Hemingway Essay, Research Paper

Non-Fiction Book Report

The book Ernest Hemingway and his world was written by Anthony Burgess and it was published in 1978 by Charles Scribners Sons. Its main concept is about the life of Ernest Hemingway and how he differed from his fellow writers in being a very strong man of action.

There are many settings in the book because Ernest Hemingway was a man who traveled all his life to all of the United States, Europe, Africa, the Caribbean, and several other places. The author describes what Hemingway would do in each of these places and what the consequences caused by his actions were.

The first setting is in Oak Park Illinois, this is where Ernest Hemingway is born on July 21, 1899. When he grows up, Ernest goes to war in Europe and after that he comes back and moves to Chicago, which is where he marries Hadley Richardson.

After they get married, they move to Canada where Hemingway’s son is born. When he finds himself unhappy, he divorces Hadley and moves to Paris where he meets and marries Pauline Pfeiffer, after a short period of time, he divorces her and marries Mary Welsh in Havana.

In 1953 he goes to a safari in Africa and has a serious accident, which leaves him ill for the rest of his days.

At his last home in Ketchum, Idaho, on a Sunday morning on July 2, 1961, Ernest Miller Hemingway commits suicide.

The author shows all the main conflicts that Hemingway goes through. I wonder how he knew such personal details about Hemingway’s life knowing that he was always a very private person.

It is shown how Ernest is always treated by as a baby by his mom and how he never forgives her for his humiliation. When he was in high school he would sometimes get in trouble for using forbidden words in the school paper. He would do this just to create a ruckus.

The author lets us know how Hemingway’s heart is broken when a nurse he falls in love with, rejects him for another man. He also lets us see that Ernest is a very insensitive person when he leaves his wife and son for another woman, and this one for his third, and then finally fourth wife. This shows how unstable Ernest is. He becomes so unstable that he takes his own life when he can’t handle all his problems.

Burgess apparently wants the public to see how Hemingway lived an adventurous life and even though he always looked and acted very manly, he had a very confusing life and this probably explains why he didn’t fear death, especially his own. He also compares how Ernest takes much of his storyline from his novel, A Farewell to Arms, from his personal experiences. The main character of the book experiences many of the same situations Hemingway faced. Some of these similarities are exact while some are less similar, and some events have a completely different outcome.

I think that Anthony Burgess does a good job in this biography because he lets the public see all the details of Ernest Hemingway’s success and failures. I liked reading about Hemingway’s life because it was very interesting and I wouldn’t mind reading one of his famous books like A Farewell to Arms or Death in the Afternoon.