“Injustice Everywhere”: Confronting Race and Racism in Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises

Abstract:The Sun Also Rises contains troubling depictions of African-American characters framed by a vile racial epithet. Although critics have addressed this topic using the familiar contexts of Hemingway’s life, his iceberg theory, or intertextuality, this article argues that a fluid, combinatory context is necessary in the twenty-first century classroom. Acknowledging Toni Morrison’s important intervention in Playing in the Dark, this essay seeks neither to dismiss or ignore the novel’s racist content nor to banish the novel from the canon, but rather to engage the novel in a complex ongoing dialogue about race and racism in American culture and literature.