Can we also talk about how weird it was that Hemingway wrote in the 1929 version of A Farewell about the Japanese wanting to take control of Hawaii and then literally twelve years later Pearl Harbor happened? Am I missing something? Is this just some huge coincidence?
Literature of the Great War
ENGL 348. Fall 2018. Dr. Scanlon.
Japan had a different presence in the world as a global power in the Eastern Theatre with a military agenda. I think it would have been a legitimate threat in American’s minds as Hawaii had only been colonized and stolen as an annexed property several decades before WWI. It was in a good place for a foreign power to take control of and use for it’s own gain as a point of control in counterpoint to America. I think it was also an intriguing target for Japan as an island nation.
Hemmingway is out here predicting the future man! I mean, I can’t give any super historical context or explanation for this coincidence because I am HORRIBLE at history. But, I do think it is super strange how this worked out. It is also really weird how this is another prediction that we have seen, I mean we talked about the comment about war recurring in twenty years and it being a cycle that Nellie talks about in “Not So Quiet”.