To Have and Have Not

To Have and Have Not is a 1937 novel by Ernest Hemingway about Harry Morgan, a fishing boat captain who runs contraband between Cuba and Florida. The novel depicts Harry as an essentially good man who is forced into blackmarket activity by economic forces beyond his control. Initially, his fishing charter customer Mr. Johnson tricks Harry by slipping away without paying any of the money he owes him. Harry then makes a critical decision to smuggle Chinese immigrants into Florida to make ends meet. To continue supporting his family, Harry begins to regularly ferry different types of illegal cargo between the two countries, including alcohol and Cuban revolutionaries. The Great Depression features prominently in the novel, forcing depravity and hunger on the poor residents of Key West who are referred to as "Conchs."

To Have and Have Not is Hemingway's second novel to be set in the United States, following The Torrents of Spring. Written sporadically between 1935 and 1937, and revised as he travelled back and forth from the Spanish Civil War, To Have and Have Not is a novel about Key West and Cuba. The novel is also a social commentary on the 1930s. It was heavily influenced by Marxist ideology, as Hemingway was on the side of the Republicans in the Spanish Civil War as he was writing it. The work got a mixed critical reception.^[1]

The novel consists of two earlier short stories, "One Trip Across" and "The Tradesman's Return", which make up the opening chapters and a novella, written later, which makes up two-thirds of the book. The narrative is told from multiple viewpoints at different times by different characters and the character names are frequently supplied under the chapter headings to indicate who is narrating the chapter.

Background and publication history

To Have and Have Not began as a short story—published as "One Trip Across" in Cosmopolitan in 1934—introducing the character Harry Morgan. A second story was written and published in Esquire in 1936, at which point, Hemingway decided to write a novel about Harry Morgan. Unfortunately the writing of the novel coincided with the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War.^[2]

To Have and Have Not was published by Scribner's on 15 October 1937 to a first edition print-run of approximately 10,000 copies.^[3] Cosmopolitan Magazine published a section of the novel as "One Trip Across" in 1934; and Esquire Magazine published a section as "The Tradesman's Return" in 1936.^[3]

Film adaptations

To Have or Have Not was adapted to film in 1944, starring Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall.^[4] The film, directed by Howard Hawks, changed the story's setting from Key West to Martinique under the Vichy regime, and made significant alterations to the plot, including getting rid of Hemingway's Marxist overtones, and turning the story into a romantic thriller centering on the sparks going on between Harry Morgan and Marie Browning. It was one of the influences for Bold Venture, a 1951–1952 syndicated radio series starring Bogart and Bacall.

The second film version, titled The Breaking Point (1950), was directed by Michael Curtiz and stars John Garfield and Patricia Neal with Juano Hernandez as Morgan's partner. The movie shifted the action to southern California and made Garfield a former PT Boat captain but is otherwise the most faithful to the original book.

The third film version, titled The Gun Runners (1958), was directed by Don Siegel and stars Audie Murphy in the Bogart/Garfield role and Everett Sloane in Walter Brennan's part as the alcoholic sidekick, although Sloane's interpretation was less overtly comedic than Brennan's. The movie features a bravura performance by Eddie Albert as a charismatic villain. Pauline Kael and Bosley Crowther have claimed that the ending was used for John Huston's film Key Largo (1948); Kael also said that "One Trip Across" was made into The Gun Runners (1958).^[5]

In 1987 the Iranian director Nasser Taghvai adopted the novel into a nationalized version called Captain Khorshid which took the events from Cuba to the shores of the Persian Gulf.

Notes

References

External links

• Hemingway Archives, John F. Kennedy Library