ABSTRACT. Rhetorically speaking, drinking was an opportunity for Hemingway to probe into gender. His younger alter ego Frederic Henry, the drinking lieutenant in A Farewell to Arms could thus envisage the personality of the ‘mother-nurse’ who will have inhabited the dream-phantasies of soldier-patients in World War I; his older alter ego Cantwell, the drinking colonel in Across the River and into the Trees, could thus draw the contours, if rather flimsy, of the ‘daughter-whore,’ submissive and forever willing.

Keywords: Ernest Hemingway; A Farewell to Arms; Across the River and into the Trees; heavy drinking; mother-nurse; daughter-whore

How to cite: Murgu, L. (2024). “Drinking in Italy,” Romanian Journal of Artistic Creativity 12(3): 13-22. doi: 10.22381/RJAC12320242.

Received 14 August 2024 • Received in revised form 30 August 2024
Accepted 03 September 2024 • Available online 30 September 2024