Ernest Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises: A Critical Approach Based on E. D. Hirsch’s Hermeneutic Theory

The main aim of the present paper is to shed light on E. D. Hirsch’s hermeneutic theory and apply it on Ernest Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises (1926). According to Hirsch, the meaning of a literary work is absolute; it is not changeable. It is identical with whatever the author has in mind during the time of writing. He doesn’t deny, however, that the readers cannot always have access to the author’s intended meaning, but they can at least try to do so. Hirsch differentiates between meaning and consciousness of meaning; it is not possible to mean what one does not mean, but it is very possible to mean what one is not conscious of meaning. Hirsch does not deny that the meaning may change, but this is a matter of the work’s significance, rather than its meaning. The researcher argues that Hemingway’s novel can illustrate all Hirsch’s critical views about the meaning of the literary work and attempts, accordingly, to provide a textual analysis that supports the validity of such views. By the end, neither the reader, nor the critic, can usurp the author’s position because doing such a thing may eliminate the only compelling principle to achieve validity of interpretation.