Who is “The Destructive Type”?: Re-Reading Literary Jealousy and Destruction in The Garden of Eden

The tension between creation and destruction is central to Hemingway’s The Garden of Eden. Catherine’s role as “destroyer”—burning David’s stories—is self-evident, but critics have also long recognized her creativity. David calls himself “the inventive type,” but what has long gone unnoticed is his destructive side. The Eden manuscript reveals that David destroys part of his own honeymoon narrative. What’s more, the physical evidence of the manuscript suggests that Hemingway destroyed significant portions of his own text. A study of this theme in the novel illuminates a crucial difference between the creativity of Catherine and the creativity of David.