A Moveable Feast: Situational Irony 2 key examples

Hemingway finds it ironic that Fitzgerald blames Paris for his failure to write given that Paris is full of cafés, parks, food, culture, and artists. In the 1920s especially, it was an international hub for writers because they could live there inexpensively and be surrounded by support for their creative projects. To Hemingway, it is obvious that Fitzgerald would have trouble writing in any city because he and his wife have such volatile personalities and an even more volatile marriage. If they can't have "a good life together" in Paris, he can't imagine anyplace where they could be happy.

Hemingway is right to point out the situational irony of Fitzgerald's grudge against Paris, but his joke at his friend's expense also reveals a deep insecurity. Hemingway, too, has difficulties with daily writing; to write regularly requires self-discipline, the right environment, and cooperation from Hadley. Even when everything falls into place for him to work day after day, he is a slow writer. He often worries that he is not producing more stories and novels. Fitzgerald is another American expatriate in Paris who is trying to make a go of it as a modernist writer, and yet he has published more than Hemingway by the time they meet. He challenges Hemingway's commitment to writing only what is good, not what will earn his family a fast paycheck. By criticizing Fitzgerald's work ethic, self-awareness, and marriage, Hemingway reaffirms his own choices not only as a writer, but also as a person. Hemingway appreciates the opportunities Paris affords him, but he refuses to take them for granted. He knows that a "good life" is something he has to build for himself and his family by living up to his ideals.

Hemingway's depiction of himself and Fitzgerald as foils exacerbates the misogyny to which Hemingway is already prone. Fitzgerald has hitched himself to Zelda, who Hemingway describes at the end of this chapter as an "insane" woman hellbent on destroying her husband's life and career. By contrast, Hemingway hints, he has chosen a wife who is practical, kind, and quietly supportive. There are moments, however, when it seems as though Hadley might have more of her own independent goals than Hemingway gives her credit for. By comparing her indirectly to Zelda, he in fact exaggerates her lack of ambition and treats her as a badge of success rather than as a partner who sacrificed on his behalf in the hope that he would do the same for her. What's more, plenty of evidence suggests that Fitzgerald was at least as abusive and controlling toward Zelda as she was toward him. He went to great lengths to impede her career and damage her mental health because he saw her as fierce competition. Hemingway is so preoccupied comparing his marriage to his friend's that he fails to see either marriage in all its complexity.

Throughout this chapter, Hemingway mourns the way his and Hadley's lives changed once rich vacationers discovered the skiing slopes in Austria. If Paris was an affordable refuge for the struggling writer in the 1920s, the mountains were the refuge from the refuge. He, Hadley, and their son could escape there when winter in the city became cold, dreary, and unbearable. They could afford warmer, more abundant meals and could appreciate one another's company. Once their refuge was discovered and Hemingway met the woman who would become his second wife, the simple "early days" of Hemingway's European life were complicated forever. His paradise began to rot from within.

Hemingway feels betrayed not by the rich (who acted only according to their nature), but by the "pilot fish" that told them all they should come meet Hemingway in the mountains. The pilot fish is a tropical fish that is often spotted traveling near larger sea creatures like sharks. It is a carnivore, but it does not hunt the animals it follows. Rather, it feeds on the parasites carried by these animals. This symbiotic relationship can look strange and has led to the misconception that the fish "pilots" sharks to potential prey. This idea seems to be the basis of Hemingway's metaphor: Hemingway feels that the rich "sharks" would never have found or destroyed his and Hadley's wintertime sanctuary if not for the humble, not-particularly-wealthy "fish" who came first, built a rapport with Hemingway, and finally made the fatal introduction.

What Hemingway is most angry about still, at the end of his life, is that "it is only those who trust [the pilot fish] who are caught and killed" by the sharks. Where he once held himself open to every new connection he made in Paris, the pilot fish shattered his sense of safety among fellow writers and artists. Some "friends," it seems, are willing to throw him to the "sharks" for their own gain. Ironically, the most humble-seeming writers and artists can turn out to be the most ruthless. These people have "the irreplaceable early training of the bastard;" born without an automatic claim to "old money" and prestige, they have been fighting their whole lives for what they believe they deserve. They will do anything to get it.

 Many critics believe that the "pilot fish" Hemingway writes about so scathingly is the ambitious and well-connected novelist John Dos Passos. Hemingway made many social connections through Dos Passos before they had a falling-out over Dos Passos's increasing loyalty to wealthy, conservative politicians. Regardless of whether or not Dos Passos is the person Hemingway has in mind in this passage, the metaphor of the pilot fish reveals his lifelong anxiety about social climbing and the way it can both make and break a person.