The Elliots

Mr. and Mrs. Elliot's Life

In Ernest Hemingway’s short story “Mr. and Mrs. Elliot,” Hubert comes across as a pathetic man contained within the parameters of a marriage circulating around trying to conceive a child. Hubert, a Harvard law student, lives under the pretense that he needs to keep himself pure for his future wife; although seemingly naive and innocent, he is in fact a man of quantity over quality. This is evident in his marriage to Mrs. Elliot, which results from seemingly random encounters. Just as he could never remember just when it was decided that they were to be married, his poems also reflect his general attitudes towards thinking that quantity equates to success. In their attempts to have children, their desperation to conceive everywhere they go points to Hubert’s lack of manliness; later in the story, Cornelia seeks solace from an older girl friend in an implied homoerotic relationship (Strychacz, 73). The sycophant’s surrounding Mr. Elliot on his trips around France further proves his pitiable status as a man of who relies on too much alcohol and speedy poetry writing to stay content with himself.

Another explanation for the unhappy union of Mr. and Mrs. Elliot could be the cause of the unconventionality of Mr. and Mrs. Elliot's life. Women around the age of eighteen were almost always married off whereas Mrs.Elliot was forty when she married, "Many of the people on the boat took her for Elliot's mother… In reality she was forty years old," (161). Because of Cornelia being almost twice of Hubert's age, the generation gap lies as the boundary of their marriage where both cannot connect emotionally. In addition to Mrs. Elliot's rotting age, her overly emotional state throughout the story serves as evidence to a forlorn marriage. Whenever Cornelia "…cried a good deal," (163), it would be from dejection or heartache brought on by her husband's actions. Such actions that made his wife cry were from being "…very severe about mistakes and… herre-do an entire page if there was one mistake," on her typing (163). As of the introduction of her friend from Boston, Cornelia transformed into a"much brighter" (163) woman and even "…had many a good cry together,"(164). From this sudden happiness illuminating from Cornelia, it has become apparent that she preferred the company of her friend over her husband especially when "Mrs. Elliot and the girlfriend now together in the big medieval bed," (164). Due to this new evidence,Cornelia does not feel emotionally attached to her husband which sets them apart from truly connecting their lives to form a baby which serves as a bond from their marriage. In addition to Cornelia's immense happiness in her reunion with her friend she calls "Honey," there is evidence of homosexuality between Cornelia and Honey (Matthew Stewart Modernism and Tradition in Ernest Himingway's In Our Time pg 70). Another example of Cornelia's homosexuality could be explained in her wish to marry and conceive very badly as a cover up to hide her sexuality. Because of her hurry to marry-partly due to her age- Hubert has no memory of their marriage because he has never intended to marry Cornelia which gives off a sense of manipulation. The scene of Hubert's mother throwing a fit and crying over her son's poor choice of bride provides further evidence of Cornelia's gaiety from his mother's upset.

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