Hemingway Essay, Research Paper

ERNEST HEMINGWAY

BIOGRAPHY

On the date of July 21, 1899 Ernest Hemingway, a now known brilliant writer, was

born. Hemingway was conceivably the only writer to achieve the combination of

international celebrity and literary stature in the twentieth century. Hemingway was

brought up in the village of Oak Park, Illinois, close to the prairies and woods west of

Chicago. Both here and in Michigan, he could explore, camp, fish and hunt with his father,

Dr. Clarence Hemingway. In Chicago he would attend concerts, operas and visit art

museums with his mother, a musician and an artist. Hemingway attended Oak Park and

River Forest High School, where he was an active writer. He wrote articles, poems and

stories for the school?s publications largely based on his own experiences.

The year Hemingway graduated he quickly secured a job with the Kansas City Star.

There he received a writing style sheet that instructed: ?Use short sentences. Use short

first paragraphs. Use vigorous English.? (Parshall 1). These were rules he never forgot to

incorporate into his works to get to the heart of a story.

The following year he entered World War I as a volunteer with American Red

Cross ambulance unit as a driver. There he was wounded near the Italian/Austrian front.

Hospitalized, he fell in love with his nurse, who later called off their relationship.

After World War I, Hemingway returned to northern Michigan to read, write, fish,

and later to work for the Toronto Star in Canada. In 1921 married his first wife and

moved to Paris. In Paris he continued to write for the Toronto Star as a foreign

correspondent.

During his stay in Europe through the 1920?s, Ernest was influenced by eccentric

writers like Gertrude Stein and Ezra Pound their literary compression. Hemingway?s use of

these methods in short stories and novels that captured the attention of critics and the

public.

In the 1930?s, he turned to writing for causes, including democracy as he knew it in

the Spanish Civil War and World War II. In each conflict he sought support for the side he

favored. But he insisted on impartially describing the truth of both wars, which he knew

from firsthand experience.

In the years following World War II, many critics said Hemingway?s best writing

was past. He surprised many of the critics when the novel, The Old Man and the Sea, was

published.. This work led to his Pulitzer Prize in 1952. Two years later he received the

Nobel Prize for his ?powerful, style-making mastery of the art or modern narration?

(Griffin 1) for The Old Man and the Sea.

Hemingway?s years following these awards saw few works as successful as his

novel or earlier writings. Hemingway was devastated that he could no longer write as he

once did. During 1961 Hemingway, troubled by high blood pressure and mental

depression, received shock treatments during two long confinements at the Mayo Clinic in

Rochester, Minnesota. He died July 2, 1961 at his home in Ketchum, Idaho, as a result of

self-inflicted gunshot wounds and was buried in Ketchum. But as he had hoped, his

writing lives on. His works continue to sell very well and are translated in an amazing

variety of languages around the world.

HEMINGWAY HERO

?For Ernest Hemingway, the secondary world which he constructed in his many

stories and novels served as a mirror to reflect his beliefs about the world in which he

lived? (Relations to Fact Through Fiction 1). Even though he reflected his beliefs in his

works he never portrayed himself as the hero. Instead Hemingway created a hero that

followed the same general code in all of his works. We generally, call this man the “code

hero”?this because he represents a code according to which the hero, if he could attain it,

would be able to live properly in the world of violence, disorder, and misery to which he

has been introduced and which he inhabits. The code hero, then, offers up and exemplifies

certain principles of honor, courage, and endurance which in a life of tension and pain

make a man, as we say, and enable him to conduct himself well in the losing battle that is

life.

The Hemingway hero of ?The Snows of Kilimanjaro? is Harry. Harry is self

pitying and views his present diseased state as the culmination of poor choices and false,

convenient values. However, through final, confrontation with his own mortality, he

achieved self-redemption.

In ?The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber? Francis is the Hemingway hero

because he had courage and faced his fears. If Francis would not have went out on the

safari the last time and had so much courage his wife would not have shot him. Mrs.

Macomber killed him because she could no longer rule him. With Francis gaining so much

self-esteem he no longer sat back and let his wife cheat on him, without confronting her.

The Italian soldiers in ?In Another Country? are the heroes because they were not

afraid to die. The three boys went to war and returned back to Milan with medals for their

bravery for facing death.

Santiago from ?The Old Man and the Sea? is a hero because he was courageous

and was not afraid of death. Santiago went out to sea, never gave up, and knew he could

survive anything that happened.

Ole Anderson of ?The Killers? does not whimper. He takes the medicine quietly

and is not afraid of death. In ?A Farewell to Arms? Henry is not afraid to face death. He

went to war. Later he deserted the Italian Army, knowing that he faced death. He dove

into the river and escaped. He swam to safety and boarded a train to Stresa where he

reunited with Catherine.

REFLECTIONS OF HEMINGWAY?S LIFE

Hemingway did not only create characters but created himself. The meaning to

that is that he took his life and intertwined it not only into one of his stories but almost all

of his stories.

As a writer, Hemingway drew heavily upon his war experiences, as is seen in his

earlier works that speak of men and women deprived, by World War I, of faith in the moral

values in which they had believed, as well as, of those who lived with hostile disregard for

anything but their own emotional needs.

Many of the situations and characters in A Farewell to Arms came from

Hemingway’s own experience with the war in Italy. Not long after high school Hemingway

volunteered as a Red Cross ambulance driver in 1917. Just like Frederick in the story he is

seriously wounded and taken to get medical care. Henry was posted in northern Italy and,

like Hemingway, received a wound from a mortar round. Even the details of the wound to

the leg are based exactly on the novelist’s own injury. While Hemingway was recovering

he fell in love like Henry. The only exception to that is that the woman Hemingway fell in

love with ran off and became engaged to an Italian nobleman.

?He also drew upon his love of fishing, hunting, and bull fighting, where his

writings tell of men with simple characters and primitive emotions, such as prizefighters

and bullfighters? (Roberts 8). He wrote of their courageous and usually futile battles

against circumstances. In The Snows of Kilimanjaro and Other stories Hemingway looked

back on his African safaris from 1934.

Most of the source material for The Old Man and the Sea comes from

Hemingway’s own experiences fishing off the coast of Cuba. Hemingway spent more than

two decades of his life living on the island, and fishing was one of his favorite activities.

Another episode in 1940 may have also served as a source for the novel. Hemingway

witnessed a man and a boy in a small boat being dragged by a fish that the man had

hooked. When Hemingway approached to try to help, the man had screamed at him to stay

away. Hemingway watched the struggle for half the day, finally pulling his own boat close

enough to throw some provisions into the boat of the embattled fisherman and boy.

Beginning with the illustrative story and perhaps this experience, Hemingway added deeper

elements from the environment to flesh out Santiago’s character and develop the action of

the story.

THEMES

In ?The Snows of Kilimanjaro? Harry himself regards his life as a failure. ?He has

prostituted his art?: each day of not writing, of comfort, of being that which he despised,

dulled his ability and softened his will to work so that, finally, he did no work at all. The

months and years of idleness slip by. He never acts, he never loves, he never carries out his

plans. He returns to Africa simply because he had once been happy there, and he thinks

perhaps there he can work the fat off his soul. Scorning the challenge of real life all around

him, he postpones writing the stories he knows, and he postpones loving an eminently

lovable woman simply because she is his and is available at the present moment. Harry

then becomes infected with the disease called gangrene. He lays on his cot where he

flashes back to scenes from his life that he has saved to write, taking pleasure in their

recall but knowing he will never write about them. He dreams of his younger days when

he was capable of fulfilling and remaining true to his talent. Therefore the theme is don?t

put off what you could have done today to do tomorrow.

Always have courage and face your fears in life is the lesson from ?The Short

Happy Life of Francis Macomber?. Francis Macomber was a wealthy American on a

safari with his beautiful, unloving wife, Margot. On one of the first days out Macomber

flees away as fast as possible to get away from the lion instead of shooting due to his fears.

This is similar to how he ignores his wife?s cheating habits instead of confronting her.

Later on Macomber has the chance to live up to his fears again which he does, by facing a

buffalo and his wife (when he realized she was in Wilson?s tent one night).

You may not always know one?s true background and what is really happening in

their life. That is a theme for ?In Another Country?. The narrator for the story is in Milan

for rehabilitation where he meets an Italian Soldier, a champion fencer, whose hand has

been wounded while at war that is also in rehabilitation. The recovering of his hand does

not seem to have the slimmest effect on him at all. That does not seem to be right thought

the narrator, for a champion fencer to lose his hand and not care.

The narrator works at his rehabilitation while the soldier believes it will never work.

One day while the narrator is working at his rehabilitation he starts to give up hope. The

soldier then starts yelling at him about how dumb he is because eventually it will work.

The soldier goes to make a phone call after the fight. After his phone call he apologizes to

the narrator for yelling and tells him that he has just lost his wife. The narrator then

realizes that the soldier wasn?t worried about losing his hand he was more worried about

his wife?s life.

Never give up no matter what the odds point to. This theme refers back to ?The

Old Man and the Sea?. Santiago went over 80 days without catching fish, but he would

not give up. People would talk about him, but he still went on and didn?t let them get to

him. When Santiago set out on the eighty-fifth day he never thought about catching a

marlin as big as he did. After being out for several days people were amazed when he

returned home with the marlin skeleton, even though it was just the skeleton. People told

him his bad luck was finally over.

Lost love can be found but not always kept. This theme acquired from ?A

Farewell to Arms?. When Henry and Catherine meet for the first time Henry tries to

seduce her. Henry then has to leave for war. Henry then was sent to Milan after leg

wounds to recover. That is where he meets up with her again by a coincidence. There

they began a passionate affair and fall deeply in love with each other. Henry is then sent

back to war after his recuperation. Henry is so much in love he deserts the Italian Army

and escapes to Stresa to reunite with Catherine. Catherine at this point is pregnant with

their child. They escape to Switzerland together where Catherine goes into labor. Things

go terribly wrong while in labor and both Catherine and the baby dies.

The theme for ?The Killers? is sometimes death isn?t supposed to happen. Ole

wasn?t at the restaurant where he normally goes the night Al and Max planned on killing

him.

SYMBOLISM

?In Hemingway the symbols are implicit: they follow the laws of reality to such

degree that in themselves they form a whole, full-blooded story? (Esther Murer 4). The

reader is at ?liberty? to discover that he is dealing with very profound and true symbols.

Most readers do not discover it at all, and read Hemingway just about the same way they

read any ordinary stories.

Like the Macombers, Harry and Helen would seem to be an ideal couple with

everything to live for. But Harry is a morally sick man; his physical wound is symbolic of

his inner illness. The wound to his leg epitomize his sickness, for it is a type of wound and

has been subconsciously self-inflicted. (Harry had neglected a thorn scratch and then

treated it improperly.) Like Francis Macomber he has been partially responsible for the loss

of his manhood, and he has, or imagines he has, a devouring mate eager to seize any sexual

advantage. (The Snows of Kilimanjaro)

In ?In Another Country? a symbol is when the Italian soldier returns three days

after, after hearing his wife was dead wearing a black band on his sleeve to signify

mourning.

Santiago is a symbol of Jesus showing how both of them went through so much

suffering. When he returns home after catching the marlin he carries part of the boat up

over his shoulder and that symbolizes Jesus being crucified. Santiago has to stop several

times to take a drink of water symbolizing the people giving Jesus a drink while he was on

the cross.

When Catherine dies, Henry is forced to face death. It said her body was like a

statue.

IRONY

In ?The Snows of Kilimanjaro? Harry is the type of man that believes he can

handle anything that he doesn?t have to worry about those so-called ?minor? things in life.

Due to his carelessness he became infected with gangrene. As a result to his heedless

actions he died because he never took care of a ?minor? thing.

In ?The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber? it?s ironic how Macomber first

fails and then succeeds in hunting, develops self-respect, but has his life ended just when it

began to be enjoyable. What is meant by that is that Macomber first scurries away from his

fears. He then becomes so fed up with his wife?s comments he goes out and challenges his

fears by winning, and gains self-esteem. His wife is so distraught that he did this that she

kills Francis.

?In Another Country? a soldier , a champion fencer, went to war knowing he was

facing death but didn?t worry about it. As a result he had to leave war because he had a

wounded hand and had to be put in rehabilitation. At this point he was aware of the fact

that his wife was sick. He went to phone her and was then notified by the doctor that she

died of pneumonia unexpectedly.

The irony of ?The Old Man and the Sea? is that Santiago worked so hard to keep

the marlin and all he returns home with is the skeleton. It all began on Santiago?s

eighty-fifth day he caught a marlin bigger than any other marlin he has ever seen. Santiago

goes through two days and two nights of the pain of his shoulders, back, and hands

because the marlin is to big to just tie the line to the boat. When he finally kills the marlin

he ties it to the boat. Later sharks come along and take the marlin bite by bite. He was

able to kill only a couple of the sharks but then he became to be too much. Eventually

there was nothing left of the marlin but the skeleton.

It?s ironic how Henry and Catherine go through so much together but yet can?t

spend many years together. They are only together for a short time but still have a deep

passion for one another.

In ?The Killers? it?s ironic how where Ole was supposed to be killed was a saloon.

A saloon used to be a place where shootings happened a lot. It?s also ironic how Ole

didn?t show the night the men planned on killing him.

SETTINGS

In both ?The Snows of Kilimanjaro? and ?The Short Happy Life of Francis

Macomber? the setting is in Africa during the 1920?s while game hunting with their wives

coming along on the trip. The importance of the setting in ?The Short Happy Life of

Francis Macomber? is that if Francis did not go on the safari he would have never

conquered his fears. If Harry had never returned to Africa, he would have never been

infected with gangrene.

Both ?A Farewell to Arms? and ?In Another Country? takes place in Milan during

World War I and II. All the main characters are at the health centers either working or

recuperating.

?The Killers? took place in an American city around the 1920?s.

?The Old Man and the Sea? takes place off the coast of Cuba where Santiago

catches the Marlin. Santiago is from a small fishing town that doesn?t have much to offer.

Most of the people around there fish for a living. With Santiago going eighty-four days

without catching any fish it is hard for him to survive. If it wasn?t for Manolin he would

have nothing to eat and no way of buying fishing bait.

A FAREWELL TO ARMS

In A Farewell To Arms the novel follows the classic romance formula until

Hemingway alters the last chapter. The classic romance formula to many would be: man

meets woman, man loses woman, man gets women back. The man in this novel is

Frederick Henry, one of the central characters and the narrator. Catherine Barkley is the

other central character.

Frederick is a young American ambulance driver with the Italian army in World

War I. The Italians are fighting in the Austrian War. While working on the front lines

Frederick meets a beautiful Red Cross nurse named Catherine Barkley, whose fiancee has

already been killed at the battle of the Somme. Henry is immediately attracted to her and

at first tries to seduce her as if it was a game to him.

Henry becomes wounded by a trench mortar shell and is taken to a hospital in

Milan to recuperate, there he meets up with Catherine again who is working at the

hospital. Henry and Catherine begin a passionate affair but he has to leave Catherine when

he has recovered to return to the war front.

The Italian forces are defeated by the Austrians and Germans and have to retreat

hastily. The Italian forces become disordered and chaotic. Henry is forced to shoot an

engineer sergeant under his command. In the confusion he is arrested by the Italian

Military police and charged with the crime of not being an Italian.

Henry , knowing he faces death, dives into the river and escapes. He swims to

safety and boards a train to Stresa. He reunites with Catherine, who is then pregnant with

his child.

With the help of an Italian bartender, they escape to Switzerland, a neutral country

war. In Switzerland they forget the past and Henry?s troubles. The two of them live

happily and plan to marry after the baby is born.

When Catherine goes into labor, however, things have an unexpectable turn, a turn

for the worse. The doctor announced that her pelvic was too narrow to deliver the baby.

He attempts an unsuccessful Cesarean section, and Catherine dies in childbirth. ?To

Henry, her dead body is like a statue; he walks back to his hotel without finding a way to

say good-bye? (Hemingway 329).

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