The Torrents of Spring: Analysis of Major Characters
"The Torrents of Spring" is a satirical novel by Ernest Hemingway that explores the lives and complexities of several characters in a small Midwestern town. The central character, Scripps O'Neil, is a tall, literary man with a contradictory background, including claims of both highbrow connections and a humble upbringing. His relationships fluctuate between his elderly wife Diana, a waitress with a tragic past, and Mandy, a younger waitress who captivates him shortly after his marriage. Yogi Johnson, a World War I veteran, grapples with his own identity and the moral decay he perceives in society, while also sharing tales of his experiences. The story introduces two American Indian characters who add a unique perspective on war and society, as they navigate their own challenges. With a distinctive narrative style, Hemingway intertwines humor and melancholy, providing a commentary on the fleeting nature of love and the search for meaning in ordinary lives. The interactions among these characters present a rich tapestry of human experience, making the work a compelling exploration of early 20th-century American life.
The Torrents of Spring: Analysis of Major Characters
Author: Ernest Hemingway
First published: 1926
Genre: Novella
Locale: Rural Michigan
Plot: Parody
Time: The early 1920's
Scripps O'Neil, who claims to have published two stories in The Dial and one in The Saturday Evening Post. He also claims to be a Harvard man. O'Neil is tall and lean. Deserted by his wife and daughter Lucy in Mancelona, Michigan, O'Neil wanders down the railroad tracks to Petoskey and goes to work in the pump factory as a piston-collarer. It is mentioned that his father was a great composer, that his mother is from Florence, Italy, and that he and his mother had to beg from door to door in Chicago when Scripps was a boy, but much of what is said about Scripps in this satirical work is contradictory. He also claims that his father was a general in the Confederate Army and that his mother, with Scripps clinging to her dress, berated General Sherman as the Yankees burned the O'Neil plantation. O'Neil, who is “literary” and romantically fickle, takes many of his meals in Brown's Beanery, where he falls in love with and marries Diana, an elderly waitress. He soon rejects her for Mandy, a younger waitress. Scripps inexplicably carries a bird inside his shirt through much of the story. He finally gives the bird to Diana. Scripps is with Mandy at the story's end, but his mind is wandering.
Yogi Johnson, a World War I veteran. Johnson is of Scandinavian descent and works in a Petoskey, Michigan, pump factory. He is a chunky, well-built fellow, of the sort one might see anywhere. He claims to have been the first World War I volunteer from Cadillac, Michigan. Yogi is worried because he does not want to be with a woman; he fears that something is wrong. A philosopher, he often remarks on the decay of morality in his time. He meets two American Indians and tells them of his experiences both playing center in football and at the front, where he killed five men. Yogi speaks of the stages a soldier goes through as he becomes hard-boiled. The Indians take Yogi to an all-Indian private club, which he is forced to leave hurriedly when it is noticed that he is not an Indian. He takes the Indians to Brown's Beanery, a local restaurant, where he relates his most humiliating experience: In Paris, Yogi had unknowingly participated in a live sex exhibition. Having told his tale, he strides away into the night. Yogi is last seen walking down the railroad tracks with an Indian woman, at night, stripping off and throwing away all of his clothes.
Diana, an elderly waitress in Brown's Beanery. She wears steel-rimmed glasses, and her face is lined and gray. She claims to be from the English Lake Country and that, as a jeune fille on a visit to Paris with her mother, her mother disappeared. The police were unable to find Diana's mother, and it is not until the “Author's Final Note to the Reader” that it is revealed that she died of bubonic plague and that the French authorities concealed the matter so as not to destroy the financial success of the Paris Exposition. After her mother's death, Diana was forced, she explains, to go to America, and she became a waitress. Diana is a constant reader of The Manchester Guardian. She and Scripps “fall in love” and are married, but half an hour later she notices that Scripps is eyeing the relief waitress. She worries whether she can hold Scripps. She tries to hold him by reading and relating stories from the literary journals of the time: Scribner's, The Century, and The Bookman. She does lose Scripps, but she asks for and receives the bird. She goes out into the night.
Mandy, a waitress at Brown's Beanery. She is a buxom, jolly-looking girl. Scripps thinks that she is robust and vigorously lovely, with healthy, calm, and capable hands. He is “stirred” by her only thirty minutes after his marriage to Diana. Mandy likes to tell improbable literary anecdotes, the first one being about the death of Henry James and others concerning Edmund Gosse and other writers. She wins Scripps, but for how long is questionable. By the end of the story, his interest is already wandering to the Indian woman.
Two Indians, one small and one large, who had studied at the Carlisle Indian School. They are on their way, they say, to Petoskey, to join the Salvation Army. They both claim to be decorated war veterans. The smaller one won the Victoria Cross. He has artificial arms and legs but still shoots excellent pool and can climb ladders. The large one was a major and won the Distinguished Service Order. The Indians take Yogi to an all-Indian club; when they are thrown out, the small one loses one of his artificial arms. They are last seen picking up Yogi's discarded clothes to sell.
An Indian woman who carries a papoose. She enters the beanery wearing only moccasins. She is joined by Yogi, and they walk out together.
The author, clearly Hemingway, a character who speaks to the reader from time to time, discussing his progress on the book and what he has had for lunch and with whom.
A drummer, a steady customer at Brown's Beanery.