A Moveable Feast begins with a description of bad weather, and the book is filled with references to the seasons. Hemingway is particularly sensitive to seasonal change, and he frequently describes the way in which the natural atmosphere reflects—or dictates—his mood. Hemingway conveys this most emphatically in the chapter entitled “A False Spring,” in which he describes the way that the winter cold in Paris can give way to warm, bright weather, only for wintery conditions to resurface before the real spring eventually comes. Hemingway’s descriptions of the weather and seasons draw attention to the visceral experience of everyday life, a defining concern of A Moveable Feast and, more generally, of the broader genre of modernist literature in which Hemingway was writing.
The seasons also have specific symbolic significance within the book. The harsh and dark period of winter arguably corresponds to the First World War. This means that the era Hemingway is describing—Paris in the 1920s—is akin to a warm, sunny spring. Of course, this spring did turn out to be “false,” as the 1920s were quickly followed by the Great Depression and the Second World War. Hemingway’s emphasis on the seasons also highlights the passing of time, another central concern of the book. While Hemingway wrote much of the original material at the time in which the book is set, he revised and assembled it much later in life. His narrative perspective thus takes into account the cyclical progression of time, including the hopeful periods of youthful innocence (represented by the spring) and the dark, cruel eras of hopelessness and suffering (winter). Hemingway illustrates the way in which these seasons of life—like the four seasons of the year—inevitably end, even if in the midst of them it can seem like they will last forever.
The Seasons Quotes in A Moveable Feast
Then the cold rains kept on and killed the spring, it was as though a young person had died for no reason.
In those days, though, the spring always came finally; but it was frightening that it had nearly failed.
Standing there I wondered how much of what we had felt on the bridge was just hunger. I asked my wife and she said, "I don't know, Tatie. There are so many sorts of hunger. In the spring there are more. But that's gone now. Memory is hunger."
The winter of the avalanches was like a happy and innocent winter in childhood compared to that winter and the murderous summer that was to follow. Hadley and I had become too confident in each other and careless in our confidence and pride. In the mechanics of how this was penetrated I have never tried to apportion the blame, except my own part, and that was clearer all my life. The bulldozing of three people’s hearts to destroy one happiness and build another and the love and the good work and all that came out of it is not part of this book. I wrote it and left it out. It is a complicated, valuable and instructive story.
He had many good, good friends, more than anyone I knew. But I enlisted as one more, whether I could be of any use to him or not. If he could write a book as fine as The Great Gatsby I was sure that he could write an even better one. I did not know Zelda yet, and so I did not know the terrible odds that were against him. But we were to find them out soon enough.
The Seasons Symbol Timeline in A Moveable Feast
