Abstract
Along the long, winding paths literature has taken, the historian can discover portraits of many-sided Eves sketched in prose and poetry by creative Adams. Chaucer quilled his lascivious but matriarchal Wife of Bath, fashioned his warm-hearted or cool-headed Cressida, and enfleshed the perplexing Prioress in which the nun tries to suppress the woman and the woman tries to suppress the nun. Juliet, that quizzical creature of infatuation or love, and Cleopatra, whether fickle or faithful, walk on stage in Shakespeare's tragedies. In more modern literature Aldous Huxley's brave and worldly but unsure Lenina Crowne makes her debut, and James Joyce presents his Anna Livia Plurabelle, at once Isis, Iseult, a passing cloud, a flowing stream, the lovegiving principle. Such variety has prompted theoreticians to rnuse, "Is woman a 'crown of creation' or 'at best a contradiction', 'a moment's ornament' or 'a rag and a bone and a hank of hair'?" | Keeping the critics guessing on his position in the controversy is Ernest Hemingway whose portraits thrill, anger, and make the commentators take up arms against one another. Typical of the opponents discussing A Farewell to Arms, for instance, Owen Wister comments that the book "is full of beauty and variety, and nobody in it is garbage," while Robert Herrick considers the young lovers "but another couple on the loose in Europe during the War." Disagreement also surrounds the characterization of the women in For Whom the Bell Tolls. Countering Otto Frederich's opinion that the love affair between Maria and Jordan is a master and servant relationship is Joseph Warren Beach's contention that the young Spanish girl and the former college professor stand for the institution of marriage, society itself, and the principles for which the soldiers are fighting.