reader to face the underlying ambiguities in the performance of masculinity and male sexuality in Hemingway narratives. These ambiguities in the manifestations of masculinity in Hemingway’s fiction have been a particular point of interest for Hemingway scholarship since the 1980s when interdisciplinary readings informed by the fields of gender studies and masculinity studies began to reframe interpretations of Hemingway and his writing.9 From the field of masculinity studies in particular, scholars, including James Riemer, began to approach Hemingway’s texts as “social documents reflecting our society’s ideals of masculinity” (290). Perhaps not coincidentally, such scholarly interest intensified around the time of the posthumous publication of The Garden of Eden (1986), a novel which is considered as one of Hemingway’s more complex engagements with gender, sexuality, and masculinity. As Mazzeno points out, before the release of The Garden of Eden, critics, such as James Cox, propagated the view that early reviewers of Hemingway offered more in their engagements with his writings. Such conventional approaches appeared to tell the true story about the intentions of the man and the intentions of his fiction, so much so that one Hemingway reader, James Cox, made the premature claim in the early 1980s that “scholars are now, or should be, at the point of comprehending Hemingway” (qtd. in Mazzeno 116). Yet The Garden of Eden, both in its heavily edited published form and in its expansive draft version, resulted in what Mazzeno labels “A ‘Sea Change’ in Hemingway Studies” (135). The general

76  The Need for a Shave negative reaction to the novel, as well as the negative reaction to the editorial job conducted by Jenks on Hemingway’s original manuscript, was somewhat balanced by the critical appreciation of the text for its engagement with the complexities of the performance of gender and masculinity. Scholars, such as Mark Spilka, made significant contributions to this shift in Hemingway scholarship.10 Challenging established notions of stoic masculinity in Hemingway’s oeuvre, Spilka argued for underlying androgyny as a major driver of Hemingway’s writing. Spilka extends his analysis back to the very beginnings of Hemingway’s fiction to offer notably persuasive readings of the complex performances of masculinity and gender of Hemingway’s leading characters. Spilka’s study encapsulates the change in dynamic in the treatment of gender and masculinity in Hemingway studies in the 1980s, one that quickly came to recognise the ambiguity with regards to masculinity and male sexuality in the complex performances of Hemingway’s men that made a Hemingway text. The 1990s brought a range of competing theories to Hemingway’s fiction. In addition to the biographies, critical commentaries, and collections of essays were studies inspired by Spilka and other scholars that continued to probe the “gender trouble” at the centre of Hemingway’s narratives. J. Gerald Kennedy argued further for Hemingway’s “preoccupation with androgyny” and Hemingway’s “fantasies” of “crossing the gender line” (207). Nancy Comley and Robert Scholes’s Hemingway’s Genders: Rereading the Hemingway Text (1994) also offered a reading of Hemingway’s writing that argued how Hemingway’s texts illustrated a struggle with homoeroticism and sexuality. One possible criticism of Comley and Scholes’ study is put forward in Stephen Clifford’s position towards Hemingway’s texts. In Beyond the Heroic “I”: Reading Lawrence, Hemingway, and Masculinity (1998), Clifford, quite rightly, I would argue, proclaims the need to move beyond psychobiographical readings of Hemingway’s novels to regard Hemingway’s texts as texts and, in a similar voice to Riemer, recognise the sociological power of Hemingway’s writings as texts that expose wider discourses of gender and masculinity. During this period, there was also the turn towards Hemingway’s women. Rena Sanderson, in “Hemingway and Gender History,” argues that to really get at the masculinity in Hemingway’s writings, it is necessary to focus on Hemingway’s depictions of women. In particular, studies from Valerie Rohy and a collection of essays edited by Lawrence Broer reconsidered the instability of masculinity and the ambivalence inherent in Hemingway’s texts by focusing on the female figures in Hemingway’s novels.11 Susan Elizabeth Farrell forwards on from these readings, arguing that we can only understand Hemingway’s men through Hemingway’s women, and so “in three of the writer’s best-­known novels, The Sun Also Rises, A Farewell to Arms, and For Whom the Bell Tolls,” we find that “Hemingway’s male soldiers repeatedly try to create safe,

The Need for a Shave 77 domestic spaces for themselves while at war or while suffering the repercussions of war” (16). Comley and Scholes, label Hemingway’s women as “Mothers, Nurses, Bitches, Girls, and Devils,” in other words, reductive figures set in certain roles that represent Hemingway’s troubles since childhood with the females in his own life (21). Comley and Scholes also underline the role of hair and the female in Hemingway’s writing. From their perspective, “hair, in the Hemingway Text, functions as a visible sign of sexual transgression, a public challenge to public notions of sexual propriety that are both fragile and dangerously powerful” (65). Spilka highlights the “hair-­matching motif” in Hemingway’s fiction that begins with Catherine Barkley in A Farewell to Arms (1929) and continues with Maria’s “close-­cropped” look that matches Robert Jordan in For Whom the Bell Tolls (1940; 2). Of course, before these seminal texts, in “Cat and the Rain” (1925), one of the short stories in In Our Time, the young husband wants his wife to keep her hair “clipped close like a boy’s” even though she is “tired of looking like a boy” (131). At the turn of the new millennium, Hemingway’s depictions of masculinity came back into focus. Suzanne Clark’s Cold Warriors (2000) suggested that Hemingway’s complex engagement with hyper-­masculinity was at odds with the American individualism of the Cold War era. In Clark’s view, the views of the staunch masculinity apparent in Hemingway’s narratives, a “legendary manliness” (91–92) to use her words, was limiting in overlooking these texts as spaces within which culture, identity, and gender were contested. As a result, Clark argues that it is essential to “address the reduction of [Hemingway’s] text to a singular and exaggerated masculine coding” (92). An important point to note, one implicit in Clark’s study which is still relevant today, is the influence of discourses outside of Hemingway’s texts and indeed outside literary scholarship that continue to propagate such monolithic readings of Hemingway’s masculinity—Hemingway’s masculinity in terms of the persona that he appeared to project as well as the perceived masculinity in his texts. Hemingway’s interest in the male body appears as a point of study at the beginnings of the 20th century. In Eugenic Fantasies (2002), Betsy Nies underlines how Hemingway’s interest in eugenics coincided with his fascination with the war-­torn male body and the “reassertion of the male body, pure and clean, visualised beyond the limits of the material and bodily inadequacies” (64), a reassertion that offered reassurance to white men. This was followed by Richard Fantina’s focus on “heterosexual male masochism” (6) in Hemingway’s writing. Fantina regards this form of masochism as a method of self-­exploration and self-­expression, not simply the traditional idea of masochism as a perversion. According to Fantina, taking such an approach illustrates how the male bodies in Hemingway’s works submit themselves to female bodies in an exchange

78  The Need for a Shave of sexual power that is essential in their exploration of their masculinity (6–7). The body, particularly Hemingway’s own body, continues to be a site for critical revision and reinterpretation. In “Masculinity and Disability: Ernest Hemingway, the Man, the Girl, and the Genius,” Carolyn Slaughter opens her study of Hemingway struggles with his body with the provocative statement: “Ernest Hemingway was a girl in a boy’s body” (321). Slaughter focuses on the influence of Hemingway’s mother, Grace, on Hemingway’s development of his identity and points to Grace Hemingway’s role in her son’s “deep sexual splits and insecurities that were to affect him for the rest of his life” which, according to Slaughter, “drove him to live out a caricature of masculinity and tipped him into deep, dark depressions, [and] obsessive compulsions” (321). In Slaughter’s estimation, following many Hemingway scholars, The Garden of Eden is evidence of Hemingway’s issues with his masculine identity: The revelations in this sensational novel brought a more nuanced understanding of the struggle and anguish Hemingway endured around issues relating to his masculine gender, identity, and self-­image. He did not seem to know who he really was, and in his novels he created heroic and tragic fictional characters in search of a true self. (322) One of the most significant conceptualisations of reading Hemingway and masculinity since the turn of the millennium has been the focus on the theatricality of the performances of masculinity of Hemingway’s men. Thomas Strychacz’s Theaters of Masculinity (2003) and later Dangerous Masculinities (2008), inspired by academic peers interested in the study of representations of men and masculinities in literature, argue for the “progressive potential” of the emerging field of masculinity studies “for shaping new responses to literary text and to the discipline of literary studies” (8). Strychacz’s “gestic” approach, inspired by Judith Butler, Gayatri Spivak, Jack Halberstam, Gayle Rubin, and Donna Haraway, sees “gender-­as-­performance” (8), and as a result, Strychacz regards “cultural constructions of masculinity” as “fluid and unstable” (9). In other words, masculinity, or, more appropriately, masculinities, are contestable. And Strychacz argues for the role of the reader and audience in the determination of meaning these performances in Hemingway’s fiction. As Strychacz asks, “why have scholars and other critics and reviewers persisted in reading Hemingway as though he were principally interested in articulating idealised states of tough manhood?” (73). Strychacz suggests that such obstinate readers are not involuntarily ignoring what Strychacz calls the “theatricality” of the performances of masculinity in Hemingway’s fiction; rather, such readers do recognise that various models of

The Need for a Shave 79 masculinity are being performed on the page but such readers simply recast these performances as meaningless theatre instead of appreciating their more earnest expressions of complex masculinity. In other words, the desire to find a pure, uncompromised masculinity in Hemingway’s fiction reflects the desires of the critics and the cultural and social formations that shape such intellectual paradigms (73). One issue that gains greater traction during this period of Hemingway studies is the intersection of race with gender and masculinity. Inspired by Toni Morrison’s insightful interpretation of race in Hemingway’s fiction in Playing in the Dark (1992), literary scholars re-­examined constructions of whiteness and representations of the racialised Other in Hemingway’s novels. Valerie Rohy’s Anachronism and Its Others (2009) argues that identity, particularly masculine identity, can only be shaped and understood in its relation with the Other (100), and, as a result, Hemingway’s The Garden of Eden illustrates how “white masculinity becomes visible to itself through projections onto a space of ‘darkness’ ” (100). The argument emerges, therefore, that performances of masculinity in Hemingway’s novels are seemingly only possible when black men are denied any agency or opportunity. This growing awareness of the significance of the racial Other continues with Amy Strong’s Race and Identity in Hemingway’s Fiction (2008). Focusing mainly on Hemingway’s posthumous texts, namely The Garden of Eden and Under Kilimanjaro (2005), Strong presents her argument that race is just as prominent a feature in Hemingway’s texts as gender and masculinity, and it is equally as complex and complicating. According to Strong’s close readings, earlier racial binaries in Hemingway’s writing, set, according to Strong, by discourses of white power, appear to be challenged in Hemingway’s later writings. Under Kilimanjaro, in particular, is singled out as Hemingway’s final book appears to challenge “the evils of white imperialism” (138). Race continues to be a key issue with Marc Dudley’s Hemingway, Race, and Art: Bloodlines and the Color Line (2011). Dudley’s study makes a significant contribution with a focus on Hemingway’s depictions of Native Americans, Africans, and African Americans. Again, like other scholars interested in the intersectionality of race and masculinity, Dudley argues that the performance of the male characters in Hemingway’s texts is irrevocably connected to ideas of whiteness and Otherness. More recently, an extremely useful examination by Josep M. Armengol of Green Hills of Africa and Under Kilimanjaro reveal a progression in Hemingway’s sexual and racial views. As Armengol argues, not only are gender and race central in Hemingway’s narratives, but they are also inherently interrelated. And from focusing on the two “Africa” texts, it is possible to argue that Hemingway’s “depiction of sexual and racial difference may be more complex, ambiguous, and contradictory than has been generally acknowledged” (74).

80  The Need for a Shave While these interests in representations of racial and ethnic differences may seem a logical progression in studies on Hemingway’s writing, there are more provocative claims from scholars that Hemingway himself held the fantasy of adopting other racial identities. Since the publication of Under Kilimanjaro, scholars, including Strong, Eby, Del Gizzo, and Moddelmog, suggest that Hemingway’s visits to Africa, particularly his second visit, had a transformative impact on Hemingway. Because of this trip, Hemingway re-­assessed his ideas of Otherness in an attempt to distance himself from the commodified image of himself as America’s archetypal (white) male. Another Otherness that is continuing to gain a greater foothold in critical readings of masculinity in Hemingway studies is the representations of Jewishness in Hemingway’s fiction. Gary Levine’s critique of Robert Cohn as part of his study The Merchants of Modernism: The Economic Jew in Anglo-­American Literature, 1864–1939 (2003) and Neil Davison’s postulation of the male Jew as a feminised Other in Jewishness and Masculinity from the Modern to the Postmodern (2010) both saw Hemingway’s representations of Jewishness are inherently tied into his textual concerns with gender and masculinity. This overview of the diverse strands of study into depictions of gender and masculinity in Hemingway’s fiction demonstrates the insistent need to challenge Hemingway’s texts. The diverse lines of enquiry in scholarly attention to gender and masculinity in Hemingway Studies converge in Verna Kale’s Teaching Hemingway and Gender (2016). Taking its starting point as Strychacz’s crystallising statement that Hemingway’s texts are not containers of a heroic Masculine Code but have an “endless concern with varieties of male experience . . . complex, troubled, and troubling” (qtd. in Kale 11), Kale encourages scholars to challenge the overdetermination of Hemingway and his work. As Hemingway scholar Debra Moddelmog comments in the “State of the Field” introduction to Kale’s collection of essays, the evolution of critical thinking about gender and sexuality in the fields of gender studies, sexuality studies, and queer studies (and, I would add, masculinity studies), along with the posthumous publication of Hemingway texts that present a more transgressive and complex picture of the author’s investment in issues of gender and masculinity, have moved us beyond the enduring argument of Hemingway’s fiction as being built on the recurring narrative of the male protagonist who is physically and psychologically wounded (17–20). And this is the true sign that the field of Hemingway studies continues to move forward. Hemingway scholars, however, continue to overlook the beard. As this chapter will now argue, Hemingway’s texts reveal the complex role of the beard and shaving in the performance of masculinity and masculine identity of Hemingway’s men. As further evidence of the complications of the theatricality of masculinity, the narrative threads of Hemingway’s men growing a beard, not growing a beard, or the importance they give to the

The Need for a Shave 81 act of shaving deserve attention in the role that they play in the narratives of Hemingway’s men. Critically analysing the symbolic power surrounding the growing, clipping, and maintaining of a few hairs in Hemingway’s fiction will add further to the growing appreciation of the nuances and complexities of men and masculinities in Hemingway’s writing.

Pretentious Beards in Hemingway’s Fiction One of the first major themes regarding the beard in Hemingway’s fiction is the idea of the beard as a mask of pretension. And this beard narrative, one which appears at various points in Hemingway’s writing career, begins on the face of Doctor Henry Adams. The father of Nick Adams, a figure who features in many of Hemingway’s early short stories, Doctor Henry Adams is a key performer in two important early Hemingway stories: “Indian Camp” (1925) and “The Doctor and the Doctor’s Wife” (1925). Strychacz names these two stories as examples of Hemingway’s early “dramas of manhood” (247) in which “Hemingway explores the ways characters watch each other, exhibit their potency, and—more often—reveal their shame” (247). And the beard is called out as a mask that covers Doctor Adams underlying shame in “The Doctor and the Doctor’s Wife.” The underlying pretension in the Doctor’s performance which is finally called out in “The Doctor and the Doctor’s Wife” is first hinted at in the preceding Doctor Henry Adams’ tale “Indian Camp.” As Strychacz’s close reading of these texts suggests, the performance of the Doctor is intertwined within the complex narratives of race and gender, even in these early examples of Hemingway’s writing. And the fact that this bearded performance of masculinity occurs over the two texts means that it is necessary to consider them together. In the first Doctor narrative, “Indian Camp,” the three white men (the Doctor, his son Nick Adams, and Uncle George) enter a space of the Other in terms of the interconnected issues of race and gender. Straight away, gender is problematised in the narrative when these three white men travel to the Indian camp to help an Indian woman who is trying to give birth. These men enter an intimate female space and take on the traditional female roles of midwives. This blurring of traditional binaries added to the insertion of the white male into this space has many consequences for the progression of the narrative, no less than those related to perceptions of manhood and masculine identity. There are many questions regarding the performance of Doctor Henry Adams in the text. The first is related to his role as father. Why would he bring his son to this distressing scene? There is the sense that he sees this as an opportunity to educate his son on such medical matters, or indeed, that he sees it as a formative step towards manhood. However, as Sarah B. Hardy argues, there is no paternal authority in the story, and “with no

82  The Need for a Shave good model in sight, this story’s take on masculinity seems open-­ended” (71), and such readings only add to the reader’s perception of the Doctor’s misplaced sense of his importance. The second concerns his view towards and treatment of the female body. It is not explained why he would come to the camp without any anaesthetic. Moreover, when Nick Adams implores his father to help the woman who is screaming in pain, the Doctor can only reply, “But her screams are not important. I don’t hear them because they are not important” (56). The third is the Doctor’s reaction following the procedure. Within the functions of the text, the Doctor’s celebratory mood is certainly inserted to heighten the sense of tragedy that is to come with the Doctor’s discovery that the wetness of the bunk above the Indian woman is the blood of her husband who has just committed suicide. But it also reveals key details about the Doctor’s grandiose sense of self. Not only is the Doctor “feeling exalted and talkative as football players are in the dressing room after a game” (58), but he also treats the entire situation as a distasteful joke: “ ‘That’s one for the medical journal, George,’ he said. ‘Doing a Caesarian with a jack-­knife and sewing it up with nine-­foot, tapered gut leaders’ ” (58). Overall, then, the evident irony in the performance of the Doctor in “Indian Camp” is centred on the distance between his perceived sense of self both in terms of his performance as a doctor and a father and the reader’s recognition of this misplaced conviction. This misplaced sense of the Doctor’s superiority is exposed in the subsequent story “The Doctor and the Doctor’s Wife” in one brief moment in which the Doctor’s involuntary move towards his beard reveals his subconscious anxieties. “The Doctor and the Doctor’s Wife” is a counterpoint to “Indian Camp” in various ways. First, instead of taking place in the Native American camp, this story is set in the domestic surroundings of the garden of Doctor Henry Adam’s home. Second, mirroring the plot of the three white men who go to the Indian camp, in this story Doctor Henry Adams employs three Indian men to come to his domestic surroundings to do work for him. Third, the relationship between husband and an enclosed wife is again a centre point of the narrative; however, in “The Doctor and the Doctor’s Wife,” it is the relationship between Doctor Henry Adams and his wife that is the core of the Doctor’s narrative. These three narrative threads are ultimately spun together to challenge the Doctor’s sense of his masculine identity and his masculine pride, both of which, I would argue, are tied into the Doctor’s beard. The sense of an underlying threat of violence intertwined with the performance of masculinity of the Native Americans resonates from the first lines of “The Doctor and the Doctor’s Wife.” Not only does the narrative begin with the introduction of the Indian men, but surely the naming of the main Indian character as Dick Boulton could in itself be read as being

The Need for a Shave 83 playfully suggestive of the broad masculinity of this man compared to the Doctor who is merely introduced as “Nick’s father” (98). The placement of both men in the first sentence of the story points to their positions: “Dick Boulton came from the Indian Camp to cut logs for Nick’s father” (98). Moreover, Dick’s affront to challenge the Doctor regarding the logs, “that’s a nice lot of timber you’ve stolen” (99), destabilises the Doctor’s apparent superior status not only due to his race but also his social standing. It is Dick’s challenge to the Doctor that initiates the main drive of the narrative, and the impact of this challenge is evident on the Doctor’s exterior with the reddening of his face. Their exchange reaches its climax when Dick pokes the Doctor repeatedly to the point that the Doctor retorts, “If you call me Doc once again, I’ll knock your teeth down your throat” (100). Dick’s answer stops the Doctor dead: “No you won’t, Doc” (100). It is here that the Doctor is forced to face the fallaciousness of his perceived superior status and notably the narrative moves towards the beard. It may seem an inconsequential detail, but the Doctor’s engagement with his beard and the placing of this engagement with the beard within the text is telling. Not only is the beard significant with regards to an outward sign of the Doctor’s inner insecurities in such a confrontation with the brawn of Dick Boulton, but it is also indicative of the Doctor’s perceived symbolic power of the beard. In the face of the threat of physical violence, with the other Indian men looking on, the Doctor makes a telling move: The doctor chewed the beard on his lower lip and looked at Dick Boulton. (100) As the story progresses following the quite juvenile act of chewing his beard, the various strands of the Doctor’s complex regarding his manliness emerge after he retreats from the confrontation with Dick and returns to the domestic surroundings of his home. Here, the medical journals, a symbol of superior intellect, remain unopened beside his bureau. There is the shotgun, which the Doctor spends his time carefully wiping before placing it carefully behind the feminine object of the dresser. And this is also the first time we encounter the Doctor’s wife from the story’s title. The fact that the Doctor’s wife is inserted into the title of the story must not be overlooked. First, we might argue that the identity of the Doctor is dependent on the domestic relationship with his wife. Rather than being an independent man in society, he is clearly tied to the domestic. And this in itself is a crucial detail, for the Doctor’s wife appears to occupy the stock role of the hysterical housebound wife. From the placing of the Doctor’s wife within the patriarchal perimeters of a darkened room with the blinds drawn, a room that she never leaves, to her being startled by

84  The Need for a Shave the sound of the Doctor letting the screen door slam behind him, there is the implicit suggestion that the Doctor’s wife is imprisoned within her role as wife and mother, a reading which is reinforced with her son, Nick Adams, later ignoring his mother’s requests to come visit her in the home, instead preferring to spend time with his father. While the Doctor’s wife appears to inhabit the role of the hysterical homemaker, her nervousness stopping her from having any sense of agency in the text, the irony again underpinning the performance of the Doctor is that it is his own nervousness that rises to the surface in his own interaction with his apparently masculinity-­affirming beard. The beard is suggestive of intellect and wisdom—generally gendered as masculine traits—and the Doctor reaches to his beard during Dick’s challenge to his perceived superior status. We might well assume that the Doctor is aware of the performative power of the beard and employs it as this masculine mask. As Nick Adams confirms in another Hemingway short, “Fathers and Sons” (1933), his father had “the beard that covered his weak chin” (394). Therefore, the Doctor’s move to chew his beard betrays the power that he intends the beard to have with regards to covering any masculine weakness and projecting an image of a calm and composed rational man of medicine and science. Hemingway’s first engagement with the beard in his fiction, therefore, points to the complexities of the beard and the textual suspicions towards the intentions behind the men wearing such facial hair. Ultimately, Hemingway’s early fiction displays an awareness of the symbolic power of facial stylings that only becomes more prominent in the narratives of masculinity of the leading men in Hemingway’s full-­length novels.

Men Needing a Shave: The Sun Also Rises (1927) The first major beard narrative in Hemingway’s long fiction is the need for a shave. In fact, the act of shaving is often used as an act of self-­ reflection. This seems logical enough—the act of shaving is symbolic on various levels, either as an act of cleansing, a step towards a transformation in appearance, or, indeed, a male character forcing himself to take an honest look at himself and his masculinity in the face of certain indecision and dilemma.12 The first strand of “the need for a shave” narrative is the placement of this statement as a judgement by one character on another character’s ill self-­discipline or flaw in his character. Such examples include the boxer Jack Brennan in “Fifty Grand” (1929): “Jack doesn’t say anything. He just sits there on the bed. He ain’t with the others. He’s just all by himself. He was wearing an old blue jersey and pants and had on boxing shoes. He needed a shave” (185); the soldiers in “Night Before Battle” (1939): “His leather coat was dirty and greasy, his eyes were hollow and he needed a shave” (101); or, indeed, Thomas Hudson’s struggles with his sense of worth which are manifested in his frustrated

The Need for a Shave 85 realisation that he needs to get “the two week stubble off his cheeks” in Islands in the Stream (1970): Should I shave now or wait until breakfast? Thomas Hudson thought. I ought to shave. That’s what I ordered the whisky for, to get me through the shaving. All right, go in and shave then. The hell with it, he thought. No. Go in and do it. It’s good for your damned morale and you have to go into town after breakfast. (230) Even in The Sun Also Rises, such a stance towards not shaving simmers under the surface in the tensions that define the social group of the text’s narrator Jake Barnes, and, in particular, his relationship with Robert Cohn. It is notable how Jake Barnes, in wanting to get across to the reader the obnoxiousness of one of their acquaintances, Harvey Stone, makes the remark that Harvey Stone “needed a shave” (37). From these prominent examples, the engagement with the trope of shaving, therefore, features in a range of Hemingway works, both in short stories and longer works. Although the scenes and the characters who feature in these scenes may differ, Hemingway’s texts employ the act of shaving as a performative act to offer a reflection on the performances of masculinity of these characters in relation to their peers. The first character in The Sun Also Rises who repeatedly needs a shave is Robert Cohn. The introduction of the novel revolves around the introduction of Robert Cohn and the performance of his masculinity through the perspective of the narrator Jake Barnes. In the opening chapters, Jake reveals a range of details regarding Cohn’s background and this narrative approach reveals how masculine identity is centred on the perception of this masculinity in the eyes of the male peer group. Cohn is introduced as the self-­proclaimed “boxing champion of Princeton” (3), a title which is said to have meant a lot to him as he learned the art of boxing “painfully and thoroughly to counteract the feeling of inferiority and shyness he had felt on being treated as a Jew at Princeton” (3). Cohn, being both Jewish and from one of the richest Jewish families in New York, appears as a masculine Other within Jake’s group.13 There is the suggestion of a superficiality to Cohn, at least through Jake’s eyes. Jake argues that Cohn’s self-­consciousness appears to be the main undoing of Cohn who marries young, has children, loses his father’s money, and then suffers the ignominy of his wife leaving him as he could not be the one to leave first. Moreover, Jake suggests that Cohn has let his recent literary success change his behaviour, he continues to have a high opinion of himself in certain hobbies and pursuits, and he has never been in love but repeatedly on the rebound from other relationships. However, rather than this introduction to Cohn revealing certain weaknesses in his character, these passages only serve to underline the role of the male gaze in the male peer

86  The Need for a Shave group in determining the performance of masculinity of the other male figures in the novel. As Strychacz argues in Hemingway’s Theaters of Masculinity, audiences play a central role in the fashioning of manhood in Hemingway’s narratives (76–86). And so, as much as these opening sections offer key details to the reader with regards to setting Robert Cohn as a central character, these sections reveal just as much about the key role of the male gaze in the formation of masculine identity in the narrative. The importance of the face and the desire for the affirmation of the male gaze lead logically to the importance of the beard and the act of shaving. Facial hair and the need or desire to get a shave begin to emerge in Book II of The Sun Also Rises when the narratives of instability, jealousy, and vulnerability surrounding the masculinity of the male figures and their status within their social group intensify. At this stage of the novel, Jake Barnes and Bill Gorton travel to Bayonne where they meet Robert Cohn. They are all waiting for other members of their social group, namely Brett Ashley and Mike Campbell, to join them. It is here during the discussion among Jake, Bill, and Cohn that certain underlying tensions begin to simmer, particularly with regards to Jake and Cohn. And beards and shaving play a subtle role in the underlying perceptions of the manliness and masculinity of these men. Through Jake’s narration, both in terms of his reflective moments and his engagement with Cohn, it is clear that he harbours some degree of jealousy towards Cohn spending time with their mutual love interest, Brett, in San Sebastian. What should not be overlooked is the seemingly understated but quite telling use of beards and shaving in Jake’s narration to undermine any sense of “superiority” (Jake’s word) that he perceives Cohn as enjoying for having travelled with Brett. The first example concerns the archetypal Hemingway masculinity-­ affirming activity of fishing. At the Spanish frontier, Jake, Bill, and Cohn stand with a carabineer while they wait for their driver to deal with some papers. Here, after Cohn asks one of the carabineers if there are any trout in the stream, Jake asks Cohn if he fishes: “I asked him if here ever fished, and he said no, that he didn’t care for it” (81). To further emphasise this jab at Cohn’s masculinity, a man appears suddenly in the text: Just then an old man with long, sunburned hair and beard, and clothes that looked as though they were made of gunny-­sacking, came striding up the bridge. He was carrying a long staff, and he had a kid slung on his back, tied by the four legs, the head hanging down. (81) The seemingly quite random appearance of such a bearded man at this point in the text follows the Hemingway narrative of the bearded Other (in this case, the bearded peasant) whose role is to underscore the

The Need for a Shave 87 perceived lack of manliness of the featured male figure in the scene, in this case, Robert Cohn. Following these implicit critiques of Cohn’s masculinity through the gaze of Jake Barnes, the main beard narrative of the “need for a shave” begins to emerge in the novel. After an awkward lunch during which, again, Jake once more subtly undermines Cohn’s masculinity with the mention of Cohn’s inability to eat a second meat course, the men go looking for somewhere to get a coffee. It is during this scene, following the tensions of their earlier discussion regarding Brett and Mike’s arrival, that Cohn makes the first announcement that “he was going over to get a shave” (84). However, he returns sharply as “The Barber Shop’s closed. . . . It’s not open til four” (84). (Cohn cannot even do this right!), Cohn’s desire to be cleanly shaven, or, we might propose, appear cleansed or pure, returns later that evening when Jake reveals that “At dinner that night we found that Robert Cohn had taken a bath, had had a shave and a haircut and a shampoo, and something put on his hair afterward to make it stay down” (85). Again later, in a moment in which the narrator Jake Barnes is offering an overview of the activities of each member of the group in Pamplona as they wait for the fiesta to begin, we are told that “Robert Cohn spent the mornings studying Spanish or trying to get a shave at the barbershop” (133). A key issue with Cohn’s need for a shave appears to be that to fulfil this need he goes looking for a barbershop. There is a distinct lack of close engagement with barbershops in Hemingway’s fiction. The most noticeable example occurs in Hemingway’s least serious novel Torrents of Spring (1926). Considered to have been written to fulfil Hemingway’s contract with Boni & Liveright and allow him to send his writing to Scribner, we might still echo one of the first reviews of Torrents of Spring in the New York Times Review of Books which dismissed the novel by titling the review “Mr. Hemingway Writes Some High-­Spirited Nonsense.” However, in Torrents of Spring, we have Hemingway’s only close engagement with the barbershop. In chapter 5 of the novel, Scripps O’Neil stands outside a barbershop and the reader sees inside the great glass window through the eyes of Scripps. This barbershop is a different world, a place of a certain class of men from a certain part of society. And Scripps feels the attraction to such a social space, a place of masculine self-­affirmation where these men sat “admiring their own reflections in the long mirror” (17). There is the sense here that such a barbershop is an exclusive space that an individual like Scripps could never be part of. This barbershop is “the warm room, the white jackets of the barbers skilfully snipping away with their scissors or drawing their blades diagonally through the lather that covered the face of some man who was getting a shave” (17). This barbershop is more than the barber chairs, the mirrors, the scissors, and the blades. This barbershop is a “society of men” (17) that Scripps ultimately turns his back on.

88  The Need for a Shave This idea of the barbershop also underpins Cohn’s trips to the barbershop in The Sun Also Rises. We might even argue that not only does Jake Barnes regard such trips with suspicion, but he sees Cohn’s need to shave within the barbershop as demasculinising. This is a logical reading from Jake Barnes’s perspective as his perception of Cohn is through the distorted prism of his own troubled virility and manliness following his wounded masculine status as a result of his participation in the seemingly masculinity-­affirming exploits of the recent World War. But Cohn’s repeated wish to go to the barbershop may also be read as his desire for the sanctuary of what is traditionally a masculinity-­affirming social space. The dichotomy, therefore, in the reading of symbolism of Cohn’s trips to the barbershops reflect the problematics inherent in the representations of masculinity in the novel, particularly in terms of the distorted views of the narrator Jake Barnes regarding the performance of Cohn’s masculinity from boxing to Brett to the barbershop, views which reveal a lot more about the underlying conflicts that characterise Jake Barnes’s own issues with his own masculine performance in the novel. The shaving trope continues to appear in The Sun Also Rises but shifts from Robert Cohn to Jake Barnes. After Cohn leaves another conversation in which Jake is discussing their mutual love interest, Brett, stating again, “I want to go over to the barber-­shop” (88), Jake decides to back to the Montoya hotel to find his friend Bill Gorton. Tellingly, Jake finds Bill in his room shaving in front of a mirror. This is a particularly poignant scene on a number of levels. First, the feature of the mirror in this scene must not be overlooked. The mirror is regarded as a symbolic object in Hemingway’s fiction. Some Hemingway scholars, such as Robert Fleming and Carl P. Eby, have gone as far as identifying the mirror as a site for Hemingway’s fetishism or a way for the author to reflect on the sins that accompany his obsession with his art.14 But simply with regards to characterisation, and to forward the masculinity interrogating narratives, Hemingway uses the mirror as a clever literary device for what are poignant revealing moments of masculine self-­reflection. One of the more obvious examples is Colonel Richard Cantwell in Hemingway’s fifth novel, Across the River and into the Trees (1950), a figure who we might see as a parody of Hemingway’s hyper-­masculine leading men. The text uses the mirror as a tool for Cantwell to expresses his misery at his deteriorating masculinity, encapsulated in his self-­reflective retort, “Now you have to shave and look at that face while you do it” (119). The openness between Jake Barnes and Bill Gorton is due to the second key feature of this scene: the mirror. The mirror allows Jake and Bill to be open and honest with each other for the first time in the text. This closeness and confidence are of notable contrast to the sense of escape and mystery regarding Cohn’s solo retreat to the barbershop. The intimacy between Jake and Bill here is not an intimacy simply in

The Need for a Shave 89 terms of their physical closeness but an emotional intimacy which also allows them to be open and honest with each other regarding the other members in their male social group. It is important to not overlook the significance of Bill in the narrative. This is the first moment in the novel in which Jake Barnes speaks openly without irony to another male figure. Bill operates as a companion to Jake in the text, a male figure who allows him to engage in moments of self-­reflection. When the discussion begins between Jake and Bill, the narration focuses on Bill’s act of shaving: “Bill looked around, half-­shaved, and then went on talking into the mirror while he lathered his face” (89). With his half-­shaved face, we might argue that Bill occupies this halfway position in the narrative. Bill is somewhat of a voice of reason, someone who is aware of the ironies in their issues and concerns. He admits and encourages Jake to admit that Robert Cohn is a nice man, but he is also aware that Cohn can be too much and regards his superficiality with short shrift. When Bill finds out that Brett went to San Sebastian with Cohn, and the impact that surely must have had on Jake, he offers his reading of the situation: “What bloody-­fool things people do” (89). But Bill also sees the irony of such concerns regarding Brett and is not too afraid to make fun of himself and his own attractiveness to someone as desirable as Brett is in the narrative: “ ‘Why not me?’ He looked at his face carefully in the glass, put a big dab of lather on each cheek-­bone. ‘It’s an honest face. It’s a face any woman would be safe with’ ” (89). When Jake teases that “ ‘[s]he’d never seen it’ ” (89), Bill’s fresh-­faced speech to Jake and to his reflection in the mirror playfully points at the underlying power of the shaven male visage: She should have. All women should see it. It’s a face that ought to be thrown on every screen in the country. Every woman ought to be given a copy of this face as she leaves the altar. Mothers should tell their daughters about this face. “My son”—he pointed the razor at me—“go west with this face and grow up with the country.” He ducked down to the bowl, rinsed his face with cold water, put on some alcohol, and then looked at himself carefully in the glass, pulling down his long upper lip. “My God!” he said, “isn’t it an awful face?” (89–90) This comic relief following Jake’s narration of the tensions underlying the conflict between Jake and Cohn regarding Brett is very much welcomed at this point in the text. Bill’s act of shaving, and Jake’s opportunity to watch Bill shave, resonates in terms of how it allows both men, but particularly Jake, to stop and consider the complexities of the situation. We might argue, therefore, that this act of shaving at this moment in The Sun Also Rises has a tripartite impact on the characters in the text: it is a

90  The Need for a Shave moment of self-­cleansing, it is transformative, and it forces certain men to reflect on the dilemmas in the performance of their masculinity before they embark together on a trip to enjoy the masculinity-­affirming activity of trout fishing. There is one final shaving scene in The Sun Also Rises which resonates with symbolic power pertaining to the act of shaving in the novel. In the closing section, tensions heighten as the fiesta continues in Pamplona. Mirroring the earlier shaving scene between Jake and Bill, in which Jake visits Bill’s room where he finds Bill in the middle of a shave, this shaving scene features Jake again; however, on this occasion, it is Montoya, the owner of the hotel in which they are staying, who visits Jake’s room to find Jake shaving. First of all, the setting of this shaving scene within the Montoya hotel underlines the greater significance of this shaving encounter. The text clearly sets out the Montoya hotel as the place were Hemingway’s men go to affirm their masculinity in the eyes of fellow men. In telling contrast to the closed social space of the barbershop which Robert Cohn repeatedly visits, a concealed space that we might argue reflects Jake’s lack of true understanding of Cohn’s complex issues underpinning his masculine identity, the Montoya hotel is a place of male camaraderie in which these men who are fans of bullfighting, considered one of the most macho performances on masculinity, come to a safe space in which they can openly (re)affirm their masculinity.15 Central to the masculine camaraderie in the Montoya hotel is an indeterminate and vague Spanish concept of afición. Throughout these Montoya hotel scenes, the owner Montoya repeatedly affirms that Jake is a true “aficionado”; in other words, he is accepted into this hypermasculine Spanish fraternity. As Jake reflects, there is not even the need for these men to communicate with each other as the whole point of this space was “it was simply the pleasure of discovering what we each felt” (115). Here, protected from the outside world, these men are safe to reaffirm their manliness in the masculine-­affirming gaze of each other, no more so than in the gaze of Montoya during the final shaving scene. The premise behind this final shaving scene is Montoya’s desire to ask Jake for his advice on how he might stop their prize bull-­fighter, Romero, joining the American ambassador for a drink. As Montoya comments, “[p]eople take a boy like that. They don’t know what he’s worth. They don’t know what he means. Any foreigner can flatter him” (151). The irony, of course, is that the Americans in the text later do get involved with Romero; however, rather than it being the ambassador, it is Jake’s group that spoil the fighter’s focus, in particular Brett Ashley. Although this may seem like a straightforward motive for a visit to Jake’s room, there is the suggestion of a symbolic subplot from the tangible tension in these brief moments between Jake and Montoya. Jake is already shaving when Montoya knocks at the door, and when Jake calls for him to come in, we are told that Montoya, after asking if Jake is alone, “smiled

The Need for a Shave 91 his embarrassed smile” (151). The smile is a repeating trope in the interactions between Jake and Montoya. The smile is employed in the narrative as a subtle sign of some deeper connection between these men, particularly with regards to the notions of masculinity. When Jake first speaks with Montoya in the lobby of the hotel, Jake’s narration dedicates a moment of reflection to the significance of Montoya’s smile: He smiled again. He always smiled as though bull-­fighting were a very special secret between the two of us; a rather shocking but really very deep secret that we knew about. He always smiled as though there were something lewd about the secret to outsiders, but that it was something that we understood. It would not do to expose it to people who would not understand. (115) Jake’s narration, therefore, acknowledges the connection between these men. Jake clearly attaches importance to Montoya’s acceptance of him within this Spanish fraternity of aficionados of the most traditional performances of masculinity in Spain. Moreover, there is the sense that Jake feels their connection is something deeper that extends beyond their shared love of bullfighting, a connection that simmers again when Montoya walks in on Jake shaving in his room. Jake’s shaving scene occurs amid the backdrop of a change in the weather in Pamplona. The bad weather—the rain, the fog, the gloom— signals a shift in the narrative also. With the heavy rain falling outside, and the bull-­fighting postponed for the day, Montoya comes to Jake’s room and watches Jake engage in this intimate activity. Jake repeatedly asks Montoya to sit and have a drink, but Montoya repeatedly declines the offer, preferring to stand and watch. When Jake finishes shaving and puts his face into the bowl of cold water, Montoya is still there, “looking more embarrassed” (151). Montoya is embarrassed throughout the encounter with Jake, from his embarrassed smile to being embarrassed watching Jake shave to continuing to stand there in the room embarrassed. We might read Montoya’s embarrassment as indicative of his awareness of the intimacy of such a situation, both in terms of what he is asking of Jake with regards to Jake’s advice about the American ambassador and the bull-­fighter Romero and with regards to the physical intimacy of these two men alone in the room while one of them is in the middle of shaving himself. Placed within the context of the developing narrative between Jake and Montoya—and the public and private elements of their mutual masculinity-­affirming activities as fellows with afición—this scene plays on the ambiguities inherent in this intimate moment away from the public demonstrations of masculinity in the lobby of the hotel. What we can say, ultimately, is that despite Jake’s various trysts with Brett Ashley in The Sun Also Rises, the most

92  The Need for a Shave intimate moments in the novel for Jake Barnes are the encounters with other men within the masculinity-­affirming group who are watching, or being watched, while one of them needs a shave. Clearly The Sun Also Rises is centrally concerned with the complexities that underpin the performance of masculinity and the impact of the conflicts and tensions that shape such performances within the male peer group. What is notable is the symbolic power of the act of shaving in such performances. First, Robert Cohn’s repeated need for a shave, and the subsequent frequent visits to the local barbershop, is a subtle detail in Cohn’s narrative, but it is directly connected to his performance and Jake Barnes’s perception of Cohn’s masculinity. Cohn goes to the barbershop when his masculinity is challenged, either by Jake’s and Bill’s teasing and taunting or when he feels he needs to face the challenge of the other men in the group in his infatuation with Brett Ashley. The barbershop is traditionally considered a space for the cultivation of a masculine image, and so there is certainly something in having Cohn make this trip again and again. But, even more poignantly, the fact that the barbershop is a secret place for Cohn, or indeed is often closed, underlines the subversion of the barbershop as a place of masculinity affirmation. The other men in the text shave in their hotel rooms—why does Cohn not do the same? It would seem that he needs to surroundings of the barbershop that offer that sense of masculine rejuvenation. Second, the mirrored narratives of pairs of male characters having intimate discussions while one of the men is shaving is another notable feature of The Sun Also Rises. The intimacy of these encounters is obviously the first striking feature, but it is also the symbolic power of such scenes, in which the men involved, but particularly Jake Barnes, are focused to reflect upon the tensions and conflicts that are underpinning their actions and the actions of their peers. There is the implicit suggestion of the text’s awareness of the importance of these scenes: first, with the shaving scene between Jake and Bill is the first time that Jake has an intimate discussion with another male friend that is not driven by a public masculine performance and, second, with the inclusion of the inversion of the first scene with Jake now being the one who is shaving himself in a delicate exchange with the owner of the Montoya hotel, a place which is considered to be a place of staunch macho-­ness and masculinity. As Strychacz suggests, “in The Sun Also Rises no man escapes from theatricality and self-­dramatisation into the full presence of autonomous selfhood” (86). The intimate act of shaving plays a key role in the spectacle of such performances of masculinity in The Sun Also Rises, a novel about watching and being watched.

Hemingway’s Men Resisting the Beard: A Farewell to Arms (1929) The persistence of the symbolic power of the act of shaving continues in Hemingway’s next published work, A Farewell to Arms (1929). Like Jake

The Need for a Shave 93 Barnes, Frederic Henry is another manifestation of wounded masculinity. And just like Jake Barnes, Frederic Henry is aware of his performance of his masculinity in various situations. Three key points emerge in the narrative of Henry’s engagement with his facial hair and the performance of his masculinity: his issue with the pretentious pogonotrophy he associates with men who wear beards, his desire to get a shave at certain key moments, and his personal conflict in the final sections of the novel with fulfilling Catherine’s request for him to become one of those men who grow a beard. Frederic Henry’s awareness of the sociological discourses underlying beard wearing is notable at key instances in A Farewell to Arms. We might say that this awareness is part of what Strychacz calls the “near epidemic of posings, self-­ conscious self-­ dramatizations, and counterfeit identities” (93) of Hemingway’s leading men, particularly Frederic Henry. Henry displays his expert ability to masquerade as a man of differing nationalities and languages, and he is well aware of the power of appearance. Throughout the text, he displays his acute awareness of the “markers of identity” (101), as Strychacz calls them, and their importance in such performances of masculinity. There is one marker in particular that Henry is aware of: the beard. The first strand of the beard narrative in A Farewell to Arms is Henry’s cynicism towards beard wearing. The first example of beard wearing in the novel is Henry’s sight of the beard on the visage of the King of Italy. The remarks are not complimentary of a man in such an elevated position in society: “the king passing in his motor car, sometimes now seeing his face and little long necked body and gray beard like a goat’s chin tuft” (5). The goat pejorative returns later in reference to Vittorio Emmanuele: “the tiny man with the long thin neck and the goat beard” (35). Later, at the end of Book I, when Frederic is in the hospital convalescing after his escape, the beard emerges in conversation with Rinaldi and the major. Rinaldi wants Frederic to go to the American hospital “with the beautiful nurses. Not the nurses with the beards of the field hospital” (71). When the major acknowledges this to be a good idea, Frederic interjects, “I don’t mind their beards, I said. If any man wants to raise a beard let him. Why don’t you raise a beard, Signor Maggiore?” (71). Despite his feelings towards full facial hair that continues throughout the novel, Henry displays his awareness of the symbolic power of the beard for men wishing to appear as a certain rank in society. Frederic’s overall distrust of beards, particularly within medical environs, is clear at key moments in A Farewell to Arms. First, when he is visited by the doctors in the hospital in Milan, it is evident that Frederic starts judging them immediately by their appearance. And, of course, one of them has a beard (87). Frederic also notices that the bearded doctor is only a first captain, rather than a major, and therefore refutes his diagnosis and the suggested treatment. Of course, bearded doctors are

94  The Need for a Shave a recurring trope in Hemingway’s fiction and the beard as an indicator of pretentiousness, from “Indian Camp” to For Whom the Bell Tolls. In the final tragic scenes of A Farewell to Arms, this issue with doctors and beards re-­emerges. When Frederic returns to the delivery room, where his partner, Catherine Barkley, struggles to give birth, he catches sight of his bearded reflection in a mirror and rejects his appearance: I rode upstairs in the elevator, stepped out and went down the hall to Catherine’s room, where I had left my white gown. I put it on and pinned it back at the neck. I looked in the glass and saw myself looking like a fake doctor with a beard. (282) It is clear, then, from the beard of Henry Adams in “Indian Camp,” the narrative of the doctor’s beard concealing some hidden weakness behind the protective mask of pretension recurs in Hemingway’s narratives. From this distrust towards the beard, it might be expected that being totally clean-­shaven is Frederic Henry’s indicator of rank and responsibility. Rather, it is the moustache that is employed in the text as a sign of certain prestige. In “The Fashion of Machismo” (2000), Marilyn Elkins focuses on “the lieutenant’s moustaches” in A Farewell to Arms. Elkins makes the point that the moustache would be “the prop that Hemingway would soon adopt” due to the fact that “it helped emphasise its wearer’s masculinity and served as an ideal cosmetic for reinscribing his masculinity” (100). In other words, Elkins argues that Hemingway regards certain stylisations of facial hair and military garb as evidence of the appearance of manliness. Would it not be more accurate to say, however, that Hemingway was looking to present the idea of a stable masculinity rather than a hyper-­masculine persona? The moustache seems to have played a key role in this. As Elkins suggests, [b]y the 1940s Hemingway had added his signature white curly beard to his moustache, thus enlarging his announcement that he was entitled to all that is rightfully the purview of the male, and by the mid-­1950s this beard would become such a recognisable symbol for Hemingway. (104–5) Taking a further look at the key role of the moustache in A Farewell to Arms might help further appreciate the symbolic power of the moustache in Hemingway’s narratives of masculinity during this time.16 While it might be argued that the consistent appearance of the moustache in A Farewell to Arms may well be due to the simple fact that the moustache was in fashion during those years, particularly for those men in positions of authority in the military, it is how the text employs the

The Need for a Shave 95 moustache that underlines its greater symbolic power. The moustache is not only a common feature of the dress of the majors and other elderly men, but the moustache is part of a healthy countenance. Almost all the majors mentioned have the “upturned moustache” (44, 90). Count Greffi, an old man with “beautiful manners,” is “an old man with white hair and moustache” (226). The first soldier Frederic and Catherine see when they reach Switzerland has “a healthy-­looking face and a little toothbrush moustache” (247). The other noticeable wearer is Dr. Valentini, the man who gives Frederic a second opinion regarding his knee and operates straight away. Rather than his medical meticulousness or the soundness of his more positive prognosis, it is the power of the moustache on his face that seems to be his most important feature for Frederic. In such a short exchange, the moustache is mentioned three times: first, upon his entrance: “Two hours later Dr Valentini came into the room. He was in a great hurry and the points of his moustache stood straight up. He was a major, his face was tanned and he laughed all the time” (90); second, when he accepts the offer of a drink from Frederic: “What a lovely girl. I will bring a better cognac than that.’ He wiped his moustache” (90); and, finally, at the end of the scene when he leaves: “He waved from the doorway, his moustaches went straight up, his brown face was smiling” (91). Clearly, in A Farewell to Arms, the moustache for Frederic Henry is a sign of intellect, wisdom, and authority as well as good health. The only questionable moustache in A Farewell to Arms appears on the face of the character that makes hair his profession: the barber who comes to shave Frederic in the hospital. This scene offers some comic relief in the novel, with the text playing on the narrative of the violent barber ready to use his sharp razor on the exposed neck of his client. This barber also has “an upturned moustache” (83) but is very solemn and reserved. In fact, he believes Frederic to be Austrian, rather than American, and so believes that he is shaving the enemy when he says, “The enemy’s ears are everywhere. . . . I will tell nothing” (83). Frederic takes the underlying threat of violence seriously, especially at the point when the barber warns him “Beware . . . the razor is sharp” (83). But, of course, being clean-­shaven, just as in The Sun Also Rises, is an outward sign of masculine readiness. In this instance, Frederic wants to be shaved in anticipation of seeing Catherine Barkley again. The irony, of course, is that Catherine, at least in the final scenes of the novel, appears to prefer Frederic with a full beard. Despite the backdrop of the First World War, it may well be argued that the central narrative of A Farewell to Arms is the relationship between Frederic Henry and Catherine Barkley. And this is crucial, with Hemingway scholars noting how the women in the lives of Hemingway’s male protagonists play a central role in the engagement with the performances of gender and masculinity in Hemingway’s texts. As Sanderson writes, “[Hemingway’s] fiction females reflect his responses to the on-­ going

96  The Need for a Shave reformulations of gender in the culture at large and to such specific manifestations as the rise of women within the literary world” (171). Central to the relationship between Frederic Henry and Catherine Barkley and therefore central to these reformulations of gender, and, we might add, masculinity, is the beard. From the examples cited earlier, it is clear that Frederic Henry takes a critical position against the issue of beard wearing. Hemingway scholars, such as Carl P. Eby and Marc Hewson, have debated the role of the beard in this text. While Eby states that Frederic’s beard “wards off cross-­ gender identification and reinforces anatomical difference of the sexes” (qtd. in Hewson 59), Hewson quite shrewdly sidesteps such a reading to emphasise how the beard further complicates Frederic’s performance of his masculinity in relation to Catherine and underlines Frederic Henry’s growing “wariness of external definitions of identity” (59). On one hand, Frederic Henry displays a clear distrust for men in certain positions of responsibility who wear a beard. On the other hand, Frederic requests a shave in key moments in the narrative, particularly when it seems that he wants to appear more masculine in the eyes of Catherine. The irony in this, however, lies in the fact that Catherine sees the beard as a projection of staunch manliness and is later successful following her persistent requests for Frederic Henry to grow a beard. Underlying Catherine’s desire for Frederic Henry to grow a beard is the suggestion that this is connected to the consistent Hemingway narrative of the feminisation and/or demasculinisation of his male protagonists. In the later stages of the narrative, following Frederic’s escape from the war and their desire to leave Italy and start a new life together, Catherine voices her concerns about the impact of this on Frederic’s sense of his masculinity. Catherine repeatedly questions Henry as to why he would want a seemingly feminising domesticated and domesticating life instead of focusing on masculine-­affirming activities with his male friends. In one scene, Catherine insists: “Wouldn’t you like to go on a trip somewhere by yourself, darling, and be with men and ski?” “No. Why should I?” “I should think sometimes you would want to see other people besides me.” “Do you want to see other people?” “No.” “Neither do I.” “I know. But you’re different. I’m having a child and that makes me contented not to do anything. I know I’m awfully stupid now and I talk too much and I think you ought to get away so you won’t be tired of me.” “Do you want me to go away?”

The Need for a Shave 97 “No. I want you to stay.” “That’s what I’m going to do.” (264) Could it be argued that the text is presenting Catherine’s insistence on the inevitability of Frederic Henry becoming “restless” (265) in new domestic bliss on Frederic as a weakness in her character? With Frederic Henry’s more complex engagement with the beard and facial hair throughout the narrative, Catherine’s request for Frederic to grow a beard could be read as the text pointing to such a request as indicative of her naivety. This would seem to fit with the position that Hemingway scholars take with regards to the females in Hemingway’s texts. As Nancy R. Comley remarks in her essay on Hemingway’s women, these female characters are “finely drawn figures, frustrated and limited by their social roles and one-­dimensional relationship to the men in their lives” (412–13). There is the possibility, therefore, to read Catherine’s desire for Frederic Henry to grow a beard as a sign of the general naivety of Catherine, as well as a naivety towards the issue of beard wearing in comparison with the male protagonist. This possible reading of Catherine’s character is reinforced in chapter 38 with the scene in which Catherine insists that Henry would surely like to pursue more masculine-­affirming activities rather than spend time with her. Again, Catherine turns the conversation towards the beard: “Darling, would you like to grow a beard?” “Would you like me to?” “It might be fun. I’d like to see you with a beard.” “All right. I’ll grow one. I’ll start now this minute. It’s a good idea. It will give me something to do.” (264) Henry, wanting to appease his wife, relents to her demands. Catherine repeats her admiration for the beard at various points, encouraging Henry when he has doubts. When Frederic asks her, “And now do you want me to stop growing my beard or let it go on” (266), Catherine replies by imploring him: “Go on. Grow it. It will be exciting. Maybe it will be done for New Year’s” (266). As the narrative moves to January, Catherine praises Frederic’s “splendid beard,” which she sees as having a notable masculinising effect due to the fact that “it looks just like the woodcutters’ ” (269). Catherine later gives her final verdict on this new beard: “I love your beard,” Catherine said. “It’s a great success. It looks so stiff and fierce and it’s very soft and a great pleasure.”

98  The Need for a Shave “Do you like it better than without?” “I think so.” (270) But Henry is not satisfied with his new look. Once again, following his cynical position towards the meaning of men sporting beards, he sees himself as another American seduced by the idea that a few hairs on his face afford him a more masculine appearance. In fact, in complete contrast to this view, Frederic regards the beard as an impairment in his ability to actually perform masculinity-­affirming activities, such as boxing, one of the recurring features in Hemingway’s texts. As Frederic Henry reflects when he tries to do some exercise at home, I could not shadow-­box in front of the narrow long mirror at first because it looked so strange to see a man with a beard boxing. But finally I just thought it was funny. I wanted to take off the beard as soon as I started boxing but Catherine did not want me to. (275) Thomas Strychacz, in Hemingway’s Theaters of Masculinity, forwards on from Peter Messent’s reading of the “masquerade motif” in Hemingway’s writing to argue that A Farewell to Arms should be read as a masquerade of masculinity (98). And, of course, the idea of the beard as a mask should be taken quite literally in the text. Masks are a major trope in the narrative, both actual physical masks and the many masks that Frederic Henry wears throughout the narrative in order to project the necessary appearance in whatever situation he finds himself in. Frederic Henry’s awareness of the symbolic power of the beard is a key component in this beard narrative. From judging others who wear the beard, to his own self-­loathing when he grows a beard for Catherine, Frederic Henry is acutely aware of the importance of such exterior elements in the everyday performance of masculinity and the falseness hiding behind such flocculence.

Americans and Their Beards: For Whom the Bell Tolls (1940) From the examples cited above in The Sun Also Rises and A Farewell to Arms, the beard is regarded in Hemingway’s text as something to be shaven. From Robert Cohn’s need for a shave and Jake Barnes’s highly charged shaving scenes in northern Spain to Frederic Henry’s suspicion towards the true meaning behind beard wearing in Italy and later Switzerland, there is the consistent narrative that Hemingway’s protagonists wrestle with the true meanings behind such pogonography. Hemingway’s

The Need for a Shave 99 third major successful novel, For Whom the Bell Tolls (1940), returns to the beard once more in this narrative of masculinity with the novel’s protagonist Robert Jordan. For Whom the Bell Tolls was a major success for Hemingway commercially and critically. Departing from Hemingway’s characteristic iceberg approach in his short stories, this full-­length novel was lauded at the time for its tightly constructed plot and, in many ways, being Hemingway’s most straightforward novel. Although we might argue that the text has not aged as well as some other Hemingway texts, most notably due to the melodrama, the stunted characterisation, and Hemingway’s infamous decision to use thee and thou in the dialogue, For Whom the Bell Tolls remains a key novel for the performances of masculinity in the text. Most notably, in the context of this critical reading of the symbolic power of facial hair, the beard again emerges as a trope tied into the masculine performance of Robert Jordan, another Hemingway war hero. As Thomas Strychacz argues in Hemingway’s Theaters of Masculinity (2003), For Whom the Bell Tolls is centrally concerned with notions of watching. As Strychacz argues, “[o]f all Hemingway’s books, For Whom the Bell Tolls shows the most concern with the exercise of scopic regimes of power” (107). The powers of the panopticon male gaze are played out between Robert Jordan and the others in the guerrilla group in chapter 16 in what Strychacz labels as “cave-­theatre” (109). Here, Robert Jordan is challenged by the others member in the group and is involved in a notable confrontation with one guerrilla named Pablo. What Strychacz fails to mention, however, is central to their confrontations at this stage of the narrative is Robert Jordan’s beard. The fact that the beard should feature at the height of the theatrical performance of masculinity in For Whom the Bell Tolls is not surprising. Beards feature throughout the novel, starting in the very first chapter. If we accept Strychacz’s reading that central to Robert Jordan’s performance of his military masculinity is the scopic gaze of panopticon power, then it only follows that the beard should play a key role in the narrative’s Othering of the Spanish guerrillas. The peasant Other is often treated this way in a Hemingway novel. From the peasants of “Out of Season” (1924), The Sun Also Rises (1926), “An Alpine Idyll” (1927), A Farewell to Arms (1929), and For Whom the Bell Tolls (1940) to the man with the beard and rifle in “A Way You’ll Never Be” (1933), the Other in Hemingway’s novels is often a bearded stock character. Hemingway reveals his awareness of this in a letter to John Dos Passos in 1936: “You can tell the hero always because he is pimpled. The villain is bearded” (Selected Letters 447). Continuing this narrative, there is a certain stereotypical association of the beard with badness through the gaze of Hemingway’s leading men. The beard is a key feature of one of the first guerrillas that Robert Jordan

100  The Need for a Shave meets in For Whom the Bell Tolls. This Othering emanates from the narrator’s voice that is refracted through Robert Jordan’s gaze: Robert Jordan looked at the man’s heavy, beard-­stubbled face. It was almost round and his head was round and set close to his shoulders. His eyes were small and set too far apart and his ears were small and set close to his head. . . . His nose had been broken and his mouth was cut at one corner and the line of the scar across the upper lip and lower jaw showed through the growth of beard over his face. (12) The black or greying stubbled beards of the natives, as referred to in this instance and which continues in chapter 3, chapter 4, chapter 25, chapter 27, and chapter 43, suggest Robert Jordan’s judgemental view of the beard when worn by the Spanish locals. The beard is firmly set in this text as an indicator of primitiveness and uncleanliness with an undeniable underlying threat of violence. This view of the beard as a sign of the savagery of the Other is complicated further in For Whom the Bell Tolls with the importance that Robert Jordan places on a clean appearance and the fact that Robert Jordan himself does, in fact, grow a beard as the narrative progresses. But Robert Jordan has a complex relationship with the beard. The first mention of Robert Jordan’s beard is during an intimate moment with his love interest, Maria. And their opposite feelings towards the beard is telling. During a romantic embrace, Robert Jordan reaches over to check the time. As he does so, his stubbled chin scratches Maria’s bare shoulder. When Robert Jordan apologies, blaming the lack of tools to shave, Maria, echoing another Hemingway love interest, Catherine Barkley, tells him that she in fact likes men with a beard: “Thy chin scratches my shoulder.” “Pardon it. I have no tools to shave.” “I like it. Is thy beard blond?” “Yes.” “And will it be long?” “Not before the bridge. Maria, listen. Dost thou-­?” (76) This is short exchange, but it is bristling with the underlying tensions regarding Robert Jordan’s performance of his masculinity within the context of the guerrilla group. First of all, Robert Jordan’s apology underlines his expectation that Maria does not like beards. And why should she? She is now with him, the American academic, who differentiates himself not only in terms of intellect and technical ability in the job that he is required to do for the guerrillas but also in his appearance—the blond

The Need for a Shave 101 hero versus the dark bearded peasants. When Maria surprises Robert Jordan by saying that she likes his beard and indicates her preference for it to be long, Robert Jordan can only respond to what he regards as this unexpected questioning of his masculinity by framing it around the task that he is there to do. Moreover, the fact that Maria highlights its blond colour underlines the visual impact of the beard in its contrast with the dark beards of the Spanish members of the group, and, we might assume, Robert Jordan’s perception of the lack of visual power of his own beard and therefore, by extension, the lack of visible manliness compared to the other men in the group. The bearded cave theatre at this stage of For Whom the Bell Tolls reaches its climax with the confrontation between Robert Jordan and Pablo. Crucially, it is the beard which is at the centre of such a contest. The drama in the scene begins to rise when Robert Jordan invites Maria to eat with him. She refuses, stating that women should eat after the men. When Robert insists, stating that women eat with men in his country, Maria refuses again, and it is here that Pablo, well into the process of getting drunk, interjects: “Eat with him. Drink with him. Sleep with him. Die with him. Follow the customs of his country” (214). Robert Jordan rises to the provocation, and it is noticeable that the detail offered in the narrative is the growth of beard on Pablo’s face. Standing in front of Pablo, Robert Jordan sees nothing more than a “dirty, stubble-­faced man” (214). From here, Pablo pokes at Robert Jordan’s masculinity, trying to provoke him further by insisting that men wear skirts in his country and asking what he wears under his skirt (214). Once Pilar questions Pablo’s masculinity, Pablo turns his attention again to Robert Jordan. This over-­the-­top theatrical performance of manliness and masculinity is then taken further when Robert Jordan reveals that he teaches Spanish at a university. Pablo is quick to reject the suggestion of Robert’s higher intellectual or social status in the group, and he does so by attacking his lack of beard. Pablo is insistent, stating, “He has no beard” (217), before repeating, “Look at him. He has no beard” (217). He is adamant that the lack of a manly beard means that Robert is a fake: “He’s a false professor,” Pablo said, very pleased with himself. “He hasn’t got a beard” (219). What is noticeable is that Robert does not reply with a defence of his capabilities for doing such a job, such as emphasising his experience or qualifications or indeed his command of Spanish; rather, Robert considers the proclamation that he cannot be a professor as he has no beard as a direct challenge of his masculinity and status in the group. Robert revokes Pablo’s drunken challenge, but as the American, his manliness is nothing more than a few days of blond stubble (219): “What do you mean, I have no beard?” Robert Jordan said. “What’s this?” He stroked his chin and his cheeks where the three-­ day growth made a blond stubble.

102  The Need for a Shave “Not a beard,” Pablo said. He shook his head. “That’s not a beard.” He was almost jovial now. “He’s a false professor.” “I obscenity in the milk of it all,” Agustín said, “if it does not seem like a lunatic asylum here.” “You should drink,” Pablo said to him. To me everything appears normal. Except the lack of beard of Don Roberto. (219) The ability to grow a beard—or not, as the case may be—is repeatedly probed as the ultimate performance of masculinity in this Spanish cave. Robert Jordan’s contested American manliness is further complicated by the fact that it is Maria, the woman who connects Robert Jordan and Pablo, who jumps to Robert Jordan’s defence. But, by doing so, this only serves to underline the lack of manliness of Robert Jordan and his barely visible blond stubble: Maria ran her hand over Robert Jordan’s cheek. “He has a beard,” she said to Pablo. “You should know,” Pablo said and Robert Jordan looked at him. (219) The tensions continue to rise, and indirectly through the narrator, we are privy to Robert Jordan’s thoughts of killing Pablo, as Robert Jordan sees him as a danger to the overall mission. Pablo senses this and refutes the idea that Robert Jordan would have the cojones to commit such an act: “Don Roberto,” Pablo said heavily. “Don Pablo,” Robert Jordan said. “You’re no professor,” Pablo said, “because you haven’t got a beard. And also to do away with me you have to assassinate me and, for this, you have not cojones. (221) The scene ends with Agustín being the one to confront Pablo and strike him many times across the face while Robert Jordan sits impotent, the phallic pistol in hand but hidden under the table. Robert Jordan’s blond beard, therefore, continues the complex narrative of the difficult relationship Hemingway’s male protagonists have with their facial hair. Robert Jordan, the masculine gaze in For Whom the Bell Tolls, differentiates himself from the local fighters through their dark beards but is then himself drawn into the spectacle of beard growing and beard wearing as a marker of masculinity before being undermined and rejected by these Others due to his own inability to grow such a dark beard. Just like Hemingway’s other leading men,

The Need for a Shave 103 Robert Jordan is required to suffer some degree of humiliation at some point in the narrative and it occurs here in the cave theatre that plays out between Pablo and Robert Jordan. On one hand, this humiliation manifests in the importance of self-­fashioning for the Hemingway protagonist, and as such, being unable to fulfil the “need for a shave” is presented as a weak element of the performance of masculinity. It also seems to indicate a lack of agency or control over their situation. On the other hand, this humiliation emerges in the reactions of those who are perceived as the Other from the perspective of the leading male figure or the inner dialogue of the leading male figure refracted through the novel’s narrator, reactions that underline the beard as a pretentious projection of superiority.

Hemingway’s Fixation With Facial Hair For a writer famous for the masculine image projected by his Papa beard, the problematics that unpin Hemingway’s engagement with the beard in his fiction is a startlingly persistent narrative. As this chapter has illustrated, from his early short fiction to his most successful novels, Hemingway uses the beard as a complicating trope in the performance of his male protagonists. With the triumvirate of Jake Barnes, Robert Jordan, and Frederic Henry, quite simply Hemingway’s most famous leading men from his most successful novels, the three main strands of the role of facial hair in the performance of masculinity intertwine. First and foremost, framing these three main threads is the idea that masculinity is can only be affirmed in the eyes of other men. In other words, in order to appear masculine, it is necessary to have an audience, indeed a male audience, to confirm the success of such an image. Emerging unexpectedly in these intertwined beard narratives is the “need for a shave.” The act of shaving features in various Hemingway narratives, but in particular, The Sun Also Rises has a revealingly intimate act in which the underlying issues of the main characters are pushed to the tip of the iceberg. This might seem surprising, but the beard is clearly regarded in Hemingway texts as a pretentious mask of insecure masculinity. From Doctor Henry Adams in Hemingway’s early short fiction to Frederic Henry in A Farewell to Arms, the beard is regarded as a symbol of pretension rather than a sign of manliness or virility. What is also noticeable about Hemingway’s leading men is their awareness of this fact. As well as Frederic Henry in A Farewell to Arms, Robert Jordan in For Whom the Bell Tolls is also acutely aware of the type of image that the beard can represent. Hemingway reinforces this awareness that his leading men appear to have with the implicit criticism in his narratives of the female figures that ask their love interests to grow a beard. It seems inevitable that Catherine Barkley would meet her tragic end after making the apparently naïve request that Frederic Henry grow a beard just for her. Ultimately, while it might seem

104  The Need for a Shave that the beard is central to Hemingway’s particular brand of masculinity away from the text, it is clear that there is a more complex engagement with the beard in a Hemingway text—and, because of this, the act of shaving becomes an act loaded with meaning for Hemingway’s men (and for Hemingway himself) who all seem to struggle to find their true selves in front of the unforgiving mirror.

Notes 1. Moddelmog cites a number of scholars who argue how Hemingway produced his public persona with the help of an accelerating celebrity and consumer culture (17). 2. See the breakdown of the critical and commercial success that Hemingway enjoyed in Laurence W. Mazzeno’s The Critics and Hemingway, 1924–2014 (2015), a meticulous report of the development of what we might term as the ever-­growing field of Hemingway Studies. 3. See Rena Sanderson’s essay “Hemingway and Gender History” for an overview of the images that Hemingway projected in the 1930s. 4. See David M. Earle’s All Man! Hemingway, 1950s Men’s Magazines, and the Masculine Persona (2009) for an engaging look at the projected hyper-­ masculine Hemingway. 5. See Ron McFarland’s “The World’s Most Interesting Man” (2013) for key examples of literary re-­imaginations of Hemingway. 6. The app in question can be found at www.hemingwayapp.com. 7. See the website “Hemingway Accoutrements” www.hemingwayaccoutre ments.com. 8. For a discussion on Hemingway’s beard and his sensitive skin, see A. E. Hotchner’s Papa Hemingway: A Memoir (2005) 156; Kenneth S. Lynn’s Hemingway (1995) 506; and Paul Hendrickson’s Hemingway’s Boat, 1934– 1941 (2012) 10. 9. See Mazzeno 135–56 for further discussion. 10. See Mazzeno 153–55 for a useful discussion on Spilka’s study on gender in Hemingway’s writing and its reception in the field of Hemingway Studies. 11. See, in particular, Valerie Rohy’s Impossible Women: Lesbian Figures and American Literature (2000), Blythe Tellefsen’s “Rewriting the Self against the National Text: Ernest Hemingway’s The Garden of Eden” (2000), and Lawrence Broer and Gloria Holland’s edited collection Hemingway and Women: Female Critics and the Female Voice (2002). 12. For discussion on the preoccupation of the characters in The Sun Also Rises with their physical appearance, see Ira Elliot, “Jake Barnes and ‘Masculine’ Signification in The Sun Also Rises,” 77–94. 13. For discussion on the character of Robert Cohn and his Jewishness see Traber 235–53 and Kaye 44–60. 14. See Fleming (1996) and Eby (1998). 15. For a discussion on the importance of watching the spectacle of bullfighting for the performance of masculinity in the novel, see Strychacz, “Dramatizations of Manhood in Hemingway’s In Our Time and The Sun Also Rises,” 245–60. 16. See Christopher Oldstone-­ Moore’s “Mustaches and Masculine Codes in Early Twentieth-­Century America” for further informed discussion of the discourses shaping the moustache and the performance of masculinity at this point in American history.

The Need for a Shave 105

Works Cited Armengol, Josep M. “Race-­Ing Hemingway: Revisions of Masculinity and/as Whiteness in Ernest Hemingway’s Green Hills of Africa and Under Kilimanjaro.” The Hemingway Review, vol. 31, no. 1, Dec. 2011, pp. 43–61. Baker, Carlos, ed. Ernest Hemingway Selected Letters 1917–1961. Scribner, 2003. Broer, Lawrence R. and Gloria Holland. Hemingway and Women: Female Critics and the Female Voice. U of Alabama P, 2002. Clark, Suzanne. Cold Warriors: Manliness on Trial in the Rhetoric of the West. Southern Illinois UP, 2000. Clifford, Stephen P. “Rev. of Hemingway’s Genders.” College Literature, vol. 24, no. 2, 1997, p. 172. ———. Beyond the Heroic “I”: Reading Lawrence, Hemingway, and “Masculinity”. Bucknell UP, 1998. Comley, Nancy R. “Women.” Ernest Hemingway in Context, edited by Debra A. Moddelmog and Suzanne Del Gizzo, Cambridge UP, 2013, pp. 409–20. Comley, Nancy R. and Robert Scholes. Hemingway’s Genders: Rereading the Hemingway Text. Yale UP, 1994. Davison, Neil R. Jewishness and Masculinity from the Modern to the Postmodern. Routledge, 2010. Dearborn, Mary V. Ernest Hemingway: A Biography. Knopf, 2017. Del Gizzo, Suzanne. “Cult and Afterlife.” Ernest Hemingway in Context, edited by Debra A. Moddelmog and Suzanne Del Gizzo, Cambridge UP, 2013, pp. 119–29. Donaldson, Scott. The Cambridge Companion to Hemingway. Cambridge UP, 1996. ———. Fitzgerald & Hemingway: Works and Days. Columbia UP, 2009. Dudley, Marc K. Hemingway, Race, and Art: Bloodlines and the Color Line. Kent State UP, 2011. Earle, David M. All Man! Hemingway, 1950s Men’s Magazines, and the Masculine Persona. Kent State UP, 2009. Eby, Carl P. “Ernest Hemingway and the Mirror of Manhood: Fetishism, Transvestism, Homeovestism, and Perverse Méconnaissance.” Arizona Quarterly: A Journal of American Literature, Culture, and Theory, vol. 54, no. 3, 1998, pp. 27–68. ———. Hemingway’s Fetishism. Suny Press, 1999. ———. “Rev. of Hemingway and Women: Female Critics and the Female Voice, and Hemingway’s Theaters of Masculinity.” Studies in American Fiction, vol. 32, no. 2, 2004, pp. 241–46. ———. “ ‘He Felt the Change so That It Hurt Him All Through’: Sodomy and Transvestic Hallucination in Late Hemingway.” The Hemingway Review, vol. 25, no. 1, 2005, pp. 77–95. Elkins, Marilyn. “The Fashion of Machismo.” A Historical Guide to Ernest Hemingway, edited by Linda Wagner-­Martin, Oxford UP, 2000, pp. 93–116. Elliot, Ira. “Jake Barnes and ‘Masculine’ Signification in The Sun Also Rises.” American Literature, vol. 67, no. 1, 1995, pp. 77–94. Fantina, Richard. Ernest Hemingway: Machismo and Masochism. Palgrave Macmillan, 2005.

106  The Need for a Shave Farrell, Susan Elizabeth. Imagining Home: American War Fiction from Hemingway to 9/11. Camden House, 2017. Fetterly, Judith. “A Farewell to Arms: Ernest Hemingway’s ‘Resentful Cryptogram’.” The Authority of Experience: Essays in Feminist Criticism, edited by Arlyn Diamond and Lee R. Edwards, U of Massachusetts P, 1977, pp. 257–73. ———. The Resisting Reader: A Feminist Approach to American Fiction. Indiana UP, 1978. Fleming, Robert E. The Face in the Mirror: Hemingway’s Writers. U of Alabama P, 1996. Hardy, Sarah B. “Nick Adams and the Construction of Masculinity.” Teaching Hemingway and Gender, edited by Verna Kale, Kent State UP, 2016, pp. 70–79. Hemingway, Ernest. “An Alpine Idyll.” The Complete Short Stories of Ernest Hemingway, Simon & Schuster, 1987, pp. 262–66. ———. “Out of Season.” The Complete Short Stories of Ernest Hemingway, Simon & Schuster, 1987, pp. 133–40. ———. “A Way You’ll Never Be.” The Complete Short Stories of Ernest Hemingway, Simon & Schuster, 1987, pp. 306–15. ———. Islands in the Stream. 1970. Scribner, 1997. ———. “The Doctor and the Doctor’s Wife.” The Short Stories of Ernest Hemingway, Scribner, 2002, pp. 98–103. ——— The Sun Also Rises. 1926. Arrow Books, 2004. ———. To Whom the Bell Tolls. 1940. Arrow Books, 2004. ———. A Farewell to Arms. 1929. Vintage, 2005. ———. Torrents of Spring. 1926. Arrow Books, 2006. ———. “Night Before Battle.” Hemingway on War, Vintage, 2014, pp. 99–124. ———. “Fifty Grand.” The Short Stories of Ernest Hemingway: The Hemingway Library Edition, Scribner, 2017, pp. 177–204. ———. “Indian Camp.” The Short Stories of Ernest Hemingway: The Hemingway Library Edition, Scribner, 2017, pp. 55–68. “Hemingway Slaps Eastman in the Face.” The New York Times, 14 Aug. 1937. Hendrickson, Paul. Hemingway’s Boat, 1934–1941. Random House, 2012. Hewson, Marc. “ ‘The Real Story of Ernest Hemingway’: Cixous, Gender, and A Farewell to Arms.” The Hemingway Review, vol. 22, no. 2, 2003, pp. 51–62. Hotchner, A. E. Papa Hemingway: A Personal Memoir. Da Capo Press, 2005. Kale, Verna. Teaching Hemingway and Gender. The Kent State UP, 2016. Kaye, Jeremy. “The ‘Whine’ of Jewish Manhood: Re-­Reading Hemingway’s Anti-­ Semitism, Reimagining Robert Cohn.” The Hemingway Review, vol. 25, no. 2, Jun. 2006, pp. 44–60. Kennedy, J. Gerald. “Hemingway’s Gender Trouble.” American Literature, vol. 63, no. 2, 1991, pp. 187–207. Levine, Gary. The Merchant of Modernism: The Economic Jew in Anglo-­ American Literature, 1864–1939. Routledge, 2002. Lynn, Kenneth S. Hemingway. 1987. Harvard UP, 1995. Mazzeno, Laurence W. The Critics and Hemingway, 1924–2014: Shaping an American Literary Icon. Camden House, 2015. McFarland, Ron. “The World’s Most Interesting Man.” Midwest Quarterly, vol. 54, no. 4, 2013, pp. 414–30.

The Need for a Shave 107 Moddelmog, D. A. Reading Desire, in Pursuit of Ernest Hemingway. Cornell UP, 1999. ———. “State of the Field: Gender, Studies, Sexuality Studies, and Hemingway.” Teaching Hemingway and Gender, edited by Verna Kale, The Kent State UP, 2016, pp. 7–26. Morrison, Toni. Playing in the Dark: Whiteness and the Literary Imagination. 1992. Vintage, 1993. Moss, Mark. The Media and the Models of Masculinity. Lexington Books, 2011. “Mr. Hemingway Writes Some High-­ Spirited Nonsense.” New York Times Review of Books, 13 Jun. 1926. Accessed 6 Mar. 2019. Nies, Betsy L. Eugenic Fantasies: Racial Ideology in the Literature and Popular Culture of the 1920s. Routledge, 2002. Oldstone-­Moore, Christopher. “Mustaches and Masculine Codes in Early Twentieth-­ Century America.” Journal of Social History, vol. 45, no. 1, 2011, pp. 47–60. Plath, James. “Photos and Portraits.” Ernest Hemingway in Context, edited by Debra A. Moddelmog and Suzanne del Gizzo, Cambridge UP, 2013, pp. 65–75. Riemer, James. “Rereading American Literature from a Men’s Studies Perspective: Some Implications.” The Making of Masculinities: The New Men’s Studies, edited by Harry Brod, Allen & Unwin, 1987, pp. 289–300. Rohy, Valerie. Impossible Women: Lesbian Figures and American Literature. Cornell UP, 2000. ———. Anachronism and Its Others. Suny Press, 2009. ———. “Hemingway, Literalism, and Transgender Reading.” Twentieth Century Literature, vol. 57, no. 2, 2011, pp. 148–79. Ross, Lillian. “The Moods of Ernest Hemingway.” New Yorker, 13 May 1950. Accessed 3 Sept. 2017. ———. Portrait of Hemingway. 1961. Modern Library, 1999. Sanderson, Rena. “Hemingway and Gender History.” The Cambridge Companion to Ernest Hemingway, edited by Scott Donaldson, Cambridge UP, 1996, pp. 170–96. Schwenger, Peter. Phallic Critiques: Masculinity and Twentieth-­Century Literature. Routledge, 1984. Slaughter, Carolyn. Masculinity and Disability: Ernest Hemingway, the Man, the Girl, and the Genius. Oxford UP, 2017. Spilka, Mark. Hemingway’s Quarrel with Androgyny. U of Nebraska P, 1989. Strong, Amy L. Race and Identity in Hemingway’s Fiction. Palgrave Macmillan, 2008. Strychacz, Thomas. “Dramatizations of Manhood in Hemingway’s In Our Time and The Sun Also Rises.” American Literature, vol. 61, no. 2, 1989, pp. 245–60. ———. Hemingway’s Theaters of Masculinity. Louisiana State UP, 2003. ———. Dangerous Masculinities: Conrad, Hemingway, and Lawrence. UP of Florida, 2008. ———. “Masculinity.” Ernest Hemingway in Context, edited by Debra A. Moddelmog, Cambridge UP, 2013, pp. 277–86. Tellefsen, Blythe. “Rewriting the Self Against the National Text: Ernest Hemingway’s The Garden of Eden.” Papers on Language & Literature, vol. 36, no. 1, 2000, pp. 58–92.

108  The Need for a Shave Traber, Daniel S. “Whiteness and the Rejected Other in The Sun Also Rises.” Studies in American Fiction, vol. 28, no. 2, 2000, pp. 235–53. Wyatt, David. “Performing Maleness: Hemingway.” Secret Histories: Readings in Twentieth-­Century American Literature, John Hopkins UP, 2010, pp. 53–67. Young, Philip. Ernest Hemingway: A Reconsideration. Rinehart, 1952.

3 The Bards and Their Beards

The Bards and Their BeardsThe Bards and Their Beards

Walt Whitman’s “Beard Full of Butterflies” in the Poetry of Federico García Lorca and Allen Ginsberg

The bushiest beard in all American literature must be that of Walt Whitman. From the cultivated stubble on the frontispiece of the first edition of Leaves of Grass (1855) to the cascading white locks in photos from his later years, Whitman’s beard is very much the source of Whitman’s sovereignty as the face of American poetry. And Whitman was evidently aware of the power of the beard. From the first moments of his fashioning as a poet of the American people and his self-­coronation as American’s first bard (“An American Bard at last!”), Whitman was clever in how he packaged himself and his beard to the reading world. In the first edition of Leaves of Grass (1855), Whitman’s name did not adorn the green ribbed Moroccan cloth cover; rather, in this picture, often referred to as “the carpenter,” a working man stands casually with his shirt open, his right hand on his hip, and his left placed in the pocket of his coarse trousers. His hat is cocked indifferently on his head. His face sports effortless stubble. And this is the point—for this idealised image of an agrarian American masculinity is only complete with this version of his bearded face, stubble that sells the image of Walt Whitman the working man toiling every day in the rich American soil. With this carefully constructed introduction to the American public, even before the reader can get to the words on the page, the beard is the centre point of Walt Whitman’s projection of his persona as the urban pastoral poet of the American people. Whitman is “Walt Whitman, an American, one of the roughs” (48), sexualising and celebrating the ordinary appearance of everyday working-­class men with beards. Whitman, away from his poetry, made various references to the importance of beards. Whitman saw the beard as a symbol of the everyday man, a man who should be in a position of responsibility in society. In his politically charged writings, namely “The Eighteenth Presidency!,” Whitman called for the bearded everyday man who would one day become president: “the true people, . . . mechanics, farmers, boatmen, manufacturers, and the like” such as a “healthy-­bodied, middle-­aged, beard-­faced American blacksmith or boatman” might “come down from the West

110  The Bards and Their Beards

Figure 3.1 Whitman’s “the carpenter” from the frontispiece of the first edition of Leaves of Grass (1855)

across the Alleghanies, and walk into the Presidency” (qtd. in Reynolds “Politics and Poetry” 85). And the United States had a strong run of American presidents with strong beards during this period, from Abraham Lincoln in 1861 to Benjamin Harrison in 1893. Harrison was the last American president to wear a full beard.

The Bards and Their Beards 111 Moreover, Whitman, in a letter to Ralph Waldo Emerson in August 1856, a letter with which he included thirty-­ two poems for Emerson’s approval, uses the opportunity to reflect upon the state of the nation at this point in his lifetime. In this letter, Whitman exclaims, “Master, we have not come through centuries, caste, heroisms, fables, to halt in this land today.” Whitman calls on the need to “[l]et all attend respectfully the leisure of These States, their politics, poems, literature, manners, and their free-­handed modes of training their own offspring.” Whitman calls for a new American man, “a large brawnier, more candid, more democratic, lawless, positive native to The States, sweet-­bodied, completer, dauntless, flowing, masterful, beard-­faced, new race of men” (Leaves of Grass 162). But, of course, it is within his poetry that Whitman repeatedly turns to the virtue of facial flocculence. In the first version of “Song of Myself,” the centrepiece of the first edition of Leaves of Grass, Whitman addresses the importance of the beard to the formulation of his masculine identity: “Washes and razors for foofoos . . . for me freckles and a bristling beard” (“Song of Myself” 46).1 The term foofoo was slang in 19th-­century New York for an outsider or someone out of step with the workings of society.2 Whitman, conversely, wanted to present himself as the very centre of American society, the American flâneur very much in the Baudelairean mode of urban philosopher, artist, and poet who saw himself as one flesh with the American crowd. And, ultimately, it is the beard that will enable him to adopt this role of the poet of the people.3 Driving this critical examination of Whitman’s flocculence in this chapter is the premise that Whitman’s beard is tied into the discursive performance of masculinity and male sexuality not simply in American poetics but also in transnational poetics. And this is significant. Whitman was not a poet or a man who defined himself by societal boundaries or physical or imagined borders; rather, Walt Whitman, and indeed “Walt Whitman,” should be celebrated as someone who transcends boundaries, borders, or binaries with regards to identity, nationality, masculinity, and sexuality. And, I would argue, central to this argument is the notion that Whitman’s beard should be celebrated not only as a key site on Whitman’s body but also as a key site in the Whitmanian imaginary for such transcendence. Put simply, Whitman’s beard has held a unique power in its subverting of archetypal images of American manhood and its ability to offer shelter and sanctuary for poets dealing with Whitmanian-­type struggles with regards to their own sexuality and urban loneliness. To present this argument, this chapter identifies Federico García Lorca and Allen Ginsberg as two such followers of the bearded Whitman. Lorca’s resonant and symbolically powerful image of Whitman’s “beard full of butterflies,” one which resonated with Ginsberg, brings these writers together in their call to Whitman as a fatherly figure to guide them in their communal experience of urban dislocation and alienation

112  The Bards and Their Beards tied into their public identities as poets and their private identities as homosexual men. Whitman was writing during the time in which the discursive construction of masculinities, in both the public and the private sphere, and indeed the interrelation and interaction between the two spheres, was hastening. For Lorca and, later, Ginsberg, Whitman’s beard, with its queering powers, was a shelter from the urban loneliness they felt in their struggles as homosexual men and poets who saw the bearded Walt Whitman as their guide.

The Beard in Whitman Scholarship The attention afforded to the beard in Whitman scholarship is remarkably patchy.4 And this is a shame with the absolute wealth of Walt Whitman scholarship that continues to be produced. The Walt Whitman Archive, edited by Ed Folsom and Kenneth M. Price, is a remarkable open-­access resource. The Walt Whitman Quarterly Review offers peer-­ reviewed research and criticism that only strengthens the Walt Whitman community. And, as I write this chapter, we are in the middle of celebrating Whitman and his poetry in his bicentennial.5 The bicentennial of Whitman’s birth has caused a resurgence in Whitmanian scholarship. One essential recent publication, edited by Whitman scholars Joanna Levin and Edward Whitley, is Walt Whitman in Context (2018). This collection of essays builds on the tradition of Whitmanian scholarship to contextualise the poet and his poetry in the social, historical, political, and cultural discourses that shaped Whitman’s view of the world and Whitman’s poetry. Maire Mullins, in her contribution titled “Gender,” a discussion of the portrayals of femininity and masculinity in Whitman’s poetry, proclaims that “Whitman anticipated the work of historians, sociologists, psychologists, and literary theorists in the field of gender studies” (218). As Mullins argues, [w]hile Whitman employed language to capture the social construction of gender in his poetry and prose, he also used his body as a template upon which nineteenth-­century photographers, daguerrerotypists, and artists could record the male body as it aged: beard, graying and white hair, hat coat, posture, gaze. (218) Mullins offers a Whitman-­esque cataloguing of Whitman’s engagements with gender and masculinity throughout his poetry, not only in “Song of Myself” but also in the “Calamus” poems that would feature in future revisions of Leaves of Grass. As Mullins reflects, “Whitman offered a non-­stop catalog of women, men, and children at various instants in their everyday lives, instants that reveal the many ways that gender is constructed and performed” (219). It is unfortunate, however, that Mullin’s

The Bards and Their Beards 113 chapter fails to turn to the role of the beard in the constructions and performances of gender, not only in Whitman’s own performance of his masculine identity but also in the role of the beard in the constructions of gender and masculinities in his poetry. Mullins ends her piece by offering the conclusion that “[Whitman] hoped to transform the societal and cultural understanding of gender” (226). And we might well argue that Whitman achieved this aim with his performance both with and of the beard. Both in his writing and his public persona, Whitman’s beard must be recognised as the key tool in Whitman’s transformative power with regards to gender, masculinity, and sexuality. This idea of the centrality of the beard in the transformative power of Whitman and his poetry is touched upon by Jay Grossman, in his contribution to Walt Whitman in Context (2018). Grossman’s chapter, titled “Sexuality,” offers an important warning regarding the reductive categorisation of Whitman’s sexual identity. As Grossman argues, “Whitman shifted the landscape of what it is possible to express in poetic language by insisting upon the poetic value and validity of the sexual and embodied aspects of the American experience not previously treated in verse” (227). This idea of the American experience being best understood by such experience encapsulated in the body (and the beard!) is key to grasping the unique power of Whitman’s poetry. Moreover, to add to Grossman’s argument, we must recognise that it is the beard that is part of Whitman’s power to extend beyond any limitations of the sexual and the body, which, ultimately, made him a true poet of all people. As Grossman points out, this is one of the reasons why so many people, particularly gay men and other minorities, continue to reach out to Whitman as a guide on their own journeys regarding the role of their sexualities and their bodies in the understanding of their identities. And indeed, as we will see later in this chapter, it is not just Whitman himself who such people reach out to in their search for guidance but also the great bard’s beard. Ultimately, any attempts to limit Whitman, or to categorise either the man, the persona, or his poetry, are reductive and ignorant of the uniqueness of Whitman and the uniqueness of his vision. Whitman scholar Betsy Erkkila, in Walt Whitman’s Songs of Male Intimacy and Love (2011), makes the point that Whitman’s “Live Oak, with Moss” collection of poems demonstrates how “the poet dreams of a city—a public urban space—where men who love men can live and love openly in accord with their desires” (xi). Moreover, the “Calamus” collection is Whitman’s “cluster of poems on ‘adhesive’ manly love, comradeship, and democracy” (xi). Erkilla argues convincingly for the continued contemporary relevance of these Whitman poems, underlining “the constitutive role these poems have played in the emergence of modern sexual and homosexual identity and the ongoing struggle for sexual freedom, tolerance, rights, and democracy for man-­loving men in the United States and

114  The Bards and Their Beards worldwide” (xii). To add to this, we should consider the role that Whitman’s beard and the beards in Whitman’s writing play in the continued transformative power of Whitman’s poetry and Whitman as a presence in transnational poetics. While Whitman scholarship, such as the preceding examples, holds Whitman as a poet of the body and a poet of the sexual, in such studies that celebrate the sexual and textual poetics in Whitman, we must examine the power of the beard in such Whitmanian textualities, either with regards to the beards on the bodies that Whitman celebrated in his poetry, or indeed Whitman’s own beard celebrated by those who continue to set Whitman in their own poetry as old father graybeard.

Influence of Whitman’s Beard The influence of Walt Whitman and his beard on Federico García Lorca is not so surprising if we consider the influence that Whitman and his beard has had on those from the Spanish speaking world. Ed Folsom, in the introduction to Walt Whitman: The Measure of His Song (1998), dedicates a significant portion of the introduction to the tradition in Spanish and Portuguese poetics of turning to Whitman and his famous flocculence.6 Most important, for these writers, Whitman was not just a poet of the United States, but he was a poet for all the Americas as well. Folsom regards the main source for this influence as being an essay written in 1887 by the Cuban writer José Martí. As Whitman’s poetry would not be translated into Spanish until the 20th century, Martí eulogising of Whitman had a major impact, and of course, Whitman’s beard is at the centre of Marti’s image of Whitman the prophetical poet: Last night he seemed a god, sitting in his red velvet chair, his hair completely white, his beard upon his breast, his brows like a thicket, his hand upon a cane. (qtd. in Folsom 47) Folsom sums up the impact of such an evocative image of Whitman, emphasising that in contrast to the importance that Whitman placed on the heavily stubbled carpenter in the first edition of Leaves of Grass, for the Spanish poets, it was the older version of the bearded bard that they turned to: It is this portrait of an ancient bearded prophet that Spanish poets tend to address; Whitman enters Spanish poetry as an old man—not the brash, youthful comrade of 1855, but as a wizened prophet, and as such he falls naturally into the Hispanic tradition of the prophet/ bard. (47)

The Bards and Their Beards 115 Central to the (re-­)imaginings of Whitman as this prophet is his beard. As Folsom continues, “[h]is beard—emblem of his role as wise prophet and frame for all the words he would embouchure—is continually emphasised by the Hispanic poets who address him” (47). Folsom goes on to cite the various names—not only Federico García Lorca but also the Portuguese poet Fernando Pessoa as well as the Argentinian essayist and poet Ezequiel Martinez Estrada and Pedro Mir. Pedro Mir, in particular, addresses Whitman’s beard in his “Contracanto a Walt Whitman: Canto a Nosotros Mismos” (“Countersong to Whitman: Song of Ourselves”) (1952). Mir offers his striking image of Whitman’s beard that emphasises the qualities that the Hispanic poets and writers reach out to: Oh Walt Whitman, your sensitive beard was a net in the wind. (qtd. in Folsom 49) Folsom interprets Mir’s imagery of Whitman’s flocculence in this poem as Whitman’s “wind-­net” (49), a beard able to move through the currents of the Americas and capture all those who need solace in such a part of Whitman that encapsulates his sensitivity and candid nature: Oh Walt Whitman with candid beard, I reach through the years your blaze of fire. (qtd. in Folsom 49–50) Of course, the central message that underpins Mir’s forwarding from Whitman is the shift from the “I” of America to the “us” of the Americas. This counter-­song, therefore, is to re-­energise and regenerate the collective facing the very real social injustices. And this is only possible by reclaiming Whitman from capitalist America by reaching out to his beard: No, Walt Whitman, here are the poets of today, workers of today, pioneers of today, peasants of today, firm and aroused to justify you! Oh Walt Whitman with aroused beard! (qtd. in Folsom 50) In Mir’s evocation, Whitman’s beard resonates with the sexual energies that flow through “Song of Myself” and indeed Lorca’s eulogy of Whitman and his free-­flowing facial hair. Whitman has such power, and, of course, this power to rouse the collectives of men that Mir represents in his song of social and political change is to be found in the revolutionary

116  The Bards and Their Beards power of Whitman’s beard. Mir’s call to Whitman’s beard is a very public call and very much in contrast to Lorca’s private reflections on the safety and sanctuary offered by Whitman and his flowing white locks. Similar to Lorca, another poet from the Hispanic world, the Chilean Pablo Neruda, offers a more intimate imagining of Whitman in his own “Oda a Walt Whitman.” Neruda’s ode, written in the decades after Lorca’s own ode to this mentor poet, also reaches out to Whitman. Neruda bestows Whitman’s beard with certain biblical undertones with the image of Whitman as the fisherman coming to bring spiritual and bodily nourishment to those in need with his verse: To every corner of your town a verse of yours arrived for a visit, and it was like a piece of clean body, the verse that arrived, like your own fisherman beard. (qtd. in Folsom 50–51) Neruda is telling the bearded Whitman that despite all the troubles in the world, despite all political corruption and the scourge of capitalism and the everyday suffering, Whitman’s song can still be heard and that Whitman’s unique energy still flows through all the people from all societies throughout the world. There is no doubt that Whitman’s beard enjoys such reverence within Hispanic culture and traditions. However, it is also important to note that not all writers from all parts of the world hold Whitman as a marker of unchallengeable admiration and acclaim. Folsom is quick to point out contrasting approaches to Whitman’s beard, particularly from the Spokane–Coeur d’Alene–American writer Sherman Alexie. His poem, “Defending Walt Whitman” (1996), plays on the double meaning of defending to explore his inner conflicts with Whitman and the adulation that the image of Walt Whitman continues to generate. Interestingly, the speaker of the poem centres such uneasiness on Whitman’s beard: He is a small man and his beard is ludicrous on the reservation, absolutely insane. His beard makes the Indian boys laugh righteously. His beard frightens the smallest Indian boys. His beard tickles the skin of the Indian boys who dribble past him. His beard, his beard! (475)

The Bards and Their Beards 117 We might argue that underpinning Alexie’s tensions towards Whitman is the ideology that colours the American song of Whitman, one that turns its face (and beard) away from the realities of American progress for the Indians on the plantations throughout the centuries of American expansion. In some aspects, Whitman’s history of America is often the prism through which many want to imagine the history of America. As Folsom argues, Alexie, with his re-­appropriation of Whitman’s “multitudes,” makes the call for respect and remembrance for the multitudes of Native Americans and their role in the American narrative (68–69). But the appreciation towards Whitman and his beard within the Americas endures. Added to the rich history of engagements with Whitman and his symbolic facial hair, more recently there has been a rise in recognition towards the influence of Whitman in Chicano literature for these people who situate themselves on physical, spiritual, and artistic borders between American and Mexican languages and cultures. Folsom points to Rudolfo Anaya and his poem “Walt Whitman Strides the Llano of New Mexico” (1996). Anaya’s Whitman strides across the plain and arrives in front of the speaker of the poem. “Walt” is the “kind old father” (476), there upon “that expanse of land of eagle and cactus / Where the Mexicano met the Indio and both / met the tejano” (476). The first detail that the speaker in the poem points to is Whitman’s beard: His beard, coarse and scraggly, warm, filled with sunlight, like llano grass filled with grasshoppers, grillos, protection for lizards and jackrabbits, rattlesnakes, coyotes, and childhood fears. (476) Whitman’s beard, for Anaya, is of the land that these people are standing upon. The texture, the toughness, the warmth and the radiance of Whitman’s beard are inseparable from the llano that very much defines these people. Moreover, Whitman’s beard offers protection for the speaker or the other peoples that inhabit this challenging space, namely “us Chicanos, en la pobreza . . . Pero ricos en el alma! Ricos en nuestra cultura! / Ricos con sueños y memoria!” (477). While Anaya takes Whitman on an adventure around his own land, ultimately what Anaya needs from Whitman is the safety and security that Whitman represents for these Hispanic poets: “Hold me in the safety of your arms, wise poet, old poet, / Abuelo de todos. Your fingers stir my memory” (478).

Beards in Whitman’s Poetry From the quick history of the engagements with Whitman’s facial hair provided above, it is clear that the various stylisations of the bard’s beard have had an influence on writers far beyond the borders of Manhattan or even the United States. Most notably, it is the image of the full flocculent

118  The Bards and Their Beards Whitman, with the long white beard, that appears to be more resonant than the stubbled Whitman that appeared in the first edition of Leaves of Grass. As we move forward in our reconnection and re-­engagement with Whitman’s beard, it is necessary to consider how Whitman himself engaged with the beard in his own writing, both with regards to the prominence of the beard of the “Walt Whitman” persona that he shaped in his poetry and the beard on the faces of other men that he celebrates throughout his poetry. This not only means starting with the first edition of “Song of Myself” or the other poems that made up the first edition of Leaves of Grass but also taking a look at other poems, such as the Calamus poems and the “Enfans d’Adam” poems, which Whitman would include in future editions of his most famous publication. Evidently, the beard was something that resonated in Whitman’s thinking and writing on ideas of masculinity, sexuality, and identity, ideas that he would ultimately challenge and change.

First Edition of Leaves of Grass The first edition of Leaves of Grass underlines the immediate importance of the beard in Whitman’s imaginings of masculinity and sexuality, as well as the ideas of identity and interconnectedness. From poems such as “I Sing the Body Electric” to “Faces,” not to mention, of course, this first version of “Song of Myself,” first and foremost beards feature on the faces of those lauded as exemplars of the American male. In each case, it might appear that the beard is merely a passing detail in the speaker’s descriptions of the bodily features of these men that Whitman’s poems are celebrating. Conversely, by taking a closer look at the positioning of these beards, not only on the face but also on the page, it becomes clear that in Whitman’s poetry the beard is a purposeful marker of the virtuous qualities of the American male. “I Sing the Body Electric” is Whitman’s exultation of the sanctity of the fleshiness of the body. In eight stanzas, the speaker of the poem preaches on the particulars of the bodies of all people in America, including those auctioned as slaves. But, of course, such a Whitmanian celebration of the body can only start in the interconnectedness of such bodies with the speaker himself: The bodies of men and women engirth me, and I engirth them, They will not let me off nor I them till I go with them and respond to them and love them. (116)7 This interconnectedness also extends to the beard, with the suggestion that such beards are for all people and as such are indicators of societal

The Bards and Their Beards 119 well-­being. Indeed, in the second stanza, the speaker of the poem underlines the centrality of the condition of the face as a marker of the individual with the line: “The expression of the well-­made man appears not only in his face” (116). While the speaker of the poem moves on to celebrate a variety of virtuous features of the male body—which appear to reach their pinnacle in the “masculine muscle” (117) of the firemen marching through town to another fire—such celebrations of everyday people start with the face and begin with the beard. The first individual who “I Sing the Body Electric” addresses explicitly is the bearded farmer. This is not surprising if we think of the importance of the agrarian persona that Whitman projects to the public on the frontispiece of Leaves of Grass. The bearded farmer, appearing in the third stanza, follows the poem’s opening exclamations on the connected nature of all bodies in society, but, of course, it is the bearded farmer who is exalted as the exemplar of virtuous masculinity. And there are various details about this “common farmer” (118) that point to his virtuousness: the number of sons; his manly pursuits of hunting, fishing, and sailing; and, indeed, the gifts “presented to him by men that loved / him” (118). But, away from such physical acts, the speaker first remarks on the age and wisdom of the man, his “calmness,” and “the richness and breadth of his manners” (118). And such qualities are encapsulated and demonstrated in “the / pale yellow and white hair of his hair and beard” (118). Not only is the beard a key feature of this common farmer, but in wanting to reaffirm such virtuous qualities, the speaker of the poem then turns to the farmer’s sons. The farmer’s sons reaffirm the reverence that people hold for the farmer not simply in their demonstrations of such love but also, as we are told, in their very own beards. While the speaker underlines the white beard of the farmer, his sons appear in the poem as bearded reflectors of the virtues of their father: “his sons / were massive clean bearded tanfaced and handsome” (118). And yet, ultimately, in this Whitmanian celebration of the agrarian man, rather than the youth and vigour of the tanned and handsome sons standing supreme, it is, in fact, the older bearded farmer with his white beard pointing to his wisdom and judgement who still shines as the exemplar of this masculine virtue: When he went with his five sons and many grandsons to hunt or fish you would pick him out as the most beautiful and vigorous of the gang, You would wish long and long to be with him . . . you would wish to sit by him in the boat that you and he might touch each other. (118)

120  The Bards and Their Beards This idea of touch that appears in the final line is key to the speaker’s singing and celebrating of the flesh. This touch is the interconnectedness between the “you” (be it Whitman or the reader) with this bearded man of the soil. And this touch is “enough” for the speaker, we are certain to assume, for Walt Whitman engaging in this act of self-­reflection on the fleshiness of the male body and the beard as the marker of experience and wisdom and masculine virtue. The idea of the bearded face as this outward indicator of inner virtues connected to the mind and the soul in such men is not surprising when we consider that Whitman dedicates one poem in the first edition of Leaves of Grass to the face. Titled—unsurprisingly—as “Faces,” this poem is Whitman’s ruminations on the divinity of people that he identifies through his protracted acts of physiognomy as he passes through the streets and byroads of New York. And in the first lines of the poem, the beard, or more precisely the absence of the beard, indicates to the speaker of the poem the qualities and characteristics of the people around him. In the opening stanza, the presence of the beard is notable in its absence. Whitman’s speaker in the poem is a man of all the people, able to move between city and country. The poem opens with the speaker “sauntering the pavement” and “riding the country byroads” (124). And the poem begins with the characteristic Whitmanian listing of the types of faces that he sees, such as “[f]aces of friendship, precision, caution, suavity, ideality” (124). Very quickly, it is evident that the hairs on men’s faces are to be taken as indicators of their masculinity. In the multitude of examples of the faces of men, women, children, and, indeed, babies, the speaker encounters on his frequent flâneurial pursuits, one comment in particular points to the speaker’s attitude towards the beards on the faces of men. In the fourth line of the opening stanza, the speaker sets out what we might read as an example of what the speaker (and we might say Whitman) views as two poles of men and masculinity: The faces of hunters and fishers, bulged at the brows . . . the shaved blanched faces of orthodox citizens. (124) Evidently there is no clear mention of beards in these lines, but there does not need to be; rather, it is the absence of the expected beard that is ridiculed by the speaker. This sense of absence is amplified by the descriptions of the faces of the hunters and fishers, characters (or caricatures?) of traditional ideas of masculinity. The shaved citizens can only offer “blanched” faces, that is to say presentations of their identities which are ultimately devoid of colour and personality and, we might assume, sexuality. In stark

The Bards and Their Beards 121 contrast, the faces of these hunters and fishers are faces of men who represent rugged masculinity not only in their actions but also in their rampant facial hair. And it should not be overlooked how such hair is central to their sexual performances on the city streets with such hair bulging at the brows, the power in the alliteration and assonance of the broad vowels suggestive of such girth of the hairs that protrude from their faces. By the time Whitman’s lyrical exaltations of such faces get to the fourth section, the speaker has already called out to a wide range of people from all sections of society that he has looked on. In typical Whitmanian inclusivity, the speaker welcomes all as “my equals” (125) regardless if they are considered a “milk nosed maggot” (125) or a “dog’s snout sniffing for garbage” (125). The speaker of “Faces,” ultimately, is looking for the emergence of a great face that we might see as representing the democratic vistas that are such a force of Whitman’s imaginings. And one does emerge as part of the “pionnercaps,” who bring forth a new face to represent them—the face of “a healthy honest boy” (126): This face is a lifeboat; This the face commanding and bearded . . . it asks no odds of the rest; This face is flavoured fruit ready for eating; This face of a healthy honest boy is the programme of all good. (126) It might be no surprise, therefore, to see that this face of the “healthy honest boy,” their saviour, at this time, is bearded. Here the beard is associated with virility and integrity, especially on the face of a man representing the potential and possibility of youth. The welcoming of the beard is cemented at the end of section 4 with the appearance of a Nordic woman with “a full-­grown lily’s face” (127) who speaks to a local man and welcomes him to come together with her to create “many children” (127) with the seductive line: “Rub to me with your chafing beard . . . rub to my breast and shoulders” (127). The signature poem of Leaves of Grass is, of course, “Song of Myself.” And, as with the other poems that make up this first edition of Leaves of Grass, the beard features in key moments that explore the Whitmanian ideas of masculinity, sexuality and interconnectedness. This is certainly the case in the first mention of the beard in “Song of Myself.” In one of the most provocative moves in the history of American poetry, in the fifth section, the speaker in the poem imagines his soul, speaks to his soul, and then presents his soul engaged in a sexual encounter with his body. What is striking about this passage is the centrality of the beard in the climactic moment of their encounter.

122  The Bards and Their Beards After calling his soul to “loafe” with him on the grass and telling his soul he wants to words or music or rhyme or lecture, the speaker states: I mind how once we lay such a transparent summer morning, How you settled your head athwart my hips and gently turn’d over upon me, And parted the shirt from my bosom-­bone, and plunged your tongue to my bare-­stript heart, And reach’d till you felt my beard, and reach’d till you held my feet. (67) Historically, poets make calls to the soul to experience some sort of transcendence of the physical; here, we can see that, in fact, it is the speaker who is pulling the soul down to the body, and notably, it is the beard of the speaker that the soul reaches out to. Readings and interpretations of this scene frequently focus on the line that precedes the mention of the beard, with the plunging of the tongue into his heart appearing more erotic and sexual. But the true intimacy in this act between the poet and the soul occurs in the subsequent line, with the soul not simply touching the exterior of the body of the speaker but also reaching out to the two poles of the speaker’s body. This is a striking image that not only suggests the soul touching the body but, with the “reach’d till you felt” wording, also suggests the desire of the soul to reach and touch the beard purposefully. This act resonates on various levels—it is the connection of the body and the soul, the poet and desire, the I and the you. And it is only with this consummation that reaches its climax with the soul reaching and feeling the beard that the poet then reaches a sense of “peace and knowledge” (67) that confirms the divine in every individual with the body and soul part of some greater power. This central role of the beard in the connectedness between lovers in “Song of Myself” continues in section 10 with the image of the white trapper and his Native American wife: On a bank lounged the trapper, he was drest mostly in skins, his luxuriant beard and curls protected his neck, he held his bride by the hand, She had long eyelashes, her head was bare, her coarse straight locks descended upon her voluptuous limbs and reach’d to her feet. (72) Here we can see the similarities between these two intimate scenes, the closeness between the two: the “luxuriant beard” of the trapper and his bride’s hair, which reaches down to her feet. Just as the scene between the speaker of the poem and the soul is transgressive following their union,

The Bards and Their Beards 123 so here is the union between the white man and his Native American wife also transgressive with regards to social boundaries and the racial other, further indication of Whitman’s desire to celebrate the interconnectedness of all people. The suggestion of the beard as a key feature of the sexual body continues in the subsequent section of “Song of Myself.” Section 11 remains the subject of intense interpretation and discussion due, no less, to the “[t] wenty-­eight young men” who “bathe by the shore” (73). These young men are “all so friendly” and, after “twenty-­eight years of womanly life” are “all so lonesome” (73). In this section, the speaker is watching a woman watching these men bathing naked. Notably, the tension in this section is not simply sexual; it is also a tension concerning connection and intimacy. It is not surprising to find that these men, desired by the woman and, we might assume, in turn, desired by the speaker, would be bearded: The beards of the young men glisten’d with wet, it ran from their long hair, Little streams pass’d all over their bodies. An unseen hand also pass’d over their bodies, It descended tremblingly from their temples and ribs. (73) The unseen hand—that of the woman or that of the speaker—might at first glance appear overtly sexual; however, if we view it in terms of touch and intimacy emphasised by the distance from which the woman views these men, then once more the beard is associated with a desire for interconnections that transcend established markers of difference. The beards here are essential bodily parts, cleansing and cooling the young men as the water from the sea passes over them. The beard does not feature again in “Song of Myself” until section 24, one of the most significant passages in the poem with Walt Whitman finally introducing himself by name to the reader. For readers of the first edition of Leaves of Grass, this would, in fact, have been their first introduction to Walt Whitman of any kind, as his name did not adorn any part of the outside of the 1855 edition. In this section, in a fit of energy and exuberance, the “Walt Whitman” that now appears celebrates the materiality of his body and all bodies in the world: “Turbulent, fleshy, sensual, eating, drinking and breeding” (86). And, of course, one of those parts of the body that Walt Whitman now celebrates is the beard: “Mix’d tussled hay of head, beard, brawn, it shall be you!” (88). We might point out again the implicit suggestion of the role of the beard in agrarian images of masculinity, but more important, it is further evidence of the importance of the materiality of the body for Whitman, both his own body and other bodies: “If I worship one thing more than another it shall be the spread

124  The Bards and Their Beards of my own body, or any part of it” (87). This spread of the body contains all the elements of Walt Whitman including, no less, the beard. But the beard is not simply a site for the celebration of all aspects of masculinity, identity, and interconnectedness associated with life in “Song of Myself,” it is also a link to those connected in death. In contrast to the group of bearded men in section 11, there is another group of young bearded men in section 34. However, rather than the group bathing together by the shore, Whitman uses this section of the poem to tell the story of these bearded men who were victims of the massacre at Goliad in 1836. Again, the beard appears as a marker of community between another group of men and their connectedness to the speaker. And yet, in contrast to earlier engagements, the beard is a marker in the face of violence and death as the speaker mourns the tragedy of these young bearded men. But once more, in common with “I Sing the Body Electric,” “Faces,” and, indeed, “Song of Myself,” the beard is inserted here in section 34 as a sign of the virtue of these young men who display great bravery at the moment of their deaths. From these examples, we might confidently assume that the attraction of the speaker in “Song of Myself” to the beard is due to its status—in the speaker’s eyes—as a marker of masculinity, intimacy, and interconnectedness. This is confirmed in one of the final sections of the poem. Here, in section 47, the speaker addresses the issue of beards directly. Here the speaker takes on the role of teacher, in this case, a teacher of athletes. The speaker uses this section to preach on the type of men that he prefers, those who grow and develop from boys to men in their own individual ways. These men are those who revel in the outdoors and, perhaps even more important, those that recognise the wonders of the beard: The boy I love, the same becomes a man not through derived power, but in his own right, Wicked rather than virtuous out of conformity or fear, Fond of his sweetheart, relishing well his steak, Unrequited love or a slight cutting him worse than sharp steel cuts, First-­rate to ride, to fight, to hit the bull’s eye, to sail a skiff, to sing a song or play on the banjo, Preferring scars and the beard and faces pitted with small-­pox over all latherers, And those well-­tann’d to those that keep out of the sun. (119) In an echo of the earlier line of “washes and razors for foofoos. . . ,” the person to whom the speaker feels most connected, therefore, is he who rejects the latherers and realises the importance of such facial flocculence. This is part of Whitman’s democracy, the individual who is an individual and sets out to create himself not through his name or nationality but

The Bards and Their Beards 125 through his actions. And one of these actions, one that encapsulates individuality and democracy, as well as being key to intimacy and interconnectedness, is beard growing and beard wearing. Future editions of Leaves of Grass included further poems that set the beard as an emblematic marker of masculinity, sexuality, and the interconnectedness that Whitman wished to celebrate. One such collection was the “Enfans d’Adam” poems which appeared in the third edition of Leaves of Grass (1860), later renamed as the “Children of Adam” cluster in the 1867 edition. These poems, opening with “singing the phallus,” were considered overtly sexual for their time and caused certain other writers from the era, notably Ralph Waldo Emerson, to advise Whitman to remove the poems from future editions of Leaves of Grass.8 Killingsworth points out that these “Children of Adam” poems originated from a collection of notes offered by Whitman. Killingsworth includes Whitman’s clearest statement of intent of the Children of Adam poems: Theory of a Cluster of Poems the same to the passion of Woman-­ Love as the ‘Calamus-­Leaves’ are to adhesiveness, manly love. (qtd. in Killingsworth 112) And the voice at the centre of these poems is that of the “I, chanter of Adamic songs” (142), a wanderer through great cities “Lusty, phallic, with the potent original loins, perfectly sweet” (142). Whitman offers a note regarding this Adam figure that emerges in this collection of poems, and once more the beard is a central feature of his persona: “Adam, as a central figure and type . . . a fully complete, well-­developed man, eld, bearded, swart, fiery,—as a more than rival of the youthful type-­hero of novels and love poems” (qtd. in Killingsworth 112). The beard, therefore, plays a central role in our understanding of this Adam figure, this patriarchal type that the “Children of Adam” poems eulogise. Critics question the intent of the “Children of Adam” poems. Erkklia reinterprets this cluster as a sort of balancing act by Whitman, making the point that despite this collection seemingly focusing “Woman-­Love,” to use Whitman’s words, “many of the ‘Children of Adam’ poems are not about women or procreation or progeny at all but [are] about emotiveness as a burning, aching, ‘resistless,’ emphatically physical ‘yearning’ for young men” (160). Erkklia sees Whitman moving on from a more reticent touching and kissing that characterised the physical contact in the “Calamus” poems towards a fluid lustful and phallic passion between men. Miller supports this view with his reading that readers today are more prone to agree with Whitman than with the squeamish critics of his own time. “Children of Adam” should be read for what it purports to be, not a paean to heterosexual love,

126  The Bards and Their Beards but a celebration of sexuality in all its varied forms—auto-­, homo-­, hetero-­, cosmo-­eroticism. (117) Such a celebration of sexual energy resonates most strongly in the second poem, “From Pent-­up Aching Rivers,” and again, the beard is a key feature in these moments of interconnectedness and intimacy. In this poem, the speaker is “singing the phallus” (125) driven by the “resistless yearning” (125) for that “correlative body” (125). And such yearning, we find, is satisfied by the touch of the beard. In these moments of pure lust and passion—the singing of “the inseparableness” (126) of these two figures—the speaker sings: From the soft sliding of hands over me and thrusting of fingers through my hair and beard, From the long sustain’d kiss upon the mouth or bosom. (127) Here, then, the beard is presented as an erotic object, the location on the body of true connection. It is the site for the only sexual movement in the poem—following the soft sliding of hands, the beard is the place of penetration and thrusting. While it might be suggested that the “Children of Adam” poems are a collection seemingly intent on celebrating heteronormative ideas of love and sexual connections, the only penetration that occurs in the poem is that of the (male) speaker’s beard. The “Calamus” poems first appeared in an early unpublished Whitman manuscript in a sequence titled “Live Oak With Moss” in 1859.12 These poems, 45 in total, were added to the 1860 edition of Leaves of Grass and subsequent editions saw Whitman modify the number of “Calamus” poems before settling on the total of 39 in the 1881 edition. Calamus, Whitman explains in his later writings, is a Greek word which refers to the largest spear of grass: [I]t is the very large and aromatic grass, or root, spears three feet high—often called ‘sweet flag’—grows all over the Northern and Middle States. . . . The récherché or ethereal sense, as used in my book, arises probably from it, Calamus presenting the biggest and hardiest kind of spears of grass, and from its fresh, aromatic, pungent bouquet. (Poetry and Prose 941) The Calamus poems, in particular, have sparked the interest and intrigue of Whitman critics. Betsy Erkkila, in “Whitman and the Homosexual Republic,” has argued that “the ‘Calamus’ sequence was Whitman’s most radical sequence of poems both personally and politically” (160).14

The Bards and Their Beards 127 Likewise, Robert K. Martin, in The Homosexual Tradition in American Poetry (1998), begins his readings of the impact of the “Calamus” poems by stating that “probably no body of poems, except perhaps Shakespeare’s sonnets, has aroused as much controversy as Whitman’s ‘Calamus’ ” (47). This pique that surrounds the Calamus poems is due to the seemingly explicit scenes of homoeroticism that appear in various poems in the collection. Killingsworth, in his study Whitman’s Poetry of the Body (1989), argues that with the “Calamus” poems, “Whitman developed a language and the rudiments of a psychology by which homosexuals could be brought to self-­awareness and by which same-­sex friendship could form the basis for political action” (97). Pollak somewhat echoes this, stating that this collection is “Whitman’s eroticisation of the homosocial friendship” (127). Other Whitman scholars set out to challenge any reductive readings that overlook the power of the ambiguity in the poems. Erkklia in particular states that it is her mission to challenge the “widely shared perception among historians and literary critics” established by Helms and Hershel Parker in their writings on these Calamus poems, that the “Live Oak, with Moss” poems are a “gay manifesto” (100). Erkklia argues that literary historians have simply accepted the reading of these critics that Whitman was a “guilt-­ridden homosexual poet [who] was engaged in a persistent and lifelong process of self-­censorship, cover-­up, and disguise after he had a single isolated love affair or ‘homosexual crisis’ in the late 1850s” (101). As Erkkila continues, [b]y conceptualising and articulating his love for men in the language of democratic comradeship and by celebrating physical pleasure among men in the context of male and female emotiveness and procreation, Whitman in fact suggests the extent to which the bounds between private and public, male and female, heterosexual and homosexual, are still indistinct, permeable, and fluid in his work. (162) What we can say about the Calamus poems, be it the later form in the revised editions of Leaves of Grass, or indeed in their original form in the “Live Oak With Moss” manuscripts, is that masculinity and sexuality appear explicitly on the page, and once more, even in these lines, it is not simply desire or sex that is the resounding subject of these lines, but in fact, it is the connection between the speaker in the poems and the other male figures. And, again, Whitman turns to the beard to affirm such inherent interconnectedness in key scenes. The Calamus poems are primarily Whitman’s exploration into unchartered territory with an exuberant celebration of what the poems term as “manly attachment” (146) and “the need for comrades” (146). In the first poem in the collection, “In Paths Untrodden,” the speaker realises

128  The Bards and Their Beards that “the soul of the man I speak for rejoices in comrades” (146). And so, the speaker, moving on these paths, is “[r]esolv’d to sing no songs to-­ day but those of manly / attachment” (146). Just as in “Song of Myself” Whitman uses these poems to sing and celebrate, but rather than focusing on the divinity in his own self, the central drive of the “Calamus” poems is “to celebrate the need of comrades” (146). Indeed, the power of the “manly love of comrades” (150) would allow the speaker to serve the ideals of individual and democracy: I will plant companionship thick as trees along all the rivers of America, and along the shores of the Great Lakes, and all over the prairies, I will make inseparable cities with their arms about each other’s necks, By the love of comrades, By the manly love of comrades. (150) The importance of the beard is evident in the key positioning of the beard in the identity of the speaker early in the “Calamus” poems. The speaker calls out directly to the reader with the section “Behold This Swarthy Face”: Behold this swarthy face, these gray eyes, This beard the white wool unclipt upon my neck[.] (158) There is the suggestion in this opening image of quite a normal everyday working man, particularly with his “brown hands and the silent manner” (158) in subsequent lines. As Robert K. Martin suggests in “Whitman and the Politics of Identity,” this is an image close to “the natural bearded man” who stood in the frontispiece of the first edition of Leaves of Grass, “which is to say,” as Martin argues, “the construction of the self as democratic and masculine” (176). The speaker here in the “Calamus” poem feels that he is “without charm” (158), but there is something to be found in the speaker’s visage. First of all, the swarthiness and the grey eyes suggest a certain ruggedness and readiness, but, again, it is the beard, the “white wool” that remains “unclipt,” that stands out, indicative, perhaps, of this desire not to the restricted by the expectations of the society but rather to continue to be robust and ready to connect with the people that he is to meet. The connection between the speaker and the comrades he passes on the streets of New York continues in a subsequent section titled “To a Stranger.” In one intense moment, the speaker calls out to a passing stranger he sees on the street. The moment is both real and dream-­like, a flittering

The Bards and Their Beards 129 moment that they share together, both men “fluid, affectionate, chaste, matured” (160). Whitman plays on the gender fluidity of this person, referring to the person as either a boy or girl on two occasions (159, 160). The speaker suggests the bodily connections between them, with their bodies effectively becoming one as they give their bodies to each other: You give me the pleasure of your eyes, face, flesh, as we pass, you take of my beard, breast, hands, in return[.] (160) It is notable that the first thing that the speaker can offer this person passing by is his beard. The beard is first, and the speaker therefore places it in prime position as an indicator of his sense of self and identity. There is perhaps the suggestion here of the beard as a symbol of the age and wisdom of the speaker, particularly if we consider the speaker’s emphasis on the youthfulness or the one-­time youthfulness of the passerby. The speaker states how “you grew up with me, were a boy with me or a girl with me” (160). Of course, we can look to the “you” here as the passerby, but we can also read this “you” in the poem as the “you” of the reader that Whitman himself is speaking to. As Stephen Railton argues in “The Performance of Whitman’s Poetry,” “[l]ike ‘Song of Myself’ and ‘Crossing Brooklyn Ferry,’ the ‘Calamus’ poems as a group are very illocutionary, very much organised as a performance for a you the poems keep coming back to” (23).⁠ Either way, the key detail is that in this encounter it is the beard that is grasped first. In other words, the centre of the physical body of the speaker, and the centre of the body therefore for Whitman, is the beard. The beard is the centre for such connections between the speaker in the poem and Whitman the poet and his readers. The final lines of the poem—“I am to wait, I do not doubt I am to meet you again, / I am to see to it that I do not lose you” (160)—play on this duality; in other words, this typical Whitmanian idea of the cyclical nature of time and space, and indeed, the cyclical nature of manly adhesiveness is centred on the “you” reaching out and taking the beard. From these passages in Leaves of Grass, it is clear that the beard is a central feature in Whitman’s writings on masculinity, sexuality, and identity. And the beard takes on a particular role that has a particular resonance for Whitman. It might be expected that the main role for the beard would be to project a certain image, most commonly that of the inherently masculine man. And to a certain extent, Whitman does play with this image with the famous Leaves of Grass stubble and the association of the beard with a pastoral agrarian manliness. However, beyond that, Whitman’s idea of masculinity is one that appears to be only realised in the interconnection between one individual with

130  The Bards and Their Beards another. As such, the beard is not just the outward projection of an image of masculinity and sexuality but is, in fact, also an intimate object that is richly symbolic as a site for interconnection for all those who need it. From both his words on the page, as well as the image that he projected throughout his life, Whitman’s beard, therefore, emerges as this site of support and security. And Whitman’s beard is certainly this object for two poets who reach out to Whitman in their own reflections about their private and public identities as homosexual men and poets. Both Federico García Lorca and Allen Ginsberg recognise the richness of Whitman’s facial flocculence as a pointer in their own journeys towards coming to grips with their identities. For them, Whitman’s beard is richly symbolic on many levels as they reimagine Walt Whitman there with them on the streets of everyday America, a beard pointing them in the direction towards self-­realisation, self-­fulfilment, and self-­contentment.

Beards and Butterflies: Walt Whitman and Federico García Lorca Ni un solo momento, viejo hermoso Walt Whitman, he dejado de ver tu barba llena de mariposas Not for one moment, beautiful old Walt Whitman, have I not seen your beard full of butterflies —“Ode to Walt Whitman” (150, 151) Federico García Lorca arrived on the shores of the New World on 25 June 1929. During his time in New York City, Lorca worked on his plays and his poetry. The poems that he wrote during the trip would become the collection Poeta en Nueva York, published posthumously in 1940. The last poem that Lorca wrote on the trip was “Oda a Walt Whitman” (“Ode to Walt Whitman”).9 Lorca’s ode is not simply a celebration of Walt Whitman, the poet of New York, but more particularly, the ode is a celebration of Whitman’s beard. Whitman’s beard emerges in the poem as the point of reference for Lorca struggling with his identity and sexuality on the streets of New York. And these issues are very much represented in Lorca’s poetry during this period. We can say that Poeta en Nueva York is a remarkable departure stylistically, thematically, and spiritually for Lorca from the gypsy ballads he composed among the mountainous plains of Andalucía before this voyage of (self-­)discovery to America. This stylistic departure is surely tied into three interrelated issues for the Spanish poet: the shock of a

The Bards and Their Beards 131

Figure 3.2  Whitman with the butterfly on his finger

new urban setting, the bearing of this urban setting on a more concentrated self-­reflexiveness, and a more pertinent presence of social criticism focused on race, class, and the socialisation of (homo)sexuality.10 Throughout Poeta en Nueva York, Lorca faces the fervour of New York, a city which in turn forces him to face his sense of dislocation

132  The Bards and Their Beards in all senses, not only physically and geographically but also more pertinently in terms the dislocation and displacement of his masculine identity and sexuality. Lorca’s self-­examination of such questions is no more apparent than in “Oda a Walt Whitman,” a poem in which Lorca projects these issues onto the resonating image from the poem: Walt Whitman’s beard full of butterflies. Scholars have speculated when Lorca might have first learned and spoke about Whitman. John K. Walsh asserts that Lorca first came into contact with Whitman’s poetry through a meeting with the Spanish poet León Felipe in New York in the home of Federico de Onís, chairman of Columbia’s Spanish department between September 18 and 21, 1929 (258). Ian Gibson wonders of possible conversations that preceded Lorca’s trip to America with other young intellectuals in the café Alameda de Granada, citing the testimony of Luis Rosales that Lorca read Whitman in the anthology published in Valencia by Armando Vasseur in 1912.11 Gibson writes that Lorca also knew of the much-­celebrated sonnet of Rubén Darío, simply titled “Walt Whitman” (1888). This is not without significance. Darío’s representation of Whitman as a father-­figure perhaps hints to Lorca’s vision of the pastoral American patriarch. As Dario writes in “Walt Whitman,” [e]n su país de hierro vive el gran viejo bello como un patriarca, sereno y santo. Tiene en la arruga olímpica de su entrecejo algo que impera y vence con noble encanto. ([i]n your country of iron lives a great old man beautiful like a father-­figure, serene and saintly. In the Olympic wrinkle between his eyebrows He has something that overcomes and prevails with noble charm.) (199) In their readings of “Oda a Walt Whitman,” scholars are quick to point to Lorca’s eroticisation of Whitman or Whitman as Lorca’s point of reference in terms of a poet wrestling with his homosexuality. Federico Bonaddio appears to encapsulate scholarly attitudes to the poem with his statement: “This ode, of course, is well known for being Lorca’s most frank and open treatment of homosexuality to date” (162). Paul Binding, in Lorca: The Gay Imagination (1986), adds that “the very shifts and seeming contradictions in emotional mood that it contains make it indisputably a poem, a mediation, by one who stands before his public as a homosexual” (141). Further readings from Jaime Manrique in Eminent Maricones (2001) suggest that “Oda a Walt Whitman” is also a form

The Bards and Their Beards 133 of intense self-­examination that displays an “internalized homophobia and self-­hatred,” or a “subconscious self-­hatred” (73–75).28 I want to suggest, in a departure from these readings, that a greater consideration of Lorca’s engagement with the beard in his poetry, his plays, and, most fascinatingly, his drawings underlines the centrality of the beard for Lorca in his views of the performativity of masculinity. As such, with his beard full of butterflies, Whitman played a key role for Lorca as a father figure, a guide, and a source of support and sanctuary away from the symbolic—but also very real—distress experienced by Lorca during his time in New York.

Federico García Lorca and the Beard The importance of Whitman’s beard for Federico García Lorca can be understood if we consider how the beard is firmly tied into Lorca’s explorations of masculinity in all avenues of his art. The beard makes its first appearance in Lorca’s play El Público (1920). Rejected when released, and considered by Lorca himself as impossible to produce, Lorquian scholarship has since seized El Público as an early marker of Lorca’s engagement with the issues of masculinity, homosexuality, and identity.12 And the beard features prominently in El Público as a symbolic marker in the performance of masculinity, particularly in the face of heteronormative hegemonic discourses in society. This dilemma that underpins the play, as Carlos Jerez-­Farrán writes, is one experienced by gay men who are “caught between two difficult existential choices: on the one hand, the urgent need to assume one’s homosexuality and declare it publicly, and, on the other, the inability to face the consequences of public discourse” (189). For the masculinity in El Público is a performed masculinity: first, from the exaggerated exclamations of the manliness of the Figura de Pámpanos—“porque soy un hombre, porque no soy nada más que eso, un hombre, más hombre que Adán” (because I am a man, because I am nothing more than that, a man, more of a man than Adam; Obras Completas V 90)—to the proclamations of the Figura de Cascabeles—“porque no eres un hombre. Yo si soy un hombre” (because you are not a man. I am indeed a man; Obras Completas V 93). Moreover, beard wearing is central in the complications of unstable masculinity, particularly in the example of Hombre 2, who puts on and takes off the beard, while Hombre 3 loses his beard altogether. Even at this early point in Lorca’s engagement with the fluency of masculinity and gender identity, the apparent authenticity of the beard as a symbol of masculinity is subverted, something that continues and is complicated further if we turn to the prominence of the beard in Lorca’s drawings.

134  The Bards and Their Beards As an artist regarded primarily for his words as poet and dramatist, the once marginal status of Lorca’s drawings has been transformed by Lorquian scholars who continue to argue strongly for the significance of these pieces in Lorca’s work.13 The standout publication on Lorca’s drawings remains Mario Hernandez’s Libro de los Dibujos de Federico García Lorca (1990), a collection which provides clear evidence of the centrality of the beard in Lorca’s imaginings. This is given even more weight if we consider the drawings from a gender and masculinity perspective. Lorca’s rudimental sketchings must be acknowledged as another vital avenue into the complex themes that dominate Lorca’s creative outputs. As Lorca commented in a letter to Sebastián Gasch, These drawings are pure poetry or indeed pure art at the same time. I feel cleansed, comforted, happy, like a child, when I do them. And having to come up with a word to give them a title fills me with horror. (Obras Completas III 1026) It is thrilling to see how Lorca’s drawings give a unique insight into the symbolical significance of the beard in Lorca’s exploration of masculinity. From the very first drawings of this collection, the beard appears prominently. In Lorca’s first series from 1923, “El Rinconcillo” (“The Little Corner”), the “Hombre Montruoso” (Monstrous Man) heads a range of subsequently catalogued drawings of bearded distorted and distorting figures, either distorted with regards to their unnatural physical stances in being twisted, warped, or bent over or indeed distorting in an act of subverting gender normatives by having flamenco dancers with moustaches and beards or bearded men with breasts and prominent nipples.14 This performative subversion appears most prominently and strikingly in “Suplicio del Patriarca San José” (1928; “Torture of Father Joseph”) in which Joseph, the father of Jesus Christ, is presented with the same exposed heavily bearded pubis of the Venus figures that appear at various stages in Lorca’s drawings, as well as having what would appear to be the outwardly public masculinity-­affirming bearded face.15 Additional images include a heavily bearded speaker with arms outstretched shouting, “Mierda” (Shit), as well as a barber holding what appears to be two razors while having a moustache and heavy stubble cover his own face and elongated bent neck as he looks away in distress.16 In a later collection of figurines for La Barraca theatre group in Madrid, where Lorca was a director, there is a coloured-­pencil piece titled “Pancracio” (“St. Pancras”) that features a bearded man. A man wearing a turban and having a long thick black beard is further evidence of this sense of Otherness that Lorca appears to be associating with the beard at this point in his creative imaginings of the symbolic resonance of facial flocculence.17

The Bards and Their Beards 135 But Lorca’s engagement with the beard would evolve into an association of the beard with interconnection and protection, most notably in “The New York drawings.” The time spent in New York was a significant period for Lorca in that it appears to be particularly freeing for Lorca the artist. As Robert Havard notes, this period of creativity resulted in “a perfect correspondence between poem and drawing, though the latter was a medium that Lorca perhaps found freer from logical constraints” (8). This is no more the case than in the “Pareja de hombre y joven marinero” (1929; The couple of the man and the young sailor).

Figure 3.3  Lorca’s sketch of the man and the young sailor Source: Copyright La Fundación Camilo José Cela.

136  The Bards and Their Beards In “Pareja de hombre y joven marinero,” a young sailor sits on the lap of a much physically larger bearded man. The young sailor holds the stem of a rose in his mouth—a link to Lorca’s New York poem “Ciudad sin sueño (Nocturno del Brooklyn Bridge)” (“City Without Sleep [Nocturne of the Brooklyn Bridge]”): “veremos brillar nuestro anillo y manar rosas de nuestra lengua” (we’ll see our ring glow and roses pour forth from our tongue; Poet in New York 64–65) and appears to have his two hands clasped over the larger man’s hand that is wrapped around his waist.44 In the background, a woman (a mother? A sister? A wife?) appears to be yelling with arms outstretched from a balcony. As Hernandez acknowledges, these New York pieces confirm a greater complexity not only in terms of style and detail but also, in terms of its thematic content, more specifically, as Hernandez puts it, “for (Lorca’s) direct treatment of homosexuality” (112). But we need to take a breath here and consider this drawing further. What is perhaps more notable in this drawing is that the bearded figure is not overtly sexual, neither his posture nor position are erotic, but in his larger physical stature and by sitting behind the young sailor, he appears as a figure of support and protection. Moreover, if we are to take the young sailor as the subject of the piece, being as he is at the front of the drawing, then his two-­handed clasping of the bearded man’s hand wrapped around his waist is an affirmation of the need for such care and guardianship. What is clear, therefore, is “Pareja de hombre y joven marinero” is a significant drawing that resonates with regards to the association of the beard with safety and sanctuary and of a bearded man able to offer companionship when needed most. Sailors feature prominently in the poems of Poeta en Nueva York, no doubt due to the time Lorca spent with sailors in New York City. Lorca met many of these men in the home of Hart Crane, another writer who underlined the influence of Whitman in his own poetry.18 Sailors in Lorca’s poems are either Others outside of the normal rhythms of society or regarded as the embodiment of the human experience of feeling solitary within the multitude, features which would appear to connect the sailors to Lorca’s own experiences in New York.19 The sailor in “Pareja de hombre y joven marinero” is therefore looking for support and guidance and appears to have found it in an older bearded man, a reading that brings us back to Lorca’s ode to old graybeard Whitman. For this drawing of “Pareja de hombre y joven marinero” is very much a parallel negative to one particular photo of Walt Whitman from 1890 with Warren Fritzinger. “Warry” as he was known, was Whitman’s last and favourite nurse. In the photo (Figure 3.4), taken on Camden Wharf, the 71-­year-­old Whitman sits in a chair, his heavily bearded face tilted back, his eyes staring intently into the camera. Behind Whitman, with his hand on the chair, is Warry, who Whitman described as being “faithful, true, and loyal.” Warry had spent many years at sea, and Whitman did indeed call him his “sailor boy.”20 The parallels between Lorca’s drawing and

The Bards and Their Beards 137

Figure 3.4 Walt Whitman with Warren Fritzinger, also known as Warry, in 1890. Notice the symbolic similarities between this image and Lorca’s sketch shown in Figure 3.3.

Whitman’s photo are striking in their mirroring of Lorca’s young sailor being supported by the bearded older man behind him, while in Whitman’s photo we see the older bearded Whitman being joined by the great support in his life, his sailor boy Warry. These themes of male companionship which Lorca associates the image of Whitman coalesce in Lorca’s evocation of Whitman’s beard full of butterflies in “Oda a Walt Whitman.”

138  The Bards and Their Beards

Lorca Walking With Whitman Whitman’s beard is a site of solace for Lorca in an urban arena being shaped by the rapid forces of industrialisation. Lorca’s lament of the distorting urbanity of the metropolis for the young men in New York is introduced immediately in the first six stanzas of “Oda a Walt Whitman”: “los muchachos cantaban enseñando sus cinturas” (the young men sang, baring their waists; 148, 149). Lorca’s choice of verb here is surely not coincidental, with Lorca having these young men sing echoing Whitman’s famous opening to “Song of Myself” of “I celebrate myself,

Figure 3.5 Lorca’s sketch of Walt Whitman’s beard that he sent to various friends and acquaintances

The Bards and Their Beards 139 and sing myself.” But there is a pertinent distinction in the tone of such singing. While Whitman’s singing is, in his own words, a celebration of selfhood, and while he leans and loafs near the summer grass, these young men reject what Lorca recognises as the beauty of nature: “ninguno quería ser el río, / ninguno amaba las hojas grandes, / ninguno la lengua azul de la playa” (“none wished to be the river, / none loved the large leaves / or the beach’s blue tongue”). (148, 149) Instead, these young men toil “con la rueda, el aceite, el cuero y el martillo” (with the wheel, the oil, the hide, and the hammer; 148, 149). Lorca is clear in his view of New York. This is a “Nueva York de cieno, / Nueva York de alambre y de muerte” (New York of filth, / New York of wires and death), where such “muchachos” (young men), rather than celebrating their existence or coming together to celebrate their sexual identities, “luchaban con la industria” (wrestled with industry; 148, 149). This is the urban performance of masculinity in such a difficult environment for Lorca, one in which he sought solace. The place of solace that Lorca desires appears next in the poem with Lorca’s introduction of Whitman: Ni un solo momento, viejo hermoso Walt Whitman, he dejado de ver tu barba llena de mariposas (Not for one moment, beautiful old Walt Whitman, have I not seen your beard full of butterflies) (150, 151) “Beautiful, old Walt Whitman,” with his beard full of butterflies, is elevated by Lorca as an ideal, an urban pastoral figure that Lorca continually “sees” as he wanders the city streets. The immediate question is: Why a beard full of butterflies? The argument of the butterfly representing homosexuality in Lorca’s poetry has been made on various occasions. Sahuquillo refers to previous readings from Laguardia and Léon to support his claim that “the butterfly is often used as a symbol of homosexuality” (122), with the implicit reading of homosexuality, through this figure of the butterfly, as “evil” (156) or, indeed, the reading of “the butterfly being an obvious reference to a homosexual” (102) Moreover, Sahuquillo points to Laguardia’s reading of the phonetic association between mariposa (butterfly) and marica (queer) is cited by Lorquian scholarship as evidence of this link. But the butterfly, and by extension, the treatment of homosexuality in the “Oda a Walt Whitman,” is more nuanced and complex if we fully

140  The Bards and Their Beards consider the symbolic power of the butterfly throughout Lorca’s writing. The butterfly, from Lorca’s very first collection, is tied into Lorca’s very existence as evidenced by the speaker in “Balada Triste” proclaiming, “My heart is a butterfly” (123). The butterfly also makes notable appearances in Poeta En Nueva York, appearing in the first poem “Vuelta de paseo” (“Back From a Walk”). The image of the “mariposa ahogada en el tintero” (butterfly drowned in an inkwell; 4, 5), is suggestive, no less, of the pressures placed upon the writer by new experiences in the metropolis. But looking past Lorca’s poetry to his first play, El maleficio de la mariposa (1920), we can see the symbolic power of the butterfly that points to how we might read the significance of the association of butterflies with Whitman. In El maleficio de la mariposa, the poet-­fly, a plausible stand in for Lorca, declares his love for a butterfly that has fallen from a tree. Notably, the fly laments the fact that it is not itself a butterfly, as the butterfly encapsulates beauty, goodness, and love, qualities that the fly-­poet wishes were the essence of his existence. Might we say then, that Lorca, in “Oda a Walt Whitman,” is once more the poet-­ fly or indeed, some semblance of a butterfly but drowned in the inkwell and, in his urban despair, now sees Whitman’s beard full of butterflies in his need for an image of purity, a purity of spirit as well as a purity of poetic power. This purity is also present in the pastoral image that Whitman projects. Lorca makes reference to Whitman’s “hombros de pana” (corduroy shoulders), the clothes of the working-­class man, which, we are told, are “gastados” (worn away) by the foremost Lorquian symbol of “la luna” (the moon; 150, 151). Of course, it is not only the clothes that Whitman wears but also the beard that he wears that is the key to Whitman’s pastoral performance. Whitman, with his butterfly beard, evocates qualities of virtuous manliness, with his “muslos de Apolo virginal” (virginal Apollo thighs; 150, 151). He is also a “anciano hermoso como la niebla” (beautiful old man like the mist; 150, 151) before being later referred to in stanza nine as “Adán de sangre, macho, / hombre solo en el mar, viejo hermoso Walt Whitman” (macho Adam of blood, / man alone at sea, / beautiful old Walt Whitman; 150, 151). Lorca projects these ideas of a seemingly lost pastoral ideal onto Whitman and his beard, one no doubt linked to the pastoral he associates with his native tierra in the hills of Andalucía in the south of Spain but also to the pastoral familiarity that he yearns for as a remedy for the urban loneliness in the face of the performance of urban masculinities on the streets on New York City. The performance of masculinities and homosexualities of the young men on the streets of New York City is a major focus of the poem. In the final line of the eighth stanza of “Ode to Walt Whitman” Lorca retorts: “los maricas, Walt Whitman, te señalan” (the queers, Walt Whitman, are pointing at you; 150, 151). The ferocity of this feeling is evident as it runs into the ninth stanza where Lorca rages, “También ese! También!

The Bards and Their Beards 141 Y se despeñan / sobre tu barba luminosa y casta” (That one, too! That one! And they hurl themselves / on your chaste and luminous beard; 150, 151). This group of men, “muchedumbres de gritos y ademanes” (crowd of cries and gestures; 150, 151), a group which Lorca likens to cats and snakes, are often cited as manifestations of the darker elements of Lorca’s psyche at a time in which he was struggling with his own sexual identity. Manrique, in Eminent Maricones, expounds on this, arguing that by “spewing out his hatred for urban effeminate gays Lorca may have opened room in his psyche to begin to come to terms with his own homosexuality” (74). But the issue that Lorca has with these homosexual men is not their sexuality, nor their link to his sexuality, but the impact of the urban metropolis—both the physical aspects of the city plus the more abstract urban discourses that are shaped and are shaping the city—on the everyday performance of these homosexual men. Manrique’s reading, therefore, that Lorca’s “hatred” for these figures underlines his “subconscious self-­hatred,” is over-­determining the sense of internalised Otherness that Lorca projects in the poem. It is not the Otherness in homosexual desire itself that is a point of critique. Lorca does not rally against other homosexuals who struggle with their homosexual desires in other situations such as “el muchacho que se viste de novia / en la oscuridad del ropero” (the young man who dresses / like a bride in the darkness of his closet; 154, 155) Lorca’s issue is with the effect of the urban metropolis on the everyday performance of these “Maricas de todo el mundo” (queers of the world; 154, 155), who throw themselves at the “barba luminosa y casta” (chaste and luminous beard; 150, 151) of the pastoral Whitman and, by doing so, perpetuate Lorca’s sense of urban loneliness. Ultimately, for Lorca, Whitman is a transcendent bearded figure of an idealised masculinity and sexuality. This is tied into the image of Whitman as a pastoral figure, a wise sage with a beard full of butterflies that offers solace away from the urban America that Lorca finds so troubling with regards to his identity as a poet and a homosexual man. In the final image of the bard, there lays Whitman on the shores of the Hudson River with his beard the pointing the way for Lorca: “bello Walt Whitman, duerme a orillas del / Hudson / con la barba hacia el polo y las manos abiertas” (beautiful Walt Whitman, sleep on the shores of the / Hudson / with your beard pointed toward the pole and your hands open; 156, 157). In the face of the urban loneliness that Lorca had experienced, the Whitman that Lorca constructs in “Oda a Walt Whitman” is a fully bearded embodiment of openness and acceptance. Allen Ginsberg: Whitman’s Beard as His Compass Whitman’s beard also pointed the way for another poet who shared Lorca’s struggles with regards to his masculinity, sexuality, and his identity: Allen Ginsberg. In a now fabled encounter in the Russian Tea Room on

142  The Bards and Their Beards 150 West Fifty-­Seventh Street, New York City, Ginsberg, surely the most famous bearded American poet of the 20th century, revealed the impact of Federico García Lorca’s image of Walt Whitman’s “beard full of butterflies” to another artist with a close connection to Lorca: Salvador Dali, of course, sported his own eccentric and iconic facial-­hair styling, his being a heavily pomaded Hungarian moustache. As Barry Miles retells the meeting, Allen encountered Salvador Dali at a gallery opening and introduced himself as a poet. “Do you know the poet Lorca?” Dali asked. Allen took two steps back and began reciting. “Not for one moment beautiful aged Walt Whitman/have I failed to see your beard full of butterflies . . .” (215) The fact that Lorca’s lines evoking Whitman’s beard would resonate with Ginsberg is by no means abstruse—the beard is central to “Allen Ginsberg” the poet. While Lorca was clean-­shaven throughout his life, Ginsberg cultivated a thick and wondrous beard at various points. Ginsberg’s abundant bushiness gave him the air of a soothsayer, a truth-­teller, a seer of all that was wrong with the American mainstream. Ginsberg’s beard was one of the main ingredients of his image as the radical voice of a new America when beards re-­appeared in the American consciousness as symbols of subversion or counterculture, a fact played with in literature and poetry of the period, particularly in the writings of the Beat Generation. The beard resonated in the Beat’s vision of the American individual as an outsider challenging the hegemonies that shaped society and the expected everyday performance of the American male. As John Osborne posits, “if the Beats are united by a subject as well as an aesthetic, then this surely is it: the mid-­century crisis in masculinity; the attempt to establish a male camaraderie that is resolutely anti-­patriarchy” (196).21 For Ginsberg, the beard, therefore, was a loaded symbol that could be worn as a striking visual sign of this challenge to heteronormative discourses that were shaping American society and the performance of American masculinity. The bearded Whitman was a major figure for Ginsberg. As Catherine A. Davies argues, the Calamus poems, in particular, had a serious impact on Ginsberg as “for Ginsberg, Whitman’s ‘Calamus’ had prophesied the ‘gay liberation for American and World literatures,’ imagining a ‘democracy . . . that hangs together using the force of Eros’ ” (111). Moreover, Robert K. Martin argues that Whitman was the embodiment of a lost past, a representation of a return to a lost ideal: “Whitman evokes for Ginsberg the dream of a return to lost innocence, a surprisingly Freudian dream of ‘every frozen delicacy’ ” (Homosexual Tradition 167). Martin continues, making one particularly key point regarding a notable distinction between Whitman and Ginsberg. Martin

The Bards and Their Beards 143 argues that although Ginsberg looks to Whitman as a model on all levels, Ginsberg does not share the same relationship to America: “Whitman, even when he saw himself most clearly as a homosexual, identified himself with America; Ginsberg repeatedly denies that identification, affirming his isolation and loneliness” (167). There is a tension, therefore, in how these two bearded poets see themselves in relation to the idea of America. We might argue, however, that there is less of a tension between these two poets on a more personal and intimate level, specifically with Ginsberg holding Whitman and his beard as a particular ideal in his own journey of self-­discovery. Ginsberg’s beard is an essential object in both his public persona as a counter-­cultural figure and his private struggles with his sexuality and sense of self. Ginsberg searched for spiritual fulfilment and his bushy beard can be connected to his spiritual development and his explorations of Buddhism. Although Jack Kerouac had first urged Ginsberg to look into Buddhism in the 1950s, it was a later meeting with Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche, a Tibetan Buddhist teacher, that reinvigorated Ginsberg. Ginsberg had made the trip to India to practise yoga and meditation and adopted the local dress and fashion, most significantly the wild beard.22 Trungpa later recognised the complex relationship that Ginsberg had with his beard. As Bill Morgan writes in I Celebrate Myself (2006), Trungpa believed that Ginsberg needed to shave off his beard to shed what it represented: “He felt that Allen was too preoccupied with his own identity, symbolized by the wild beard that made him instantly recognisable. Without the beard he said, Allen would be more anonymous and not be as focused on being ‘Allen Ginsberg’ ” (479). But the beard remained at the centre of Ginsberg’s cultivation of “Allen Ginsberg” the poet, and the public continued to latch on to Ginsberg’s beard, so much so that when Ed Sanders opened the Peace Eye Book Store in New York City in 1964 with the intention of selling “literary curiosities,” one of the items on sale was a few hairs of Ginsberg’s beard, priced at $24.75.23 But Ginsberg’s beard was not simply a gimmick that helped cultivate his celebrity status; Ginsberg’s famous flocculence was a more complicated and complex factor in his struggles between his public and private identity and, symptomatically, the subsequent exploration of his sexuality and the negotiation of masculinity in his poetry. Ginsberg was very much aware of the symbolic power of his beard, both in terms of his own public persona as well as in his poetry. In “Kral Majales” (1965), Ginsberg, in his frustration of being sent from Cuba and later expelled from Czechoslovakia for his performance as a king in their traditional May Day celebrations, parodies himself as “the King of May,” which, as Ginsberg riffs, echoing Whitman’s “Song of Myself,” is the “long hair of Adam and the Beard of my own body” (90). As recorded in The Essential Allen Ginsberg (2015), in his address to the

144  The Bards and Their Beards Special Subcommittee of the Committee on the Judiciary at the US Senate, Ginsberg acknowledged the image that his beard may project: I hope that whatever prejudgment you may have of me or my bearded image you can suspend so that we can talk together as fellow beings in the same room of now, trying to come to some harmony and peacefulness between us. (171) Ginsberg underlines this (self-­)awareness of his bearded Otherness in a letter to Peter Orlovsky in which he recounts his trip to Chile: “I seem to be the only bearded man in Chile, so my photo was in all the newspapers— and children on the streets thought I was Fidel Castro’s representative” (226).24 The most telling reference to the beard comes in a journal entry that reports Ginsberg’s crossing of the border into the United States following a trip to Mexico. As Jonah Rashkin reports, in a sketch in his diary Ginsberg reduces himself to the very essence of his being: “alone naked with knapsack, watch, camera, poem, and beard” (118). On the page, Ginsberg played with the provocative power of the beard in society to challenge the normatives of gender construction. One of the most striking images that Ginsberg put forward is that of his mother in the poem “Kaddish,” in which she appears “with a long black beard around the vagina” (34). This subversion of the associations of the beard with the male face, manhood, and masculinity, shares a remarkable parallel with Lorca’s engagement with the pubic beard in his drawings to problematise the symbolic power of hair. The centre point of Lorca’s collection of drawings titled “Venus” (ca. 1927–28) is an open vagina covered in a mound of bushy pubic hair. In all the drawings the beard is the centre of the piece. In the first catalogued drawing, the Venus figure has a noticeably small head and expressionless face decorated with pupil-­less eyes so that the bearded vulva, at the centre of the Venus figure’s voluptuous hips, dominates. Venus reappears in another piece in the same period with long pubic hairs extending from a much smaller vulva, while in a later work from 1934 titled “Agua sexual,” another armless Venus figure has an even bushier pubic mound with longer hairs from which small hands flow.25 It is striking that Ginsberg and Lorca should both extrapolate the beard from its conventional place on the face of men and re-­appropriate this seemingly fixed emblem of masculinity on to the very centre of female sexuality. By doing so, Ginsberg and Lorca position the beard as a marker of identity that is particularly powerful and particularly problematic. Ultimately, however, for Ginsberg (following Lorca), existing and writing at a time in which his own beardedness masked the struggles with his own sense of self, the beard was also central to the sense of dislocation and Otherness on the streets of the United States, a loneliness that Ginsberg, like Lorca, projects onto Walt Whitman’s beard.

The Bards and Their Beards 145

Ginsberg Rediscovering Whitman (and His Beard) Ginsberg had lost track of Whitman during his time at Columbia University in the 1940s, instead turning to poets who had travelled across transnational networks beyond the United States, namely T. S. Eliot, W. H. Auden, William Butler Yeats, and Arthur Rimbaud. Ginsberg reconnected with Whitman outside of the borders of the United States during a trip to Mexico in 1953. It was there that Ginsberg returned to Whitman after reading Federico García Lorca’s “Oda a Walt Whitman.” On his return to the United States, Ginsberg turned to Walt Whitman as his guide and mentor as he strained to find his place in McCarthy-­era America. The influence of Whitman, both on the face and on the page, is clear. Stylistically, the similarities are abundantly evident—the straight-­talking intensity of Whitmanian rhetoric rages in many Ginsberg poems, particularly from the Whitman-­esque extended breaths of “Howl” or “Kaddish.” The engagement of Whitman and Ginsberg with free verse and extended lines of irregular yet entirely organic rhyme, metre, and line breaks is an indicator of their positioning as poets free from poetical, as well as societal, convention and tradition.26 Ultimately, what unites these two bearded men is the power of their poetry to explore the complex issues that define their sense of masculinity, sexuality, and identity—all of which are centred on the symbolic power of the beard. The Ginsberg poem that addresses this intimate connection between Whitman and Ginsberg, the poem which features a cameo from Federico García Lorca, no less, is “A Supermarket in California” (1955). Ginsberg wrote “A Supermarket in California” in 1955, reportedly conscious that it was the centenary year of the first edition of Whitman’s Leaves of Grass.27 Ginsberg’s poem is very much his paean to Whitman for what old “greybeard” represents both on an intimate and personal level and on a more expansive and abstract level to American poetry and the American nation. Ginsberg celebrates Whitman as a figure outside of the heteronormative discourses of American life, a figure that embodies the sense of loneliness and Otherness of the homosexual poet that Ginsberg is experiencing 100 years after Whitman. Echoing Lorca’s reaching out to the bearded Whitman as a remedy for the ills on the streets of New York City in the era of rapid industrialisation, Ginsberg’s call to Whitman occurs under the marginalising auguries of consumerism and capitalism, a point underlined by the setting of his interactions with the imagined bearded bard in the symbolic arena of the Californian neon fruit supermarket. Ginsberg, throughout his poetry, appears to associate the beard with loneliness or, indeed, loneliness with having a beard. These images of bearded loneliness are refracted through the ghostly spectre of Walt Whitman. In “Kaddish,” Ginsberg tells of his mother’s encounter with God, a Whitmanian figure who is “a lonely old man with a white beard” and who has been “a bachelor so long” (23). Images of loneliness feature

146  The Bards and Their Beards in prominent moments in Ginsberg’s writing, notably in “Wichita Vortex Sutra” (1966), in which Ginsberg is the “lone man from the void” (402) or, in a striking Whitmanian echo, “the lone One singing to myself” (411). Paradoxically—or perhaps not—this sense of loneliness is a central element in Ginsberg’s Whitmanian idea of the interconnected nature of his subjectivity on a very local level to the idea of what it is to be American on a national level. As Davies argues, “it is also this loneliness that connects [Ginsberg] to the nation at large” (87), with the powerful lines from “Wichita Vortex Sutra” resonating: I’m an old man now, and a lonesome man in Kansas but not afraid to speak my lonesomeness in a car, because not only my lonesomeness it’s Ours, all over America. (413) In “A Supermarket in California,” Ginsberg projects this loneliness onto Whitman. Whitman is a “lonely old grubber” (30), and later the “lonely old courage-­/teacher” (30). The Whitmanian genealogy of Ginsberg’s sense of loneliness, which runs of course through Lorca, is played out in “A Supermarket in California” with Ginsberg’s act of self-­questioning and self-­reflection: “Will we walk all night through solitary streets?” (30). Whitman and Ginsberg are “solitary” in a very literal sense in terms of being the only men walking the city streets on this particular night imagined by Ginsberg, their solitariness due to the polarity of these poets from the heteronormative ideologies of domesticity in 1950s’ America, one that Ginsberg symbolises with his flâneurial observations of “lights out in the houses” (30) and the “blue automobiles in driveways” (30). Ginsberg’s decree that “we’ll both be lonely” (30) is suggestive of what he imagines as the closeness of these two bearded poets as they walk together as queering agents of such heteronormativity. The supermarket—the epicentre of American life during this period of mid-­20th-­century consumerism—is Ginsberg’s arena for such questioning and confrontation. In “America,” Ginsberg makes the grandiose, ironic, and subversive statement, “When can I go into the supermarket and buy what I / need with my good looks?” (39). Ginsberg and Whitman, as they wander, are surrounded by “[a]isles full of husbands! Wives in the avocados, babies in the tomatoes” (30), with scenes of “whole families shopping / at night!” (30). Ginsberg celebrates the shared act of defiant subversion with Whitman: We strode down the open corridors together in our solitary fancy tasting artichokes, possessing every frozen delicacy, and never passing the cashier. (29)

The Bards and Their Beards 147 Ginsberg appears as a radical agent, but the point is that he can only do it with the supporting spectre of the bearded Whitman there beside him. Just as Whitman was a father figure for Lorca, likewise Whitman is “dear father, graybeard” (30) for Ginsberg, his bearded self a site (or sight) of wisdom and knowledge. Ginsberg is looking to follow Whitman—“A Supermarket in California” is full of movement, with verbs of motion (going, walking, stroll, strode, wandered, following) featuring throughout. Just as Lorca had the bearded Whitman pointing the way on the banks of the Hudson River, “A Supermarket in California” is Ginsberg’s call for the bearded Whitman to also point him in the direction of solace. Ginsberg, in a telling and highly intimate moment, turns to Whitman and asks, “Where are we going, Walt Whitman? The doors / close in an hour. Which way does your beard point / tonight?”28 Walt Whitman’s beard, just as it is in the poetry of Federico García Lorca, is also regarded by Allen Ginsberg as something missing and very much needed to remedy contemporary issues in American society. In “A Supermarket in California,” Whitman’s beard is grasped by Allen Ginsberg as a pointer toward “the lost America of love / past” (30), a pastoral purity that Whitman’s beard full of butterflies represented to Lorca. Ultimately, Lorca and Ginsberg find solace in Whitman’s beard from their shared loneliness as poets but also as homosexual men trying to navigate the sense of dislocation that appears to underpin their experiences on the streets of the United States. Such a re-­imagining of Whitman’s beard, be it the beard full of butterflies or old father graybeard, is a very real and very necessary act for both Lorca and Ginsberg. Whitman saw the beard as a symbolically powerful object to bring seemingly lost individuals together, and Lorca and Ginsberg latch on to the unique power of Whitman’s flowing beard. Ultimately, Federico García Lorca and Allen Ginsberg, in their shared moment of need, turn to Whitman, America’s most flocculent poet, to point the way as they deal with their loneliness and dislocation as homosexual men and poets on the streets of the United States.

Notes 1. Walt Whitman, “Song of Myself.” Leaves of Grass: The First (1855) Edition, edited by Malcolm Cowley. Penguin, 1986, 46. This line was deleted in the versions of “Song of Myself” after 1871. See James Perrin Warren’s chapter “Style,” in A Companion to Walt Whitman, 382. 2. Andrew Lawson discusses the “obscure” etymology of foofoo in Walt Whitman and the Class Struggle (2006). He cites John Russell Bartlett, who notes the first occurrence in print of foofoo in A Glance at New York (1848) and offers the definition of foofoo as “a slang word, meaning an ‘outsider,’ or one not in the secrets of society, party or band” (135). 3. See Charles Baudelaire, “The Painter of Modern Life.” The Painter of Modern Life: and Other Essays. 1863. Ed. and translated by Jonathan Mayne. Phaidon, 1964.

148  The Bards and Their Beards 4. It is noticeable, for example, that while there is an important section on the “Human Body” and Whitman offered by M. Jimmie Killingsworth in Walt Whitman: An Encyclopedia (1998), there is no reference to the beard. Killingsworth recognises that Whitman propelled himself beyond the simple physiological processes of the body and saw it as something on par with poetry itself in the power of the body to evoke emotions tied not only to sexuality and comradeship but also to the larger narratives of democracy, society, and identity. 5. An apt example is Revisiting Walt Whitman: On the Occasion of his 200th Birthday (2019), edited by Winifred Herget. This transnational and transmedial study out of Germany sets out its intentions to problematise “tensions and ambivalences in the oeuvre of ‘The Good Gray Poet’ ” (9). 6. See Ed Folsom, The Measure of His Song (1998), 46–51. 7. These references are taken from the Malcolm Crowley–edited Leaves of Grass: The First (1855) Edition (1986). 8. See James E. Miller Jr’s chapter “Children of Adam” in Walt Whitman: An Encyclopedia (1998) 9. See Daniel Eisenberg’s “A Chronology of Lorca’s Visit to New York and Cuba” on the website Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes. 10. See Christopher Maurer’s chapter “Poetry” in A Companion to Federico García Lorca (33–34) 11. See Gibson’s reflections on Whitman’s influence on Lorca before Lorca made the trip to the United States in Federico García Lorca (2011) 12. See Gwynne Edwards, Plays: Three, Mariana Pineda, The Public, Play Without a Title (1994); Carlos Jerez-­Farrán, Un Lorca desconocido: Análisis de un teatro ‘irrepresentable’ (2004); Angel Sahuquillo, Federico García Lorca and the Culture of Male Homosexuality (2007); Chris Perriam, “Gender and Sexuality” in A Companion to Federico García Lorca (2007); and Paul McDermid, Love, Desire, and Identity in the Theatre of Federico García Lorca (2007). 13. The standout publication on Lorca’s drawings remains Mario Hernandez’s, Libro de los Dibujos de Federico García Lorca (1990). Also see David K Loughran, Federico García Lorca: The Poetry of Limits (1978); Felicia Londré Hardison, Federico García Lorca (1984); Estelle Irizarry, Painter-­Poets of Contemporary Spain (1984); Helen Oppenheimer, Lorca: The Drawings (1986); Cecelia J. Cavanaugh, Lorca’s Drawings and Poems: Forming the Eye of the Reader (1995); Martha J. Nandorfy, The Poetics of Apocalypse: Federico García Lorca’s “Poet in New York” (2003), Jacqueline and Federico Bonaddio, eds., “Drawing.” In A Companion to Federico García Lorca (2007), 84–100. 14. The name is the series is taken from the café where Lorca met with other young intellectuals in Granada. See Hernandez, Libro de los Dibujos de Federico García Lorca, 175. Examples of these monsters appear on pgs. 2, 4, 9, 11, 18, 23, 34, 36, 36a, 39 of Hernandez’s collection. Examples of monsters subverting gender normatives appear on pp. 7, 29. 15. For further discussion see José Luis Plaza Chillón, Modelos, Intercambios y Recepción Artística: (De Las Rutas Marítimas a la Navegación en Red) (2008), 958–66. 16. See drawings 24 & 40 in Hernandez. 17. See drawing 359 in Hernandez. 18. See Sahuquillo 78–84. 19. For further discussion see Miguel García-­Posada’s Lorca: interpretación de Poeta en Nueva York (1981) 145–47. 20. Photographer: Dr. John Johnston, Bolton, England. Credit: Charles E. Feinberg. ID: 117. See whitmanarchive.org. www.whitmanarchive.org/multi media/image117.html?sort=year&order=descending&page=1.

The Bards and Their Beards 149 21. See also the discussion of beards and the Beat Generation in James Campbell’s This Is the Beat Generation: New York, San Francisco, Paris (2001), 246. 22. See William Lawlor’s Beat Culture: Lifestyles, Icons, and Impact (2005), 117–37. 23. See Bill Morgan’s Beat Generation in New York: A Walking Tour of Jack Kerouac’s City (1997) for further discussion of such eccentricities surrounding the Beat Generation. 24. See Bill Morgan’s The Letters of Allen Ginsberg (2008) for discussion on Ginsberg’s view of his beard. 25. See Hernandez for these drawings. 26. For a useful comparative analysis see Catherine A. Davies’ Whitman’s Queer Children (2012), 106–25. 27. See Ezra Greenspan, ed. Walt Whitman’s “Song of Myself”: A Sourcebook and Critical Edition (2005), 92. 28. In The Letters of Allen Ginsberg (2008), Ginsberg, in one letter to Richard Eberhart in 1956, reflects on the poem “A Supermarket in California”: “2. Supermarket in California deals with Walt Whitman, Why? He was the first great American poet to take action in recognizing his individuality, forgiving and accepting Him Self, and automatically extending that recognition and acceptance to all—and defining his Democracy as that. He was unique and lonely in his glory—the truth of his feelings—without which no society can long exist” (137–38).

Works Cited Baudelaire, Charles. “The Painter of Modern Life.” The Painter of Modern Life: And Other Essays, edited and translated by Jonathan Mayne, Phaidon, 1964, pp. 1–35. Binding, Paul. Lorca: The Gay Imagination. Heretic Books, 1986. Bonaddio, Federico. Federico García Lorca: The Poetics of Self-­Consciousness. Tamesis, 2010. Campbell, James. This Is the Beat Generation: New York, San Francisco, Paris. U of California P, 2001. Cavanaugh, Cecelia J. Lorca’s Drawings and Poems: Forming the Eye of the Reader. Bucknell UP, 1995. Cockburn, Jacqueline and Federico Bonaddio, editors. “Drawing.” A Companion to Federico García Lorca, Tamesis, 2007, pp. 84–100. Dario, Ruben. “Walt Whitman.” Azul, Editorial EDAF, S.A., 2003. Davies, Catherine A. Whitman’s Queer Children: America’s Homosexual Epics. Continuum, 2012. Edwards, Gwynne. Plays: Three, Mariana Pineda, The Public, Play Without a Title. Metheun, 1994. Eisenberg, Daniel. “A Chronology of Lorca’s Visit to New York and Cuba.” Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes. Accessed 8 Nov. 2018. Erkkila, Betsy. “Whitman and the Homosexual Republic.” Walt Whitman: The Centennial Essays, edited by Ed Folsom, U of Iowa P, 1994, pp. 153–71. ———. Walt Whitman’s Songs of Male Intimacy and Love. U of Iowa P, 2011. Folsom, Ed. The Measure of His Song. Holy Cow! Press, 1998. García Lorca, Federico. Obras Completas V. Akal, 1994. ———. Obras Completas III. Galaxia Gutenberg, 1997. ———. “Ode to Walt Whitman.” Poet in New York, edited and translated by Pablo Medina and Mark Statman, Grove Press, 2008, pp. 148–57.

150  The Bards and Their Beards ———. Poet in New York. Edited and translated by Pablo Medina and Mark Statman. Grove Press, 2008. García-­Posada, Miguel. Lorca: Interpretación de Poeta en Nueva York. Akal, 1981. Gibson, Ian. Federico García Lorca. Crítica, 2011. Ginsberg, Allen. “America.” Howl and Other Poems, City Lights Publishers, 2001. ———. “Kraj Majales.” 1968. Planet News, City Lights Publishers, 2001. ———. “A Supermarket in California.” Howl and Other Poems, City Lights Publishers, 2001. ———. “Kaddish.” Howl, Kaddish and Other Poems, Penguin, 2009. ———. The Essential Allen Ginsberg. Penguin, 2015. Greenspan, Ezra, editor. Walt Whitman’s “Song of Myself”: A Sourcebook and Critical Edition. Routledge, 2005. Havard, Robert, editor. A Companion to Spanish Surrealism. Tamesis, 2004. Herget, Winifred, editor. Revisiting Walt Whitman: On the Occasion of His 200th Birthday. Peter Lang, 2019. Hernandez, Mario, editor. Libro de los Dibujos de Federico García Lorca. 1990. Editorial Comares, 1998. Irizarry, Estelle. Painter-­Poets of Contemporary Spain. Twayne, 1984. Jerez-­Farrán, Carlos. “Transvestism and Sexual Transgression in García Lorca’s The Public.” Modern Drama, vol. 44, no. 2, 2001, pp. 188–213. ———. Un Lorca desconocido: Análisis de un teatro ‘irrepresentable’. Biblioteca Nueva, 2004. Killingsworth, M. Jimmie. Whitman’s Poetry of the Body. The U of North Carolina P, 1989. ———. “Human Body.” Walt Whitman: An Encyclopedia, edited by J. R. LeMaster and Donald D. Kummings, Garland, 1998, pp. 285–87. Lawlor, William. Beat Culture: Lifestyles, Icons, and Impact. ABC-­CLIO, Inc., 2005. Lawson, Andrew. Walt Whitman and the Class Struggle. U of Iowa P, 2006. Londré Hardison, Felicia. Federico García Lorca. Frederick Lungar, 1984. Loughran, David K. Federico García Lorca: The Poetry of Limits. Tamesis Books, 1978. Manrique, Jaime. Eminent Maricones: Arenas, Lorca, Puig, and Me. U of Wisconsin P, 2001. Martin, Robert K. “Whitman and the Politics of Identity.” Walt Whitman: The Centennial Essays, edited by Ed Folsom, U of Iowa P, 1994, pp. 172–84. ———. The Homosexual Tradition in American Poetry. U of Iowa P, 1998. Maurer, Christopher. “Poetry.” A Companion to Federico García Lorca, edited by Federico Bonaddio, Tamesis, 2007, pp. 16–38. McDermid, Paul. Love, Desire, and Identity in the Theatre of Federico García Lorca. Tamesis, 2007. Miles, Barry. Allen Ginsberg: Beat Poet. Virgin Books, 2002. Miller Jr., James E., “Children of Adam.” Walt Whitman: An Encyclopedia, edited by J. R. LeMaster and Donald D. Kummings, Garland Publishing, 1998, pp. 115–18. Morgan, Bill. Beat Generation in New York: A Walking Tour of Jack Kerouac’s City. City Lights Books, 1997.

The Bards and Their Beards 151 ———. I Celebrate Myself: The Somewhat Private Life of Allen Ginsberg. Penguin, 2006. ———. The Letters of Allen Ginsberg. Da Capo Press, 2008. Nandorfy, Martha J. The Poetics of Apocalypse: Federico García Lorca’s “Poet in New York”. Bucknall UP, 2003. Oppenheimer, Helen. Lorca: The Drawings. Herbert Press, 1986. Osborne, John. “The Beats.” A Companion to Twentieth-­Century Poetry, edited by Neil Roberts, Blackwell, 2001, pp. 183–96. Perriam, Chris. “Gender and Sexuality.” A Companion to Federico García Lorca, edited by Jacqueline Cockburn and Federico Bonaddio, Tamesis, 2007, pp. 149–69. Perrin Warren, James. “Style.” A Companion to Walt Whitman, edited by Donald D. Kummings, Wiley-­Blackwell, 2005, pp. 377–91. Plaza Chillón, José Luis. Modelos, Intercambios y Recepción Artística: (De Las Rutas Marítimas a la Navegación en Red). Universitat de les Illes Balears, 2008. Rashkin, Jonah. American Scream: Allen Ginsberg’s Howl and the Making of the Beat Generation. U of California P, 2004. Reynolds, David S. “Politics and Poetry: Leaves of Grass and the Social Crisis of the 1850s.” The Cambridge Companion to Walt Whitman, edited by Ed Folsom, Cambridge UP, 1995, pp. 66–91. ———. Walt Whitman. Oxford UP, 2005. Sahuquillo, Angel. Federico García Lorca and the Culture of Male Homosexuality. Translated by Erica Frouman-­Smith. McFarland & Company, 2007. Walsh, John K. “A Logic in Lorca’s Ode to Walt Whitman.” Entiendes? Queer Readings, Hispanic Writings, edited by Emilie L. Bergmann, Duke UP, 1995, pp. 257–78. Whitman, Walt. Poetry and Prose. Edited by Justin Kaplan. Library of America, 1982. ———. “I Sing the Body Electric.” Leaves of Grass: The First (1855) Edition, edited by Malcolm Cowley, Penguin, 1986. ———. “Song of Myself.” Leaves of Grass: The First (1855) Edition, edited by Malcolm Cowley, Penguin, 1986. ———. Leaves of Grass. 150th Anniversary Edition, edited by David S. Reynolds. Oxford UP, 2005.

4 The Beard, Masculinity, and the Other in the Post-­9/11 Novel The Other in the Post-­9/11 NovelThe Other in the Post-­9/11 Novel

Excuse me, sir, but may I be of assistance? Ah, I see I have alarmed you. Do not be frightened by my beard: I am a lover of America. —The Reluctant Fundamentalist (1)

The most striking feature of the post-­9/11 American novel is the failure to fully engage with the complex figure of the terrorist Other. There are certain persuasive premises that point to this paralysis: perhaps it is a less clearly demarked “them” and “us” in the American consciousness with the United States, in the words of Richard Gray in After the Fall (2011), “a border territory in which different cultures meet, collide, and in some instances collude with each other” (32). As such these “familiar oppositions” are in constant flux and writers of literature likewise struggle to create a clear picture of this Otherness. However, the heavyweights of the contemporary canon who surfaced first in the years following the attacks on September 11, 2001, turned to one marker of difference that seemingly encapsulated the entire essence of the new Other in the American consciousness: the beard. In the first years of the 21st century, simple hairs on a man’s face emerged once more as easy markers of difference. At this time, the average everyday middle-­class white American male was completely clean-­shaven and had been for roughly a century. The last American president with a beard—Benjamin Harrison (1889–1893)—had been in office over one century ago; the last American president with any type of facial hair had been William H. Taft (1909–1913) with his styled moustache. A smooth face had been long established as a sign of civic responsibility and reliability. During the paranoia of communism and the counter-­culture movement of the 1960s, having a fresh façade remained an indicator of trustworthiness and was very much a requirement for the everyday working American citizen. The beard, therefore, had remained a site for suspicion and paranoia, a place for falsehoods as well as fear, in the necessary attempts to create the new Other of contemporary American society.

The Other in the Post-­9/11 Novel 153 Michael Rothberg argues that the literary fictions that appeared in the wake of 9/11 displayed “a failure of imagination” (154). Rothberg was writing in response to Richard Gray’s polemical article “Open Doors, Closed Minds: American Prose Writing at a Time of Crisis” (2009), a critical consideration of the post-­ 9/11 American novel’s engagement with the complex issues related to trauma, particularly their encounters with strangeness and their dealings with Otherness. As Rothberg argues, Gray does not call for a new type of literature, and certainly Gray does not claim there to be pre-­9/11 literature and post-­9/11 literature. Gray, in fact, calls for a Bakhtinian “radical reaccentuation”; in other words, “some kind of alteration of imaginative structures is required to register the contemporary crisis” (qtd. in Rothberg 153). In the works of fiction that emerged in the years following the September 11 attacks, there certainly was a failure to alter such imaginative structures. And this failure also manifested in the engagement with the beard. Rothberg shares Gray’s view that the failure of literature from this period can be linked to the “emotional entanglements” of a crisis and subsequent trauma that is “domesticated” (134). Citing the more immediate meditations on this crisis that appeared in the years following the 2001 atrocity, such as Ken Kalfus’s A Disorder Peculiar to the Country (2006), Jay McInerney’s The Good Life (2006), John Updike’s Terrorist (2006), and Don DeLillo’s Falling Man (2007), Gray and Rothberg, but particularly Rothberg, highlight how these novels fail to grasp the discourses that are shaping larger narratives surrounding American identity on a rapidly changing global scale. The American novel, as Rothberg argues, “retreats back in to the reified world of domesticity and ‘emotional entanglements’ identified by Gray as characteristic of the post-­ 9/11 novel” (154). Writers, therefore, rather than reaching out preferred instead to operate, as per the American literary tradition, within the relative safety of the close and the domestic and the familiar.1 But perhaps there is some logic in these literary reactions to the trauma of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001; perhaps we as readers are simply expecting too much from our novelists to be the ever-­insightful urban spectators or cultural mediators. Perhaps, as Don DeLillo admits in his reflection on the event, “In the Ruins of the Future” (2001), “this was so vast and terrible that it was outside imagining. . . . We could not catch up to it” (39). Therefore, perhaps it is too much to expect writers to write this (bearded) Other who, frankly, they cannot possibly know. However, as will become apparent in this chapter, the failure of the approach of contemporary American authors, to use the words of Richard Gray, has been to fall into well-­worn frameworks of seeing such a crisis—particularly a “masculinity” crisis—as opposition, endeavouring to set out clear binaries that either reach some sort of resolution or, more commonly, reaffirm markers of difference (65). Perhaps this dualistic approach is a (sub)conscious reaction of certain sections of American

154  The Other in the Post-­9/11 Novel society to reaffirm their idea of their whiteness (in all senses), rather than an attempt to engage with and understand the identity of the Other? Within the realms of American literature, what is truly striking is how these novelists go about presenting the Other. These works of post-­9/11 fiction return to a familiar trope used at certain key points in American literary history to present Otherness: the beard.

Queering the Terrorist Beard Following the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, the beard returned to the American consciousness when American society once again defined itself in terms of opposition: them and us, Muslims and Westerners, the bearded and the clean-­shaven. The beard was truly fixed as a symbol of the evil Other with the establishment of the heavily bearded enemy: Osama bin Laden. Bin Laden’s beard was burned into the American psyche in the months following the September 11 attacks with David Levine’s beard-­centric interpretation of the new enemy that appeared in Tony Judt’s The New York Review of Books article “America and the War.”2 Levine’s sketching is remarkably provocative. Levine reduces bin Laden to the unruly and wild beard as he sits seemingly in reflective prayer. The gender overtones resonate: with thick lips protruding at the top of the image and a mound of unruly pubic hair curling out of control, this implied relation to female genitalia is entirely emasculating. The Other, therefore, is simultaneously dehumanised and hyper-­sexualised as the queer Other. And this was a typical reaction to the bearded Other. As Jasbir K. Puar writes in Terrorist Assemblages: Homonationalism in Queer Times (2007), the depictions of masculinity most rapidly disseminated and globalized at this historical juncture are terrorist masculinities: failed and perverse, these emasculated bodies always have femininity as their reference point of malfunction, and are metonymically tied to all sorts of pathologies of the mind and body—homosexuality, incest, paedophilia, madness, and disease. (xxiii) The beard, therefore, serves a double purpose. Not only is it once more brought to the forefront as a sign of deviance and subversion, but it also plays a central role in acts of queering the terrorist Other. As Puar incisively argues, America’s “masculinities of patriotism” do not set out to “excavat[e] the queer terrorist”; rather, “queerness is always already installed in the project of naming the terrorist” (xxiv). With regards to bin Laden in particular, Puar draws on a range of cultural artefacts that attempted to queer the threat of the terrorist in the wake of 9/11, with

The Other in the Post-­9/11 Novel 155

Figure 4.1  David Levine’s sketch of Osama Bin Laden and his beard Source: Copyright David Levine.

156  The Other in the Post-­9/11 Novel the images of bin Laden being penetrated by the Empire State Building, bin Laden in drag, or websites that glorified weapons that sodomised bin Laden to death all featuring in mainstream media (38). The beard clearly plays a central role in the engagement with the terrorist Other during these times of trauma in American society. While this may not be entirely surprising considering that the beard is traditionally regarded within American history as a symbol of subversion, the fact that the beard is actively queered brings another level of complexity within these larger discourses of Otherness and masculinity. In other words, not only is the growing and wearing of the beard once more reaffirmed as a symbol of subversion to the basic ideas of Americanism, but the beard is also simultaneously rejected as a symbol of manliness or masculinity. The narrative of queering the Other emerges most prominently in John Updike’s Terrorist (2006). Updike, first and foremost, should be commended for attempting to write the narrative of the Other. Critics such as Birgit Däwes follow this line, arguing that elements of Updike’s text offer “counter-­narratives and perform a range of psychological, political, and cultural functions which complement and diversify the cultural memory of 9/11” (497–98). This view is shared by Ulla Kriebernegg, who cites Däwes and forwards on from her argument to state that while “Updike’s contribution may be unconventional,” it is still “at the same time absolutely relevant as he portrays Islamist terrorism as inherent in American society—and not as something coming from outside as its diametrically opposed Other” (153). While the main point that Kriebernegg is making regarding the fact that Updike’s text strives to show terrorism as coming potentially from within American society is entirely valid, it fails to acknowledge that the figure set by Updike to embody this threat is remarkably one dimensional and even non-­penetrable for the reader. Richard Gray, in After the Fall, goes as far as to associate the protagonist of Terrorist, Ahmad Ashmawy Mulloy, with other outsiders in the American canon, namely Richard Wright’s Bigger Thomas or Ralph Ellison’s invisible man. However, as Gray acknowledges, Updike’s Ahmad remains an outsider, with Gray offering the reading that Ahmad’s seeming resistance to contemporary American society mirrors the resistance of the author or the text to engage with the protagonist himself. As Gray writes, “[i]n Terrorist, by contrast, there is neither the same degree of imaginative involvement, getting inside the skin of the victim, nor anything like a similar measure of argumentative mediation, the witnessing or explanatory piecing together of personal or cultural motive” (34). To forward on from Gray, therefore, we can add to this point by emphasising that not only does the text not display the required imaginative involvement in writing the Other, but Updike also does little but return to tired tropes that only serve to present an opaque Otherness—that is, questioning the protagonist’s sexuality and focusing on the underlying threat of his mentor’s beard.

The Other in the Post-­9/11 Novel 157 There are a number of problematic elements in the character Updike creates to represent the young Muslim in contemporary America. Most prominent among them is how the narrative of Ahmad is framed around the suggestion of the character’s lamentable lack of all-­American hegemonic hyper-­ heterosexuality, that is to say the masculinity-­ affirming performance in a contemporary late-­capitalist society shaped by the commercialisation of the performance of sex and sexuality. When we meet Ahmad at the start of the book, he is already spewing anti-­American thoughts, and it is clear that he is heavily influenced by his bearded imam Shaikh Rashid. But what about Ahmad before then? How does he reach this point? Updike does attempt to explore the inner thoughts of Ahmad through a free indirect style, but these often trail off with the narrative voice either being too ornate and falling into cliché or, in fact, giving Ahmad an inner voice and a speaking voice that read like a complete caricature of how a Muslim might think and speak. Ahmad’s anti-­Americanness is almost parody: he does not have a cell phone, he does not go to movies, and he is not interested in any everyday American media. He is just a rigid block (character) of American angst. Ahmad’s Otherness—in the eyes of the writer as well as the other characters in this fictionalised post-­9/11 America—is anchored around his sexuality, or, more specifically, his lack of American hyper-­heterosexuality. Ahmad’s narrative mirrors what Puar identifies as “manifold trajectories of racialization and un-­nationalization of sexual others” (10).3 Puar cites Leti Volpp who suggested that September 11 led to the creation and consolidation of a new identity category that grouped together all people who appeared Middle Eastern, Arab, or Muslim, with this consolidation reflecting a racialisation wherein members of this group are identified as terrorists and are dis-­identified as American citizens. And, as Puar adds, “this disidentification is a process of sexualisation as well as of a racialization of religion” (38). The terrorist Other, therefore, is regarded as simply part of “queerly racialized ‘terrorist populations’ ” (xii). Applying this rendering of the Other to Terrorist, the repeated questioning of Ahmad’s sexuality throughout the book is a striking feature. And this happens almost immediately in Ahmad’s narrative. In Ahmad’s first exchange with another male schoolmate, an African American kid called Tylenol approaches him in the hallway. Tylenol has issues with Ahmad’s interaction with Tylenol’s girlfriend Joryleen, and spits out homophobic slurs, beginning with Ahmad’s sexuality: “My type has no use for your type, that’s the truth, you dumb fuck. You weird queer. You faggot” (14). Tylenol returns to this in another altercation when he spouts, “A flying fuck is when you do it to yourself, like all you Arabs do. You all faggots, man” (94). It is not only the other young men in Ahmad’s peer group who associate Ahmad’s Otherness with what they perceive as different and deviant sexuality. In an intimate moment with Ahmad’s mother, Ahmad’s high

158  The Other in the Post-­9/11 Novel school guidance counsellor, Jack Levy, makes a point of asking Ahmad’s mother, “Does he have a girlfriend?” (163), before getting straight to the point: “It doesn’t seem quite right. He’s a good-­looking kid. Could he be gay?” (163). Levy even associates Ahmad’s sexuality with his mother’s sexual past and comes to the outlandish conclusion that “to them she’d be a mother who fucks. Maybe what’s why her own kid is queer, if he is” (163). These speculations about Ahmad’s sexuality are reinforced in the domestic sphere with Ahmad’s own mother asking Ahmad directly: “Don’t boys your age usually have girlfriends?” (142). All these subtle or not-­so-­subtle framings of Ahmad’s Otherness around the perceived otherness of his sexuality reinforce the narrative that Puar sees as fundamental in the framing of the terrorist in the post-­9/11 era. As Puar reflects then, “the terrorist figure is not merely racialized and sexualized; the body must appear improperly racialized (outside the norms of multiculturalism) and perversely sexualized in order to materialize as the terrorist in the first place” (138). It might simply be, therefore, that a young man like Ahmad, regardless of his faith or ethnic background, might have little interest in sex or his sexuality. But again, this is presented in itself as a deviance or a marker of difference, one that is directly linked to underlying suspicions regarding identity, beliefs, and anti-­American sentiment that is regarded as inherently queer. Updike also uses the beard to present a queer Otherness to the reader through the figure of Ahmad’s imam Shaikh Rashid. The beard is the only feature mentioned of Rashid’s face when he is first introduced in the text, this character reduced to “half a face, the lower half hidden by a trimmed beard flecked with gray” (76). And Rashid’s anti-­American sentiments are also directly linked to the performance of his beard. When Rashid uses the analogy of the cockroach to speak powerfully about the need to give mercy to Americans, it is “within the beard” that “his violent lips twitched” (76). As Rashid continues to spit out his vitriol, reaching the extremes of his anger, the text ensures that the beard remains central in that image: [A] delicate hand tugged lightly at his beard. “You want to destroy them. They are vexing you with their uncleanliness. . . . They have no feelings. They are manifestations of Satan, and God will destroy them without mercy on the final day of Reckoning.” (77) Later, when the imam again gets angry and displays his impatience, Updike returns to the beard with a clumsy simile to attempt to add weight to this display of fury: “ ‘Habib and Maurice,’ the imam clarifies, with an impatience that bites off his words as precisely as his beard is trimmed” (145).

The Other in the Post-­9/11 Novel 159 The suggestion of the power of the beard to encapsulate Otherness and hold power over those who might be influenced by such deviance is fixed when Ahmad meets Shaikh Rashid for a final time in the text. On this occasion, however, the imam Rashid is unexpectedly clean-­shaven. With the beard removed and wearing a Western-­type suit, Rashid no longer holds the aura that affected Ahmad in the earlier stages of the novel. Without the beard, there is “revealed something disagreeable about his violet lips, a sulky masculine set to them that had lurked unemphasized when they moved so rapidly, so seductively, in a recess of facial hair” (266). Put simply, “without his beard . . . he appeared disconcertingly ordinary—slight of frame, a bit tremulous in manner, a bit withered, and no longer young” (271). As if by magic, the removal of the beard means the removal of the power of the Other, even the power on to his own people, who are presented in the text as spellbound by the strands of the imam’s beard. For Updike, therefore, the beard remains the site on a whole sense of queer Otherness can be cast, an all-­encompassing symbol of queer terrorism. Don DeLillo, another heavyweight of the contemporary American canon also emerged in the wake of the trauma of the acts of terrorism of September 11 to offer his meditation on the condition of the American psyche. And similar to Updike, DeLillo also engages with the beard as a makeshift symbol. Reading DeLillo’s Falling Man (2007), the beard appears as a prop for the author to give his imagining of the Other a certain gravitas, and yet, ultimately, the beard masks the true face of these men and fails to offer any depth in their characterisation whatsoever. Like many writers tackling the after-­effects of 9/11, DeLillo turns to the domestic to try to make sense of how the American people continue to process this trauma.4 Some critics, such as Richard Gray, displayed their frustration with DeLillo taking this approach, and the fact that DeLillo did not write the great American “counternarrative” that DeLillo himself called for in the days following 9/11 in his essay “In the Ruins of the Future” (2001). Rather, with Falling Man, DeLillo takes one of the most profound and powerful images from the atrocity—the figure of the upside-­ down man falling from the North Tower of the World Trade Center—and writes a carefully constructed narrative that is cold, clinical, and opaque. There is a noticeable staticness in DeLillo’s narrative or, indeed, a lack of enquiry. As Gray states, Falling Man “adds next to nothing to our understanding of the trauma at the heart of the action. In fact, it evades the trauma, it suppresses its urgency and disguises its difference by inserting it in a series of familiar tropes” (28). The most familiar trope that DeLillo returns to in this evasion is the beard. Part of the frustration of DeLillo’s effort with Falling Man is the little space DeLillo gives to the 9/11 terrorists in the novel. In an attempt to emphasise difference in such a restricted space, DeLillo relies on the hairs on the face of the terrorists. The attempt to work through the hatred that

160  The Other in the Post-­9/11 Novel this group of radical Islamists based in Hamburg have for America starts with the beard: They were all growing beards. One of them even told his father to grow a beard. Men came to the flat on Marienstrasse, some to visit, others to live, men in and out all the time, growing beards. (79) For DeLillo’s terrorists, the beard is their identity and their source of masculine power. When Hammad and the group go to attack a man on the Reeperbahn, Hammad makes the first move and hits the man three or four times until he goes down, even though Hammad “wasn’t sure what this was all about, the guy paying an Albanian whore for sex or the guy not growing a beard. He had no beard, Hammad noticed, just before he hit him” (82). For DeLillo, the beard gives the terrorists structure, and indeed, the beard gives them purpose. We might even go as far to say that the beard defines them: The beard would better if he trimmed it. But there were rules now and he was determined to follow them. His life had structure. Things were clearly defined. He was becoming one of them now, learning to look like them and think like them. This was inseparable from jihad. He prayed with them to be with them. They were becoming total brothers. (83) Again, what the text offers is too clean-­cut, too obviously “them” and “us.” Surely there is more to these men, more to their inner struggles, more to their efforts of making sense of their place in the world than a few hairs on their face can solve? What about the inner dynamics within the group itself? What about beard wearing as a reaction against the rising influence of women in society? Instead, Falling Man, just like Updike’s Terrorist, presents these men as fixed types and so fails to go to the necessary depths of character to show that these men are also grappling with the same issues related to their masculine identities as their everyday American male counterparts. This idea of a “shared pain” emerges in the formation of the character of Changez, the protagonist in Mohsin Hamid’s The Reluctant Fundamentalist (2007). The Reluctant Fundamentalist is one work of contemporary fiction that has interrogated the complex matters of masculinity and identity in a changing American landscape that is struggling with shifting borders. As Changez (note the naming of the narrator!) perceptively offers to the reader, [i]t seemed to me then—and to be honest, sir, seems to me still— that America was engaged only in posturing. As a society, you were

The Other in the Post-­9/11 Novel 161 unwilling to reflect upon the shared pain that united you with those who attacked you. You retreated into your myths of your own difference, assumptions of your superiority. And you acted out these beliefs on the stage of the world, so that the entire planet was rocked by the repercussions of your tantrums. (167–68) The inclusion of The Reluctant Fundamentalist in a discussion of American literature is telling in itself of the changing nature of what we might consider “US fiction” or “American fiction,” and, therefore, by extension is indicative of the new globalised and globalising arena in which the American male must now perform. New approaches in American literary criticism propose the idea of “global fictions,”5 the borderless American novel, 6 the “remapping” of the American novel within global contexts,7 or the idea that the American novel in the twenty-­first century should now be considered as a “geopolitical novel.” 8 This notion of the geopolitical reframing of American writing, proposed and examined in Caren Irr’s Toward the Geopolitical Novel: U.S. Fiction in the Twenty-­F irst Century (2014), sets a precedent in permitting the inclusion of what might once have been considered “non-­American” writers—if we are classing writers by nationality—in the discussion. As Irr now sees it, the 21st-­c entury American novel is “grappling with the pragmatics of global mobility and inequality and is learning to speak in a new voice, one that opens the door to a different kind of engagement with the world beyond the borders of the United States” (194). It is worth stating that making this point is not merely an attempt to justify the inclusion of a writer what some might argue is not “American” in this discussion. Hamid, a Pakistani-­b orn, Princeton-­and Harvard-­e ducated British citizen, is an apt illustration of the how we must no longer consider literature as something restricted by physical borders; rather literature, in particular “American” literature, is now being shaped by global citizens writing global issues within the intercultural spaces that are now fundamental to America’s own understanding of its identity as a nation. This is why the earlier statement by Hamid’s narrator, Changez, a Pakistani-­b orn, Princeton-­e ducated New York citizen, is so poignant and one of the key passages in post-­9 /11 fiction. Changez is attuned to the impact of the nuances of geopolitics on the performance of masculinity and is therefore an ideal beginning for a discussion on the issues that have underpinned representations of masculinity in contemporary works of literature. The key concerns linked to American masculinity on the global stage— such as the self and the Other, hegemony, and the performance of masculinity in transnational networks—are crystallised in this passage.9

162  The Other in the Post-­9/11 Novel The successes in contemporary literature that broach this dynamic of American masculinity to offer a more nuanced exploration of the shared pain and identity crisis declared in the earlier Changez quotation give due care and attention to the greater symbolic significance of the beard. In its inventive form of a dramatic monologue with Hamid Changez, the narrator, addressing an American in a café in Lahore, the novel silences the American media machine and gives voice exclusively to the Other. This approach forces readers to face their fears and fantasies of Otherness, both of which are located in the beard. Changez slips between easy categorisation: of Pakistani origin, he was shaped by the American educational system and the transnational globalised and globalising business world of New York City. Moreover, as Richard Gray notes in After the Fall, “Changez still seems oddly in love with the culture of America, constantly referring to or invoking it. Even while he rages against it” (61). He is therefore a global citizen sensitive to the symbolic nature of his masculinity-­forming performances in the gaze of the American male to whom he is speaking. The success of the novel lies in its attempt to locate masculine identity within the “interstitial spaces” that Gray sees as the new arena for contemporary narratives. As Gray argues, [f]ormally the narratives themselves become interstitial spaces—or, perhaps more accurately, a series of interstitial spaces: here as it were in the spaces between the tale being told, the reader is required to intervene, to engage with a continuing production of meanings that are necessarily partial and provisional. Meaning, signification, along with identity, becomes performative. (66) This is a complex idea suggested by Gray but one which is essential for recognising the power of Hamid’s text and, indeed, the power of the beard within it. Formally Hamid’s narrative itself is an interstitial space; meaning, identity, and masculinity are formed within the space between Changez and the American, between the speaker and the listener, between the author and reader. What is so unique about The Reluctant Fundamentalist is that as a dramatic monologue it is a novella that goes beyond that trauma of the event and encourages an “active readership” with the “reader as judge” (573). To take this a step further, the reader is forced to judge not only the reliability of the narrator and the events unfolding on the page but also the reader is encouraged to judge his or her own views towards the bearded Other. In American literature now being shaped by narratives operating with the geopolitical arena, The Reluctant Fundamentalist opens with the

The Other in the Post-­9/11 Novel 163 clued-­in Changez attacking the fear of Otherness that is encapsulated in the beard head-­on: Excuse me, sir, but may I be of assistance? Ah, I see I have alarmed you. Do not be frightened by my beard: I am a lover of America. (1) Changez is acutely aware that the period following 9/11 is a time in which Americanness is in flux. If we consider Americanness in this context to be everyday white masculinity, the hegemonic category of masculinity that has dominated American ideology since the very birth of the nation, Changez returns to the beard throughout the novel to prod at this Americanness. Central to this is the fear that sits deep in the American attitude towards the beard. Changez asks the American why he cannot take his eyes off the man with “the beard far longer than mine,” questioning why this bearded man “attract[s] your wary gaze” (26). Changez returns to the American male’s fear of the beard again later: “Perhaps you misconstrue the significance of my beard, which, I should in any case make clear, I had not yet kept when I arrived in New York” (53). Changez even tells of his time in New York, at one point revealing that “moving to New York felt—so unexpectedly—like coming home” (32). His Otherness is blurred into everyday American ways, reflected in being able to wear his “starched white kurta of delicately worked cotton over a pair of jeans” (48). Following the terrorist attacks of 9/11, however, Changez is very much aware of the changed effect of wearing a beard. Following a trip back to visit his family in Pakistan, he returns with a two-­week beard to New York and experiences the reactions of his co-­workers and the everyday people in the street. His workmate Wainwright, another Other from Jamaica, warns him that he needs to be careful and that his beard is not making him “Mister Popular.” Wainwright is well aware that “this whole corporate collegiality veneer only goes so deep” (131). The beard, once a symbol of American authenticity, is now a threat to the American citizen. Changez talks of “the verbal abuse,” how overnight he becomes “a subject of whispers and stares (130). The decision to wear the beard is not a consciously aggressive decision, it is not intended as a confirmation of difference. Rather, it is Changez’s reaction against the racialisation and demasculinisation that has characterised the experience of “a man of [his] complexion” (130) in post-­9/11 America. It is when Changez is dismissed from the company that he realises how deep was the suspicion I had engendered in my colleagues over these past few—bearded and resentful—weeks; only Wainwright

164  The Other in the Post-­9/11 Novel came over to shake my hand and say farewell; the others, if they bothered to look at me at all, did so with evident unease and, in some cases, a fear which would not have been inappropriate had I been convicted of plotting to kill them rather than of abandoning my post in mid-­assignment. (160) Changez is mindful of the power of the beard: “It is remarkable, given its physical insignificance—it is only a hairstyle, after all—the impact a beard worn by a man of my complexion has on your fellow countrymen” (130). He underlines the importance of performance that emphasises difference and the complexities that underpin the return to the safety of common American ideologies in post-­9/11 America that attempt to reassert American male hegemonic control and authority. Michael Rothberg asserts that what we need from post-­9/11 American fiction, and what we continue to need from American fiction as we move into an era in which masculinities are formed within global frameworks, are “cognitive maps that imagine how US citizenship looks and feels beyond the boundaries of the nation-­state, both for Americans and for others” (158). And this is what Hamid’s novel achieves with an unreliable narrator, his use of hyperbole, and the playing with (gender) political rhetoric. As Changez playfully concludes, “it is the gist that matters; I am, after all, telling you a history, and in history, as I suspect you—an American—will agree, it is the thrust of one’s narrative that counts, not the accuracy of one’s details” (118). Hamid, is his political and playful way, is successful in the destabilising of the expectations of the reader with a text that challenges the myths that America returned to following 9/11—particularly the meaning and continued significance of the beard. Ultimately, Hamid’s text, in a major step forward from Updike and DeLillo, has its main bearded figure reflect on the realities that now face the Other, the global citizen in a post-­9/11 world: “I lacked a stable core. I was not certain where I belonged—in New York, in Lahore, in both, in neither” (148). There is a clear narrative, therefore, in the engagement with the beard in post-­9/11 fiction. In works of literary fiction that aim to explore the motives of the Other, the beard is presented as an impenetrable symbol of Otherness, a simple visual indicator of difference and deviance. There is one novel, however, that strives to further than such reductive treatments of the beard to present the underlying conflicts and complexities in beard growing, beard wearing, and beard shaving for the Other. The beard is presented as key in the underlying pressures that define the performance of the new American citizen in the contemporary era—this novel is Amy Waldman’s The Submission (2011).

The Other in the Post-­9/11 Novel 165

The Global Citizen and the contemporary beard: Amy Waldman’s The Submission (2011) The protagonist of The Submission is Mohammad Khan, the son of Indian immigrants. Mohammed, or “Mo” as he is known to everyone (although as the right-­leaning reporter Alyssa Spier retorts, “Mo didn’t have the ring—theological, historical, hysterical—of Mohammed” [96]) was raised in Virginia and is now living in New York City. Mo’s story revolves around a memorial that is to be built for the victims of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. The jury, made up of experts, citizens, and family members of the victims, choose a design named “The Garden.” When they open the envelope to see the name of the chosen designer, they see Mo’s name: Mohammad Khan—a Muslim. We are first introduced to Mo as a “type” through a background check by the jury on his (Muslim) “identity,” which informs us that although his family are from a Muslim background, Khan is secular, having “barely been to a mosque in his life” (28), and as Mo reflects, he considered himself “if not an atheist himself, certainly agnostic, which perhaps made him not a Muslim at all” (28). Mo is a true global citizen but with American roots. As Paul Rubin, the chairman of the Award committee for the memorial who requests the background report concludes, Mo “seemed all-­American, even in his ambitions” (49). There is a tension, therefore, in Mo’s narrative between the judgement levelled on him due to his appearance and the framing of his identity within the normative parameters of what it means to be an American citizen. By doing so, Waldman goes beyond other writers that have come before her in searching for a greater depth in the Other in her intimate, immediate sense of the tensions that typified the performance and analysis of this contemporary crisis following 9/11. But it is Waldman’s shrewd engagement with the beard, as well as her protagonist’s awareness of the sensibilities and sensitivities surrounding the beard in the public and private performances of his masculinity, that underlines the continuing importance of the beard in the literary exploration of the incongruities in the ideas of identity, masculinity, and individuality in a globalised and globalising American society. Waldman follows the great tradition of the engagement with facial hair in American literature by (re)affirming how the fears and fantasies of the white American male are instantly projected onto the beard. In the first meeting with the Other that the jury has chosen, the chairman of the award committee, Paul Rubin, arrives to meet Mo in an Upper East Side bistro. Upon entering, however, Rubin fails to see Mo, his eyes instead drawn to a man who fulfils his biased image of a Muslim: [A] dark-­bearded man watch[ed] him from a table in the back. Paul recalled the photo that had accompanied the Garden’s submission.

166  The Other in the Post-­9/11 Novel This couldn’t possibly be Khan. He was–Paul scrambled for the words as he approached the table—‘funked up,’ his wavy black hair grown longer and swept back, his jawline blurred by a neatly trimmed beard. (61) Rubin’s first words to Mo reveal his insecurities: “You look different,’ he began. ‘From your picture’ ” (62). Waldman’s engagement with the nuances that define the symbolic significance of the beard and masculinity are evident with Paul noticing Mo’s bearded “beauty”: Even in the restaurant’s dimness, even through the glasses, Khan’s eyes were—and Paul had never said this, even thought this, about a man—beautiful. Beautiful in the way marbles had been to him as a child. Beautiful in the way that women must fall hard for. (62) With this first encounter, therefore, Waldman manages to incorporate the issues that have characterised the engagement of American writers with the beard and the Other throughout the American literary tradition while also reflecting the shift in the 21st-­century significance of the beard not simply as a symbol of difference but also as a site of doubt and uncertainty for the transnational individual in American society in his appointed role of the Other. The great strength of the character of Mo—one which sets the text apart from any of its post-­9/11 contemporaries—is his awareness of the incongruities in his public and private identities as the bearded Other. Waldman plays on the frictions as the Mo and Mohammed Khan identities develop. Following the announcement of his design being the chosen one for the Ground Zero memorial, Mo suddenly finds himself being “analyzed, judged, and invented” by strangers. He sees himself as a “new product being rolled out to market,” recognising his “objectification” as an “architect-­terrorist” in the public eye, a “prop in a propaganda war” (172–74). Rising above this, however, he remains true to his beliefs, stating earlier in the narrative, “I don’t traffic in labels” (64). Waldman’s narrative gives the necessary time and space to the self-­ reflective nature of Mo. Waldman writes a character with enough self-­ awareness and a power to reflect on the fractured nature of his identity, which ultimately proves highly successful in allowing him, and therefore the reader, to consider the complexities of being “a global citizen” (286). Mo’s response to this growing public persona, one which is very much as odds with how he truly sees himself, is to try to “put psychological distance between himself and the Mohammed Khan who was written and talked about, as if that were another man altogether” (126).

The Other in the Post-­9/11 Novel 167 And Waldman delves further into Mo’s performance of his masculinity through her protagonist’s struggle with the symbolic significance of his facial hair. At various points, Mo ponders his inability to assert his individuality as a global male in New York. And the beard is closely tied to these reflections. Walking home one night with his lawyer and lover, Laila, he reflects on the fixed nature of the hierarchical framework in which he moves and the insecurities that underpin his masculinity. He compares himself to Laila, who “seemed free in a way he wasn’t, in a way that made his efforts to assert his individuality—to compose an identity—seem strenuous, even ridiculous by comparison” (114). Mo’s only idea to grasp a sense of his masculinity upon returning to New York following a short time in Kabul was to grow a beard, “merely to assert his right to wear a beard, to play with the assumptions about his religiosity it might create” (114). Religiosity is the key word here. This is not a case of Mo wanting people to wonder whether he is Muslim or not. Rather, Mo wants to play with, or, perhaps more accurately, he wants to undermine, religion as it is a central component in the act of racialisation that he and other American citizens have become victims of. With his beard, he wants to underline the everyday distorted physiognomic judgements that now shape the subjecthood of certain American men. But again, it is Laila who forces Mo himself to face up to his own manipulation of the beard and his conscious act of dialectical pragmatism that is at the heart of his performance of his masculinity. Mo refuses to do the Muslim American Co-­ordinating Council advertising campaign in response to the uproar following the release of his name as the winner of the memorial competition. He feels that he will be the exploited face of something that he does not want to be involved in. Laila, however, forces Mo to face up to the fact that he is willing to let others influence his everyday actions. Knowing that Mo must have had a fully grown beard when he submitted the memorial design, Laila asks Mo if he submitted a photo with a bushy beard. When he replies no, Mo realises that he is also the one exploiting the symbolic power of the beard for his own benefit: “she had nailed his effort to be a ‘safe’ Muslim when it would help him; to be courageous or provocative only when he thought he could afford to, even if sometimes misjudged” (177). Laila’s insightful analysis puts the beard at the heart of Mo struggles as a proud American Muslim living in a global city. Her final comment is cutting: “Next you’ll shave for them” (177). As Waldman’s narrative reaches its crux, she turns to one of the key sites for self-­reflections on masculinity in American fiction: the barbershop. The barbershop is an iconic public space in American society. It is also a highly charged stage on which the fears and fantasies that underpin the white American male’s sense of position in society in relation to race

168  The Other in the Post-­9/11 Novel are played out, from Herman Melville’s “Benito Cereno” (1855) to more recent examples, such as Don DeLillo’s Cosmopolis (2003). The barbershop is such an ideal stage for these issues related to the performance of masculinities due to the literal and figurative closeness between these masculine types—of barber and client, of white man and black man, of perceived superior and servant.10 Mo, in preparation for his appearance at the public hearing for the selection of “The Garden” as the winner of the memorial competition, decides to go and get groomed for the occasion two days before the big event. The barbershop is as mythic as it is actual, a “tiny and nondescript . . . an old-­school place, an unbrilliantined patch of Manhattan” (212). There, Mo asks the barber to “cut it short . . . neat” (212). But sitting there, seeing the barber trim the hair he had grown during his Afghanistan trip, “Mo registered every clip as a concession” (212). Despite his mother’s advice to go for a conservative look, Mo argues with himself that he should not “tailor himself to prejudice” (212). Of course, this is exactly what Mo is doing on many levels. The interesting point in this scene is that Mo rejects the barber’s offer to shave his beard. This rejection of the public sheering is tellingly symbolic of the struggles that Waldman conveys in the text. It is the morning of the hearing, however, that Mo stands in front of his bathroom mirror and begins the argument with himself again regarding his beard: Doing this was practical. No, it was cowardly. It would grow back. It wouldn’t be the same. He was in control; he was caving. To do this was smart; no, shameful. “Next you’ll shave for them.” Laila’s words echoed. (213) As before, Mo strives to lift himself above the labels that having a beard or not having a beard put on men like him. He is acutely aware of the identity politics that now define the global citizens that inhabit contemporary New York. Moreover, Mo is aware of the centrality of the beard in the performance of masculinity in the public sphere for all American men: He had grown the beard to play with perceptions and misconceptions, to argue against the attempt to define him. If he shaved, would he be losing the argument or ending it? Was he betraying his religion? No, but it would look that way. Was he betraying himself? That question shook the hand holding the razor. (213) In the contemporary era, it is the Muslim American, a transnational subject, a global citizen in the global city of New York which sits at the heart of the United States, who is now forced to question an activity that men partake in every day and, in turn, question how this will have

The Other in the Post-­9/11 Novel 169 an impact on the masculine image that he projects. When Mo finishes shaving he recognises that he now could be viewed differently as he now looks “younger, wan, weak,” even “boyish,” concluding the fact that “he was humbling himself, maybe only to rob others of the chance to do so” (213). Again, Waldman riffs on the fact Mo is aware that by shaving or not shaving he cannot win—the beard holds such symbolic weight, at times superficially it must be said, in our everyday readings of the models of masculinity performed by men. Mo’s final reflection secures the paradox of how loaded the beard is symbolically in society, yet the ultimate futility of concerning oneself with this attempt to project a certain image of masculinity. When, in the courtroom, Mo makes the error of stating that it was man—rather than God—who wrote the Quran, Scott Reiss, a lawyer obsessed with Mo’s PR profile, not only blasts Mo for outing himself as a “godless blasphemer,” but “even worse,” Mo is also “a beardless one” (240). Mo’s response ultimately underscores the situation in which the global (American) citizen now finds himself: Mo put his hand to his face and began to laugh as if it were the most natural response to being in the crosshairs of nations, religions. He laughed until tears streamed down his cheeks; he laughed as if he were stoned. “Maybe I should have shaved half my face.” (240) The difference with The Submission, therefore, in relation to the initial literary reactions to the changing American landscape following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, is how Waldman recognises that the beard can no longer be a strict signifier of Otherness; rather, it is a site for the playing out of the “shared pain” faced by all men in post-­9/11 American society. Waldman’s narrative displays a complete awareness of the performativity of beard wearing in post-­9/11 America. Mo’s control of his masculine image through the beard is outside Mo’s grasp; whether he wears it or not, he is caught up in the performance of identity beyond his intent and beyond his control. To shave is to capitulate; to not shave is to be misunderstood. And Mo is not even sure that he subscribes to the systems of meaning of masculinity from either side. The power of The Submission lies in the fact that it both identifies and underscores the contradictions and complexities that now characterise this “new” contemporary crisis of American masculinity and that it is experienced by men from all sections of society who are now operating within Gray’s interstitial spaces. And, of course, this “crisis” is presented and probed using one of the enduring devices pertaining to the representation of masculinity in the American literary tradition: the beard.

170  The Other in the Post-­9/11 Novel As this chapter argues, therefore, the beard is no longer a representation of Otherness; this is reductive, unhelpful, and, dare we say it, backwards approach by novelists who may see themselves as not merely reflecting contemporary issues but actively investigating them through their novels. The beard, rather, is performative, playful, and political. In the current historical moment of pogonomania, perhaps upcoming works of American fiction might continue the turn away from the beard as a symbol of absolute Otherness to use it as a tool to write narratives that show how all categories of masculinity, including hegemonic whiteness, must be recognised as something shaped dialectically in relation to the everyday production of race, gender, and sexuality. As American literature continues to move beyond the physical borders of the “nation” to see American masculinity as something now performed within global networks, the beard must continue to be placed at the centre of scholarly conversations about the shared issues that continue to shape the performance of masculinity on a new global stage.

Notes 1. For further discussion see Catherine Morley, “ ‘How Do We Write about This?’ The Domestic and the Global in the Post-­9/11 Novel.” Journal of American Studies, vol. 45, no. 4 (2011), pp. 717–31. 2. This image first appeared in Tony Judt, “America and the War.” The New York Review of Books, 15 Nov. 2001. It also appeared in “Secrets of September 11” (10 Oct. 2002), “The Wrong War” (13 Mar. 2003), and “The Truth About Jihad” (11 Aug. 2005). 3. Puar explains her usage of the term racialisation thus: “I deploy ‘racialization’ as a figure for specific formations and processes that are not necessarily or only tied to what has been historically theorized as ‘race’ ” (xii). 4. See Sonia Baelo-­Allué, “9/11 and the Psychic Trauma Novel: Don DeLillo’s Falling Man” for a particularly useful analysis of Falling Man as a psychic trauma novel rather than a cultural trauma novel. 5. See Julie Newman, Fictions of America: Narratives of Global Empire (2007). 6. See Andrew Dix, Brian Jarvis, and Paul Jenner, The Contemporary American Novel in Context (2011). 7. See Paul Giles, The Global Remapping of American Literature (2011). 8. Caren Irr, Toward the Geopolitical Novel: U.S. Fiction in the Twenty-­First Century (2014). 9. The understanding of the inner workings of each group, in this case Muslim men, is surely crucial in gaining a fuller picture of the dynamics that underpin the performance of their masculine identities. Demetrakis Z. Demetriou, in his 2001 article, “Connell’s Concept of Hegemonic Masculinity: A Critique,” returns to the origin of the term hegemony in Antonio Gramsci’s study of class hegemony to suggest the importance of studying what he terms as “internal hegemony,” that is to say “hegemony over subordinated masculinities” (341), and so fully interrogating the inner dynamics within each group that influence the performance of masculinity in relation to other groups of men. Demetriou identifies this as the necessary “dialectical pragmatism” of the interaction between different groups of men. In other words,

The Other in the Post-­9/11 Novel 171 non-­hegemonic masculinities exist in tension with the hegemonic group, but both hegemonic and subordinate groups appropriate elements of the other group that ultimately benefit them (345). As Connell and Messerschmidt add in light of Demetriou’s reconceptualisation, “our understanding of hegemonic masculinity needs to incorporate a more holistic understanding of gender hierarchy, recognizing the agency of subordinate groups as much as the power of dominant groups and the mutual conditioning of gender dynamics and social dynamics” (848). Approaching the study of the discourses of power through this framework of understanding the social organisation of masculinity presents a fuller picture of the necessary range and depth in the negotiation, configuration, and reconfiguration of male behaviour in contemporary American society. 10. See Douglas W. Bristol, Knights of the Razor: Black Barbers in Slavery and Freedom (2009) and Quincy T. Mills, Cutting Along the Color Line: Black Barbers and Barber Shops in America (2013).

Works Cited Baelo-­Allué, Sonia. “9/11 and the Psychic Trauma Novel: Don DeLillo’s Falling Man.” Atlantis, vol. 34, no. 1, Jun. 2012, pp. 63–79. Bristol, Douglas W. Knights of the Razor: Black Barbers in Slavery and Freedom. John Hopkins UP, 2009. Dawes, Birgit. Ground Zero Fiction: History, Memory, and Representation in the American 9/11 Novel. Universitätsverlag Winter, 2011. DeLillo, Don. “In the Ruins of the Future.” Harpers Magazine, Dec. 2001, 33–40. ———. Falling Man. Scribner, 2007. Dix, Andrew, Brian Jarvis, and Paul Jenner. The Contemporary American Novel in Context. Continuum, 2011. Giles, Paul. The Global Remapping of American Literature. Princeton UP, 2011. Gray, Richard. “Open Doors, Closed Minds: American Prose Writing at a Time of Crisis.” American Literary History, vol. 21, no. 1, 2009, pp. 128–51. ———. After the Fall: American Literature Since 9/11. Wiley, 2011. Hamid, Mohsin. The Reluctant Fundamentalist. Harcourt, 2007. Ilott, Sarah. “Generic Frameworks and Active Readership in The Reluctant Fundamentalist.” Journal of Postcolonial Writing, vol. 50, no. 5, 2014, pp. 571–83. Irr, Caren. Toward the Geopolitical Novel: U.S. Fiction in the Twenty-­First Century. Columbia UP, 2014. Judt, Tony. “America and the War.” The New York Review of Books, 15 Nov. 2001, pp. 4–6. Kalfus, Ken. A Disorder Peculiar to the Country. Ecco, 2006. Kriebernegg, Ulla. “ ‘Hey, Come on, We’re All Americans Here’: The Representation of Muslim-­American Identity in John Updike’s Terrorist.” European Perspectives on John Updike, edited by Laurence W. Mazzeno and Sue Norton, Camden House, 2018, pp. 155–65. Margalit, Avishai. “The Wrong War.” The New York Review of Books, 13 Mar. 2003. McInerney, Jay. The Good Life. Vintage, 2006. Melville, Herman. “Benito Cereno.” 1855. Billy Budd, Bartleby, and Other Stories, Penguin Classics, 2016, pp. 55–137.

172  The Other in the Post-­9/11 Novel Mills, Quincy T. Cutting Along the Color Line: Black Barbers and Barber Shops in America. U of Pennsylvania P, 2013. Morley, Catherine. “ ‘How Do We Write About This?’ The Domestic and the Global in the Post-­9/11 Novel.” Journal of American Studies, vol. 45, no. 4, 2011, pp. 717–31. Newman, Julie. Fictions of America: Narratives of Global Empire. Routledge, 2007. Powers, Thomas. “Secrets of September 11.” The New York Review of Books, 10 Oct. 2002. Puar, Jasbir K. Terrorist Assemblages: Homonationalism in Queer Times. Duke UP, 2007. Rodenbeck, Max. “The Truth About Jihad.” The New York Review of Books, 11 Aug. 2005. Rothberg, Michael. “A Failure of the Imagination: Diagnosing the Post-­9/11 Novel: A Response to Richard Gray.” American Literary History, vol. 21, no. 1, 2009, pp. 152–58. Updike, John. Terrorist. Knopf, 2006. Waldman, Amy. The Submission. Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2011.

Epilogue

EpilogueEpilogue

There is still so much more to be written about beards in American writing. We can expect further study on the social, cultural, and political significance of beard growing, beard wearing, and beard shaving to move on from the canonical focus of this volume to more particular studies on the symbolic power of facial hair in key moments in American beard history. One likely avenue is investigations into the beard within various communities in the United States. There is the potential to examine how Jewish American authors have attempted to broach the complex gender code of Jewish American masculinity through the wearing and shaving of facial hair. Perhaps taking Jake’s exclamation “Dot’sh a’ kin’ a man I am,” in Abraham Cahan’s Yekl (1896) as a starting point, there is surely the potential to explore how the beard has been a central trope in the writing of the anxieties of Jewish American men throughout American history. Gendering the engagement with the beard in selected novels of Philip Roth, Bernard Malamud, and John Updike, for example, although there are surely many more, will certainly point to a range of issues associated with the beard, namely Jewish men as ethnic, racial, and religious Others; the perceived femininity inherent in Jewish models of masculinity; and the impact of striving to attain unattainable models of authentic American manhood. Within the realms of gender and performativity, one particular point of focus might well be the bearded ladies that appeared in American circus sideshows throughout the 19th and 20th centuries. Subverting the ultimate marker of masculinity must have been a complex and challenging life for these women, and their stories deserve to be told. One such writer, the New Yorker’s Joseph Mitchell, did just that with his piece “Lady Olga” for the magazine in 1940. This biography of Jane Barnell showcases the realities of the everyday experience for Barnell who just wanted a normal life. The piece ends with one of Mitchell’s more telling lines: “If the truth was known, we’re all freaks together” (104). There are other bearded lady narratives, such as Janice Deveree from Kentucky who had

174  Epilogue a beard which measured 14 inches long in 1842, as well as other 19th-­ century exemplars, such as Annie Jones or Grace Gilbert. It is difficult to find specific research on bearded ladies in American literature and cultural history. Such narratives are mostly smaller features of histories of the American Circus and American sideshows. One study, Women of the American Circus, 1880–1940 (2012) dedicates a small section to the “Bearded Ladies.” Katherine H. Adams and Michael L. Keene suggest that the sight of the bearded lady had a certain sociopolitical charge during this time in American history. Not only do they focus on the issue of race and colour, but they also suggest that the bearded woman was used as a warning against deviations from cultural and societal norms: “From the middle of the nineteenth century, the bearded white woman exhibited as evidence that political and social changes were leading to terrifying consequences” (137). This is no more evident than in a preposterous article from the New York Times in July 1924. Adams and Keene point to this piece which includes the opinion of a German doctor named Dr. Adolph Heilbron, who states that “the women of the future may have longer beards than the bearded women of the circus today . . . if they continue the invasion of man’s domain of activities” (qtd. in Adams and Keene 138). Once again, the beard was regarded as a warning against the emergence of the “New Woman” in American society. Bearded ladies deserve more in American beard history than a bearded monster representing the ills of society or being paraded as part of some carnivalesque sideshow. We should also see further beards research in the rapidly growing interdisciplinary field of ecocriticism. Investigations into the discourses that define the complex relationship between men and nature continues to gather pace and the role of literature in examining these complexities are beginning to emerge. This interest of eco-­masculinities, as evidenced by Ecological Masculinities: Theoretical Foundations and Practical Guidance (2018) and “Men and Nature: Hegemonic Masculinities and Environmental Change” (2018), extends now to literary practice with the recent publication of Ecomasculinities: Negotiating Male Gender Identity in U.S. Fiction (2019). The editors, Stefan L. Brandt and Rubén Cenamor, curate a collection of essays that argue for the power of literature (and the arts more generally) to encourage reflective thinking of the relationship between men and nature and therefore inspire counter-­ hegemonic practice. While their book provides an in-­depth history of eco-­masculinities in the American literary imagination, the absence of the beard as a marker with significant symbolic power is notable. There is exciting potential, therefore, in considering the acts of the growing, wearing, or indeed the shaving of the beard from the Transcendentalists in the 19th century to more contemporary writings lead by Cormac McCarthy’s The Road (2006) in the rich narrative of eco-­masculinities in American literature.

Epilogue 175 There is also room for genre-­based research on beards and masculinity in American writing more broadly. Not only books but graphic novels and comics would appear to be literary arenas abundant in the symbolic engagement with beards. The most obvious would be science-­ fiction and fantasy genres. Of course, Thor is the unequalled exemplar of the bearded hero in the Marvel Universe (although some might point to the power of Wolverine’s mutant mutton chops), but there is a range of facial stylings that deserve critical reflection, namely the prevalence of the goatee. Questions arise as to why the evil Mr. Spock in the “Mirror, Mirror” episode of Star Trek needs to have a goatee? Is Ming the Merciless’s lack of mercy towards Flash Gordon due mainly to his long fang-­ like goatee? And, perhaps even more important, if we were to continue this critical reading of comic book characters, there is certainly the need to move upwards from the face to the top of the head to consider why so many comic book villains are bald. All in all, we might say that the continuing interest, if not obsession, with facial hair does not appear to be waning. Ultimately, I hope that Beards and Masculinity in American Literature exists as proof that this scholarly curiosity in the beard is more than a fashion trend. There is evidently something more to what many people might simply consider to be a few hairs on a man’s face; in fact, there is a rich beard history that illustrates the changing face of the position of men (and women!) in American society. Put simply, if we want to gain a fuller understanding of the complex discourses that are shaping society, or if we want to reconsider the dynamics of societies at certain points in history, we should be looking towards the beard. Be it in the street or on the page, I believe strongly that beards tell us something about who we are—so let’s keep reading them.

Works Cited Adams, Katherine H. and Michael L. Keene. Women of the American Circus, 1880–1940. McFarland & Company, 2012. Cenamor, Rubén and Stefan L. Brandt, editors. Ecomasculinities: Negotiating Male Gender Identity in U.S. Fiction. Lexington Books, 2019. Hultman, Martin and Paul M. Pulé. Ecological Masculinities: Theoretical Foundations and Practical Guidance. Routledge, 2018. MacGregor, Sherilyn and Nicole Seymour. “Men and Nature: Hegemonic Masculinities and Environmental Change.” RCC Perspectives: Transformations in Environment and Society, no. 4, 2017. Mitchell, Joseph. “Lady Olga.” Up in the Old Hotel, Vintage, 2012, pp. 88–104.

Index

Note: Page locators in italics represent a figure African Americans: barbershop, race, slavery and violence 35 – 8, 40, 44 – 5, 48, 53, 79, 157; color line barbering 32, 44; slaves, as barbers 23, 38, 43 Alexie, Sherman 116 – 17 America, post Nine eleven (9/11) 152 – 3 American: African 23, 32, 36, 43, 45, 48, 51, 79; barbershop 35 – 8; beard, history of 3, 173 – 4; fiction 18, 24, 54, 75, 161, 164, 167, 169; history of the bearded 6 – 7, 9 – 11, 16, 24 – 5, 61n34, 156, 173; masculinity 18, 68 – 9, 109, 142, 161 – 2, 169 – 170; native 26, 79, 82, 117, 122 – 3; novel 18, 152 – 3, 161; presidents 6, 110, 152; society, contemporary 152 – 3, 156, 170n9; writers 116, 166 American literature: beard, as celebrated in 1 – 2, 16, 66, 69, 165; bushiest beard in 109; culture and 16, 18, 40, 53; narratives of beard and barber 17, 24, 26, 47, 53 – 4, 66, 73, 81, 94, 103; Other, bearded 154; see also Other/Otherness Anaya, Rudolfo 117 appearance: personal, of beards 29, 34, 84, 100; physical, of beards 30, 57, 71, 93 – 4; power of beards 93, 98, 109 Atlantic Magazine, The 44, 67, 69 barber: artist, of men 25, 30; barbarian, as thought to be 29 – 30; black 36 – 7, 37, 38, 41, 43 – 9;

female 34 – 35, 38; Negro, as referred 41, 45 – 6, 50, 52; pole 20, 21, 23, 28; school, founded 1893 23; skills mastered 20, 22, 27 barbering, as a trade 20, 22 – 4, 27 – 9, 32, 37 Barbers, Beauticians, and Allied Industries International Association 23 barbershop 20; barber’s chair 22; barber’s pole 20, 21, 23; black 36 – 8, 44 – 5, 48 – 50, 53; cutting along the color line 23, 32, 37; familiarity of 58 – 9; father-son relationship 56, 57; hygiene 33; iconic 167; nostalgia of 53; racial disparities in 35; rituals 20, 57, 58 – 9; tales of 26 barbershops: after the Civil War 23 – 4; cleanliness issues within 33; early American narratives 24 – 8; foreign lands, parody of 29; racial tensions within 35 – 8, 44 – 5; retro 1; atmosphere within 34 – 5 Barber’s Protective Union 23 Barbers Shop, the 28, 60n18, 60n21 beard: canonical 3, 18, 173; celebrate, sing praises of 2, 4 – 5, 27, 114, 118, 123; fear of 11, 152, 163, 165; friendship, as a sign of 70 – 1, 120, 127; greatest ever 2; growing and wearing 1, 4 – 6, 14, 71, 102, 125, 164; history of 4, 9, 13; image of 3, 69 – 71, 159, 168; longest 11 – 12, 13; marker(s) of identity 26, 93, 144; opposition to 14, 154; persecution of 10, 11, 163; pogonotrophy, as cultivation of 1, 14, 93; pretentious,

Index 177 as 17, 81, 84, 93 – 4, 103; products for 2, 68; queering of 17, 112, 146, 154, 157 – 8; sexuality and identity 2, 14 – 15, 111, 113, 118, 125, 130, 133, 141, 145; symbolic power of 1, 71, 146 – 7, 159, 167; visual gratification of 1, 18, 70, 77, 101, 142, 164 Beards and Barbers 24, 60n7 – 9 Beat Generation 142 Binding, Paul 133 Boym, Svetlana 54 Bristol, Douglas 43; Knights of the Razor 43, 48 Broer, Lawrence 76, 104n11 Burnside, Ambrose 9, 10 butterfly: as evil 139; as representing homosexuality 131, 139 – 40 Captain, The 38 – 40 Castro, Fidel 70, 144 Chesnutt, Charles Waddell: “The Doll” 44 – 5, 48; narratives, race related 16, 44 – 6, 48, 53; published writer, as first black 44 Christ, Jesus 6, 70, 134 Civil War 6, 8 – 9, 23, 32, 38, 44, 53 Clark, Suzanne 77 clean-shaven: historical figures 6, 23, 142; as normal 4, 23, 152; perception of 10, 14, 94, 95, 154, 159 Cleveland, Steven Grover 6, 33 Clifford, Stephen P. 73, 76 Comely, Nancy R. 76, 77, 97 Concerning Beards: Facial Hair, Health and Practice in England c. 1650 – 1900 16 contemporary: American fiction 24, 54; American society 152, 156, 170n9; literature 161 – 2 Cutting Along the Color Line: Black Barbers and Barber Shops in America 23, 32, 36, 37 Dali, Salvador 142 Darío, Rubén 132 Darwin, Charles 14 Davies, Catherine A. 142, 146, 149n26 Däwes, Birgit 156 Dearborn, Mary V. 70, 71 – 2 DeLillo, Don 17; Cosmopolis 55, 57, 59, 167; Falling Man 153, 159,

160, 170n4; literary reactions after 9/11 153, 159 – 60; “In the Ruins of the Future” 153, 159 discourse: heteronormative 133, 142, 145; identity 77, 153, 156; of power 41, 79; racial 35 – 6, 38 – 40, 50 – 3; social 2, 58, 76, 93, 112, 141, 175 Dixson, Barnaby James Wyld 14 Donaldson, Scott 66 Du Bois, William Edward Burghardt 38, 43 Dudley, Mark 79 Dunbar, Paul Laurence 49 Dunkling, Leslie 4 – 5 Earle, David 68, 70, 104n4 Eastman, Max 67 – 8 Engles, Tim 53 – 4 Evans, Jennifer 15 Evans, Joshua 10, 11 facial hair: beards and 67, 72, 84, 93, 97, 99, 115, 165; famous figures with 6 – 7, 19n3, 31, 66, 117, 142, 152; feminine 16, 121; Guinness Book of Beards and Moustaches, The 4; masculine identity of 14, 93, 94, 103, 121, 166, 173; moustache 5 – 6, 8 – 9, 16, 31, 71, 94 – 5, 134, 152; shaving of 25 – 6, 86; sideburns 10, 20; stubble 2, 5, 17, 25, 100 – 02, 109, 130, 131; studies of 15 – 16, 23, 102; whiskers 2, 5 – 6, 16, 18, 27, 29, 34 Fatina, Richard 77 Faulkner, William: barbershop narratives of 16, 52 – 3; “Dry September”, 50, 51 Felipe, León 132, 139 Fetterly, Judith 75 Few Words Upon Beards, A 25, 60n11 – 12 Fitzgerald, Frances Scott 66, 70 flocculence: facial 4, 15, 18, 111, 124, 130, 135; famous 2, 17 – 18, 72, 111, 114 – 15, 143; power of 5, 17, 98 Foley, John 4 – 5 gay, as homosexual 113, 127, 133, 141 – 2 Gazette of the United States and Daily Evening Advertiser 26, 27

178 Index gender: barbershop dynamics 23, 34; masculinity and 73 – 6, 79 – 80, 95, 112, 134; vanity, male 14, 28 – 9 Gibson, Ian 132, 148n11 Ginsberg, Allen: beard, as selfawareness 144, 146 – 7; bearded loneliness 145 – 6; flocculence, famous for 143; “Kaddish” 144, 145; reconnection with Whitman 145; “A Supermarket in California” 17, 145 – 7, 149n28; “Wichita Vortex Sutra” 146 Gowing, Thomas S. 4 Grandfather’s Chair 30, 61n34 Grant, Ulysses, S. 6, 7 Gray, Richard: After the Fall 152, 156, 162; frustration with narratives 159, 162, 169; “Open Doors, Closed Minds: American Prose Writing at a Time of Crisis” 153 hair: facial 4 – 8, 14 – 16, 23 – 6, 66 – 7, 142; long 23, 123, 143; pubic 144, 154; sexual reference or meaning of 77, 93 – 4, 97, 99, 103 haircut, 20, 32, 50, 55 – 56, 58 – 59, 87 Hamid, Mohsin: post 9/11 writer 18, 160, 161, 164; Reluctant Fundamentalist, The 152, 160 – 2 Hawthorne, Nathaniel 30, 61n34 Hayes, Rutherford B. 6, 7 Hemingway, Ernest 65; “Indian Camp” 67, 81 – 3, 94; “The Doctor and the Doctor’s Wife” 67, 81 – 2; Across the River and Into the Woods 67, 88; early writing 67; A Farewell to Arms 17; female characters, role of 75 – 7, 81, 82 – 4, 95 – 7, 103; flocculence 69, 72; Garden of Eden, The 75, 78, 79; image, as growing 68; In Our Time 67, 77, 104n15; insecurities, sexual 78; Under Kilimanjaro 79, 80; masculinity narratives 17, 80 – 3; most famous writer of his time 66; Nobel Prize for Literature award 67, 77; Papa Hemingway 69, 70; Pulitzer Prize Old Man and the Sea, The 7; Sun Also Rises, The 17, 66 – 7, 76, 84 – 6, 88 – 92, 95, 99, 103; For Whom the Bell Tolls 17, 66, 66 – 7, 76 – 7, 94, 98, 99 – 103

Hemingway, Grace 78 Hernandez, Mario: homosexuality in art 136; Libro de los Dibujos de Federico García Lorca 134, 148n13 heterosexual/heterosexuality 14, 77, 125 – 6, 127, 157 hirsuteness, excessive hairiness 1 – 2, 5 homoeroticism 76, 127 Hughes, Langston 36 hyper-heterosexuality 157 identity: homosexual/homosexuality 112 – 13, 130, 133, 141, 143; marker of 26, 93, 123, 152 – 3; masculine 54 – 5, 78 – 82, 85 – 6, 90, 111, 113, 132, 162; sexuality and 2, 113, 118, 130, 133, 141, 145 image: of the beard 17, 68 – 70, 74 – 75, 92, 103; external, self 25, 43, 52, 59, 78; famous 65, 66 – 7 Irr, Caren 161, 170n8 Jerez-Farrán, Carlos 133, 148n12 Johnson, Andrew 6 Johnson, Mark Albert 15 Journeyman Barbers International Union 23 Judt, Tony “America and the War” 154, 170n2 Kale, Verna 80 Karsh, Yousuf 65, 69 Kerouac, Jack 143, 149n23 Kriebernegg, Ulla 156 Laden, Osama bin 154, 155, 156 Langseth, Hans 11 – 12, 13 Lee, Robert Edward 9, 9 Levine, David 154, 155 Levine, Gary 80 Levine, Robert S. 38 Life (magazine) 67, 69, 72 Lincoln, Abraham 6, 7, 110 locks, long or flowing 2, 11, 17, 109, 116 Lorca, Federico García: beard as prominent in drawings 134; clean shaven, always 142; early drawings 134; El Público 133; father figure, sees Whitman as 132 – 3, 141; as follower of Whitman’s beard 111 – 12, 114, 116; homosexuality of 112, 130, 133, 136, 139; “Oda

Index 179 a Walt Whitman” (“Ode to Walt Whitman”) 130, 132 – 3, 137 – 140, 145; “Pareja de hombre y joven mariner” (“The man and the young sailor”) 135, 135, 136; Poeta en Nueva York (Poet in New York) 130, 132, 136, 140; Suplicio del Patriarca San José 134; Venus 134, 144 Manrique, Jaime/Eminent Maricones 133, 141 Martin, Robert K.: Homosexual Tradition in American Poetry 127, 128; interpretations of Whitman 142 – 3 masculinities: American 25 – 6, 164; barbershop challenges 16, 52 – 3, 167; failed 154; hegemonic 26, 170n9; men and 73 – 4, 78, 81; sexual identity and 112 – 113, 140 masculinity: affirming 23, 34, 67, 69, 84, 90 – 2, 98, 134, 157; American 18 (see also American); beard associations and 2, 6, 15, 25, 66 (see also facial hair); in crisis 5, 142, 153, 169; Hemingway code 17, 68, 73 – 4; image as macho 68, 73 – 5, 90, 92; virtuous 118 – 19, 140; white/whiteness 54, 79, 163 Mazzeno, Laurence W. 75, 104n2 McCarthy, Cormac: barbershop as nostalgic 17, 56; Road, The 56, 57, 174; Suttree 56 Meditations in a Barbers Shop 30, 60n35 – 41 Melville, Herman: “Benito Cereno” 38, 40 – 3, 63n68, 167; narratives of racial tensions 16, 39 – 41, 43, 45 – 6, 53 Mills, Quincy T 36 – 8, 44, 50 Mir, Pedro 115 – 16 Moddelmog, Debra 66, 80, 104n1 Moler, Arthur Bass (A.B.) 23 Morgan, Bill 143, 149n23/24 moustache 2; see also facial hair Muslim: American 167 – 8; identification of, 154, 157, 165, 170n9; religiosity167 National Magazine; Devoted to Literature, Art, and Religion, 24, 25, 60n7, 60n11 Narrow Escape, A 38, 40, 53

Neruda, Pablo 116 New Perspectives on the History of Facial Hair 15 New Yorker 67, 71, 173 New York Review of Books, The 154 New York Times 67, 87, 174 Old Bachelor 32 – 3 Oldstone-Moore, Christopher 13 – 15, 104n16 Other/Otherness: beard as emasculating/sexualizing 18, 26, 141, 144 – 5, 156, 158 – 9; beard as virtuous/camaraderie 70 – 71; as feminine 80, 86 – 7; as foreigners/ racism 29, 35, 40, 79, 81, 100, 161; masculinity defining 99, 162 – 3; self-created persona 24, 85, 102 – 03; symbolic images of the beard, post 9/11 18; symbolic representation of beards, post 9/11 134 – 5, 152 – 4, 157, 163 – 4, 169; as terrorist 152, 154, 157; whiteness and 79 – 80 Palmer, Joseph 10, 11, 12 Peirce, Waldo 71 Perkin Maxwell 68, 71 Peterkin, Allen 6, 13, 14 Port Folio, The 28 Puar, Jasbir K.: racialization, post 9/11 157, 158, 170n3; Terrorist Assemblages: Homonationalism in Queer Times 154 queer/queering: of Other/terrorist 154, 157 – 8, 159; studies 80 race; depictions of 79, 81, 170; masculinity/sexual narratives 79, 81, 83; portrayal of in barbershops 16, 23 – 4, 26, 30, 35 – 40; racism/ urban settings of 132, 167 Rainwaters, Matthew 1, 15 razor: mastering the 22 – 3, 33, 42, 44, 56 – 7; sharpening/blade 39, 56; as a weapon/pain inflicting 29 – 30, 31 – 2, 40, 42, 48 Reflective Nostalgia 54, 55, 57, 58, 59 Restorative Nostalgia 54, 59 Riemer, James 75, 76 Rinpoche, Chögyam Trungp 143

180 Index Rohy, Valerie 76, 79, 104n11 Roosevelt, Theodore 6 Ross, Lillian 71 – 2 Rothberg, Michael: failure in literature post 9/11 153, 164 Rycroft, Eleanor 15 Sacks, David and Angie 15 Sanderson, Rena 76, 95, 104n3 Scholes, Robert 76, 77 shave/shaving: act of 81, 168; need for, narrative 17, 66, 84 – 5, 87, 92, 98, 103 Sherrow, Victoria 22 sideburns: iconic 10; mutton chops 34, 175; see also facial hair Slaughter, Carolyn 78 “Song of Myself”: celebration of Americanness 2; masculinity of the beard 111 – 12, 118, 122, 124, 128 – 9; sexual energy, as flowing 115, 123, 143; signature poem 121 Spilka, Mark 76, 77, 104n10 Steinbeck, John 5 Strong, Amy L 79, 80 Strychacz, Thomas: Dangerous Masculinities 73, 78; Hemingway’s Theaters of Masculinity 78, 86, 98, 99; masculinity, perceived 68, 80

Stuart, James Ewell Brown (Jeb) 9, 9 stubble see facial hair Taft, William 6, 7, 152 Twain, Mark 18, 31 – 2 union, as between man and wife 122 – 3 Union Army 8 – 9 Union soldier 7, 8 Updike, John: post 9/11 narratives 18, 156; queer portrayal of beard 158; Terrorist 153, 156 – 7, 160 Waldman, Amy; beard awareness, public and private 165 – 166; Submission, The 18, 164, 169 Walsh, John K. 132 whiskers see facial hair Whitman, Walt: “Calamus” 112, 118, 125 – 9, 142; flocculence 17, 111, 114, 115, 124, 130; homosexuality of 127, 132 – 3, 143, 145; Leaves of Grass, first edition 2, 17, 109 – 14, 110, 118, 121 – 3, 128; “Song of Myself”, 2; see also “Song of Myself” Wilson, Woodrow 6 Withey, Alun 15, 16 Wyndham, Percy 7, 8, 8