Having just watched the last 3/4 of 1957's film version of A Farewell to Arms (a magnificent movie!) and read a bunch of Ernest Hemingway quotes, I feel that I am far from an expert on the matter, but am at last familiar enough with Hemingway to at least leave a comment.
And that is this: that Ernest Hemingway is famous for living a life of hard masculinity.
But that it is healthy masculinity, not toxic masculinity.
Ernest Hemingway expects of himself perhaps what toxic masculinity forces upon people, but he expects it of himself, not of others, and that is his choice to make.
He puts forth his idea of masculinity as an admirable choice, but as something that should be one's choice, to persue to the limit of one's abilities, by one's own choice.
And this is healthy masculinity.
Ernest Hemmingway had a hard, sad view on life, but it was a hard, sad view that was one of compassion.
He experienced the worst that has ever happened on Earth, World War I. Naturally he had a sad view of life.
He was uncompromising, but to himself, not to others. He had uncompramising compassion in his view on the pain and tragedy of life.
And he showed through his works how choosing uncompramising courage leads to a life well lived, when it is your own choice rather than something forced upon you.
Lack of courage causes far more pain to those that have it than courage does.
This is healthy masculinity.
And there were aspects of toxic masculinity that Hemingway had nothing to do with. He was a hero, not a bully, certainly he tried to be, and I have no doubt that he served as a hero many times over in the wars.
Hunting was an accepted part of mainstream society at the time. Bullfighting as a subject Hemingway persued for the tragic drama of it. There can be few better subjects for the kind of themes Hemingway wrote of in works like A Farewell to Arms than the tragic drama of bullfighting. Hemmingway wrote of bullfighting for the same reasons that Shakespeare wrote of the assassination of kings in Macbeth.
Thank you for the fine example of a life well lived and an ideal pursued well, Hemmingway!
Sincerely,
David S. Annderson