Up in Michigan: A Setting of Inner Turmoil

Ernest Hemingway’s Up in Michigan evokes sympathy for and understanding of a young woman’s sexual initiation. The struggle which Liz Coates faces between her sexual attraction to Jim Gilmore and her naïve inexperience is embodied in the gloomy and uninviting setting. “…[I]n many works, the setting is an essential element in establishing the atmosphere of [a] story” (Hamilton, p. 150). In addition to Sharon Hamilton’s statement, the setting can also play an active role as a character in a story. The setting represents the sentiments and emotions that Liz has difficulty expressing, because the setting created these feelings. Liz has to manage the sentiments she has for Jim and her confusion over his sexual violation of her body on the warehouse dock. As the setting would suggest, Liz enters a world of sexuality and love that is like “[a] cold mist…coming up through the woods from the bay” (Hemingway, p. 158). Although Jim “had hurt her” and taken advantage of her, it could be argued that “Liz was…destined to copulate with him, in view of both her ignorance, vulnerability, confusion, and awakening sexuality, as well as Jim’s comparative experience” (Petry, p. 27).

“[Liz] liked Jim very much” (Hemingway, p. 156). “She liked” his mustache, his white teeth, and even his tanned lines. Her infatuation with Jim is certain, but the characteristics Hemingway mentions as being attractive to Liz are entirely superficial. The mystery of Jim’s character is deepened by the opening line of the story: “Jim Gilmore came to Hortons Bay from Canada” (p. 155). Liz has no perception of his personality, but she is irresistibly drawn to his masculinity and obscurity. As the story progresses Liz passes from liking Jim to thinking about him “[a]ll the time…” (p. 156). The description of the ore barges suggests the inevitability of Jim’s seduction of Liz: “[the ore barges] didn’t seem to be moving at all but if she went in and dried some more dishes and then came out again they would be out of sight beyond the point.” She cannot see the movement of the ore barges toward the point, and she cannot recognize herself being moved slowly toward Jim Gilmore by the setting which is synonymous with Jim’s masculinity and obscurity.

The setting of Hortons Bay sheds some light upon the inexorableness of Liz’s attraction to Jim. This small town “was only five houses on the main road between Boyne City and Charlevoix” (Hemingway, p. 156). In addition to being a small, rural setting, the town is also indicative of a strong masculine influence. This is a town for farmers and dock workers, occupations generally associated with men in the 1920s. Jim Gilmore, as the blacksmith, also represents a strongly male character. Alice Petry states that “…the ore barges appeal to [Liz’s] inarticulate romantic nature…as [does] Jim, who, by virtue of his occupation, is readily associated with ores” (p. 25) Because of the strong masculine components of her environment, Liz is subject to associating men with things she loves, particularly Jim. Just like the ore barges that can surpass the reaches of Hortons Bay, Jim is from Canada, an area entirely separate from the world she knows. Liz’s decision to succumb with only weak resistance to Jim’s advances can be attributed directly to the setting which, to Liz, is home.

Liz is portrayed as a young woman defined by her clean and orderly lifestyle: “[t]he neat girl…[who] wore clean gingham aprons and…[whose] hair was always neat behind” (Hemingway, p. 156). She is the quintessential domestic that dries dishes, serves dinner, and even labors four days to ensure that the men have home cooking while hunting. This also implies “[s]he is sufficiently young and inexperienced to perceive men in an entirely romanticized light” (Petry, p. 25). Liz loves her environment; it is her home. The everyday workings and occupations of life are familiar and comfortable to Liz. When Jim returns it is like the return of a missing puzzle piece to a jigsaw. “All the time Jim was gone on the deer hunting trip Liz thought about him” (Hemingway, p. 157). Liz expects something to happen when Jim returns, but “nothing…happen[s]” (p. 157), that is, nothing happens immediately. As the remote setting would suggest at this crucial conjuncture, Jim does not seduce Liz until she was alone later in the evening. She is uncomfortable and confused by what happens. She doesn’t understand sex, but she is inescapably drawn to Jim. Paul Smith notes that “[t]he significance of the…union of Jim Gilmore and Liz Coates…is…that it happened on the return from a hunt to something like a home” (p. 7). As Petry suggests Liz is still too young to recognize further implications in Jim’s return. She merely sees it as a return of part of her home, a return of man “she liked” (Hemingway, p. 156). Jim’s return completes the setting with which Liz is comfortable; however, when Jim introduces her to the new world of sexuality, the irony of Smith’s statement in Liz’s situation becomes evident.

When Jim invites Liz to go “for a walk” (Hemingway, p. 158) he takes her to the dock. Lisa Tyler argues that “[w]hat Liz Coates experiences on that dock is what we have since come to call date or acquaintance rape” (Tyler, p. 3). Such a secluded location in a lakeside community of “only five houses” (Hemingway, p. 156) can easily signify an attempt on Jim’s part to remove Liz from the town and reduce the risk of discovery. Hemingway creates a gloomy setting with the warehouse and dock perfect for rape or any other crime. The central characteristic of Hortons Bay also becomes the cold and splintery location so essential to Liz’s fist sexual experience. As suggested by Jim’s seeming disinterest in Liz when he returned to Hortons Bay in the company of his counterparts, the remoteness of the setting creates an atmosphere wherein Jim is not willing to reveal any emotion, be it lust or love, until he is alone with Liz. The dock, like Jim, is something well experienced in masculine operations and works. Liz, in her innocence and naivety, is left cold and alone in an empty warehouse to contemplate the violation of her body. The dock is a gateway to a whole new world and Jim is someone from that world. As secure as it appears to Liz, the world by which she was entranced with ore barges and Jim is not as rewarding as she originally thought.

Certain inevitability persists throughout the story, signified by the ore barges mentioned on page 156 or the dialogue found on page 159:

“You mustn’t do it, Jim. You mustn’t.”
“I got to. I’m going to. You know we got to.”
“No we haven’t, Jim. We ain’t got to. Oh, it isn’t right…you can’t…”

The setting provides that Liz has entered a cold new world. Mist is used in the last paragraph of the story. This could represent Liz’s clouded understanding of what happened; however, although she did not fully comprehend what had happened to her, Liz was enshrouded by the reality of the sexual world. This stance is supported by narration: “[t]hen she walked across the dock and up the steep sandy road to go to bed” (Hemingway, p. 159). As much confusion and distress sex may have caused Liz, she was ready to accept it into her life. Instead of prolonging her distress over Jim, she went home to bed. As Liz protects Jim from the cold mist of the bay with her coat, she also reaffirms her fascination with the masculine setting from which he comes and, in small part, he has exposed to her. Conversely, Jim remains in the warehouse asleep and content. In a setting dominated by men, he is completely unaware of any turmoil he may have caused Liz. Liz and Jim represent an example of perfect submission to the remote and masculine setting which they inhabit.


Works Cited

Hamilton, Sharon. Essential Literary Terms: a Brief Norton Guide with Exercises. New York: W. W. Norton and Company, 2007. Print.

Hemingway, Ernest. Up in Michigan. 1938. Literature: A Pocket Anthology. Ed. R. S. Gwynn. 4th ed. San Francisco: Longman, 2008. 155-159. Print.

Petry, Alice Hall. “Coming of Age in Hortons Bay: Hemingway’s ‘Up in Michigan’.” Hemingway Review. Ed. 4.1. 1984. Academic Search Premier. EBSCO. Web. 18 November 2009.

Smith, Paul. A Reader’s Guide to the Short Stories of Ernest Hemingway. Boston: G. K. Hall and Company, 1989. Print.

Tyler, Lisa. “Ernest Hemingway’s Date Rape Story: Sexual Trauma in ‘Up in Michigan’.” Hemingway Review. Ed. 13.2. 1994. Academic Search Premier. EBSCO. Web. 18 November 2009.