Hemingway Essay, Research Paper

American novelist and short-story writer, whose style is

characterized by crispness, laconic dialogue, and emotional

understatement. An examination of Hemingway involves a

look at his early life, writing style, time period in which he

wrote, and his social concern.

Born in Oak Park, Illinois, Hemingway was educated at Oak

Park High School. After graduating from high school in 1917

(Unger,248), he became a reporter for the Kansas City Star, but

he left his job within a few months to serve as a volunteer

ambulance driver in Italy during World War I. He later

transferred to the Italian infantry and was severely

wounded. After the war he served as a correspondent for the

Toronto Star and then settled in Paris. While there, he was

encouraged in creative work by the American expatriate writers

Ezra Pound and Gertrude Stein (McMahon,133). After 1927

Hemingway spent long periods of time in Key West, Florida, and

in Spain and Africa. During the Spanish Civil War, he returned

to Spain as a newspaper correspondent. In World War II he

again was a correspondent and later was a reporter for the

United States First Army (Unger,253); although he was not a

soldier, he participated in several battles.

Hemingway’s economical writing style often seems simple

and almost childlike, but his method is calculated and used to

complex effect. In his writing Hemingway provided detached

descriptions of action, using simple nouns and verbs to capture

scenes precisely (McMahon,135). By doing so he avoided

describing his characters’ emotions and thoughts directly.

Instead, in providing the reader with the raw material of an

experience and eliminating the authorial viewpoint, Hemingway

made the reading of a text approximate the actual experience as

closely as possible (Encarta,CD-Rom).

Hemingway was also deeply concerned with authenticity in

writing. He believed that a writer could treat a subject

honestly only if the writer had participated in or observed the

subject closely. Without such knowledge the writer’s work

would be flawed because the reader would sense the author’s

lack of expertise (Encarta,CD-Rom). In addition, Hemingway

believed that an author writing about a familiar subject is

able to write sparingly and eliminate a great deal of

superfluous detail from the piece without sacrificing the voice

of authority.

Hemingway’s stylistic influence on American writers has

been enormous. Ernest Miller Hemingway?s writings and his

personal life exerted a profound influence on American writers

of his time. Many of his works are regarded as classics of

American literature, and some have been made into motion

pictures.