Ernest Hemmingway Essay, Research Paper

Ernest Hemmingway Ernest Miller Hemingway was born on July 22, 1899 in Oak Park, Illinois from the parents Clarence and Grace Hall Hemingway. He had three sisters named Marcelline, Ursula and Carol. He had one brother called Leicester. He graduated from Oak Park High School with Marcelline. Marcelline was really supposed to graduate before Ernest but her mother held her back so they could graduate together. That same year Ernest got a job at Kansas City Star in October of 1917. In the first war during 1942 he was sent to France with his friend Ted Brumback. They were helping the Red Cross out the in Italy. In Fossalata, Italy he had gotten hurt delivering supplies to the boys on the plain. The Austrian crew sent one of their projectiles over the River and Ernest did not get hurt that time. Another boy got hurt and Ernest lifted him up and were going to carry him to the Red Cross tent. Then another projectile came across and he was hit in his foot and knee. But he still walked the rest of the way to bring the guy to the helping hands of the Red Cross and lost consciousness when he did. He was sent to Milan hospital and taken care of by Elsie Mac Donald. Captain Sammarelli had an operation done to remove the machine-gunslugs from Ernest s knee and foot and it was successful. Ernest was able to return to Oak Park in January of 1919. In 1920 Ernest takes a job with Connable family in Toronto ad begins to freelance for Toronto Star. He returns To Oak Park in May and to Michigan in the summer. Grace evicts Ernest from the family summer home shortly because of a late night incident with his friend and two girls. She gives him a twenty-first birthday letter telling him to go leave his life. Ernest finds a job in Chicago and meets Hadley Richardson through Katy Smith her friend in Chicago. They end up getting marry at Horton Bay September 3,1921. A baby boy is born on October 4, 1923 and is named John Hadley Nicanor (Bumby). In 1925 Ernest meet Pauline Pfeiffer in Paris late in March through Kitty Cannell. Harold invited him and his wife over for a drink to celebrate the fact that Boni and Liveright were publishing Ernest and Harold short stories. They were publishing Three Short Stories and Ten Poems and In Our Time. When they got there, Kitty was entertaining guests who were Pauline and Virginia Pfeiffer. Ernest starts spending time with Pauline and a fondness starts to grow. Hid wife ask him in around October on November if they have something going on. She agreed to a 100-day separation between Pauline and Ernest and if they really love each other she would divorce him. On January 27,1927 the divorce went through and she had custody of Bumby. Pauline and Ernest are married on May 10 in Catholic ceremony. Before they got married in 1926 Ernest tried to get The Torment of Spring and The Sun also Rises published with Scribner s. The Sun also Rises is published and is about a group of Americans who were disillusioned by the war.In 1928 Ernest starts writing A Farewell to Arms, which is about a tragic love story in Italy during the WW I. It is published in 1929. His son Patrick is born on June 28,1928. He visits his parents in October and his father commits suicide two months later. His father was having a depressive attitude in his later years and it was more evident when he got older. It is said that he had some sort of mental sickness that was inherited by Ernest. He sets up trust fund for his mother so she wouldn t be financial unstable. Gregory is born to Pauline on November 12,1931. He had an affair with Jane Mason in April 1932 to June 1936. In 1937 Ernest covers the Spanish Revolution as a war correspondent and has an affair with Martha Gellhorn. He met her at a Sloppy Joe place on Key West the year before.Family pressure mount and Ernest goes away to Cuba to write his book For whom the Bell Tolls in February 14, 1939. The book takes place in the Spanish civil war and is about an idealistic American fighting the fascist forces in Spain. He returns home in December to find the house empty because Pauline left with the two boys. Ernest marries Martha in 1940 at Wyoming in November. Martha is not able to have kids and Ernest meets Mary Welsh. Martha asks for a divorce but Ernest does not want to give her one until the end of the month. They are divorced in 1945 and Mary and Ernest are married the following year in Havana, Cuba. Before they are married Ernest began writing the Ur-Text, which is the original text, that becomes Across the River and into the trees, The Old Man and the Sea, Islands in the Stream and The Garden of Eden are started in October. Mary has ectopic pregnancy, which is the development of an embryo outside of the uterus she almost dies. The Garden of Eden is begun as a separate work in 1948. Across the River was published in September 1950 and had negative reviews. The Old Man and the Sea is finished in 1951 and Islands in the Stream finished in December. His mother dies June 28 in 1951. Ernest is not really devastated because he had problems with his mother since an early age. In 1952 Life pay $40,000 for The Old Man and the Sea which, wins a Pulitzer Prize. Ernest Hemingway receives the Nobel Prize in October of 1954 and starts to write his African book. His mental states slowly starts to deteriorate. He registrars into Mayo Clinic under the name of George Saviers for treatment of hypertension, enlarged liver, paranoia and depression. He goes through electroconvulsive therapy. He was invited to John F. Kennedy inauguration but was to ill to go. In 1961 The Bay of Pigs invasion done by Cuban exiles under the CIA was a failure and Hemingway tried to kill himself but Mary stops him. He is hospitalized. He makes a second attempt and Dr. Saviers intervenes on April 23, 1961. He has more electroconvulsive therapy at the Mayo Clinic and is discharged from the hospital on June 26. He commits suicide on July 2,1961. He wore his red robe and went to his gun in the basement. He slipped in two shell, lowered the gun butt carefully to the floor, leaned forward, pressed the twin barrels against hid forehead just above the eyebrows and tripped both triggers. (Baker, p.564)

A Moveable Feast (1964) Island in the stream (1970) and the unfinished Garden of Eden (1986) were published after Hemingway s death. The two novels that are considered Hemingway s first to become famous is The Sun also Rises (1926) and the last is For whom the Bell Tolls (1940). A Farewell to Arms (1929) is also a famous book but he wrote the Bell Tolls after it and it is considered his finest work.A lot of things happened in Hemingway s life and it is evident in his books because he tended to write about what was going on around him. For example in the novel A Farewell to Arms, he talks about a tragic love story in Italy. In Italy when he was hurt in the hospital there was a lady called Agnes Hannah Von Kurowsky. Everyone loved her included Ernest she was doubly attractive so far from home, cheerful, quick, sympathetic (Baker, p.47). They wanted to get well quick so they could ask her out on a date. By August of 1918 Ernest was wildly in love with Agnes. She liked him a lot also but did not want a serious relationship. The only thing they did was kiss and it never went further then that. Agnes liked the attention that some of the other boys were giving to her. Nothing ever became of Hemingway s first love affair besides being in his book, which he probably considered tragic. Point of View An issue that is evident in a lot of Hemingway s book is the idea of homosexuality in many of his book. In the books The Sun Also Rises, and For whom the Bell we see the issue of homosexuality especial lesbianism. The Sun Also Rises was with Jake Barnes and people having different opinions about entering the war. He first sees Brett Ashley when he carries a prostitute, Gertrude to a dance club. Brett walks in with her homosexuals friends because she thinks it is the why where people can drink safety. Jake watches the homosexuals dancing with Gertrude and thinks about a lot of things while he watches them dancing. In For Whom the Bell Tolls, Pilar is considered to be bisexual because she is married to Pablo and seems to have something with Maria. Hemingway shows the bisexuality in his manuscript of his story more evident then his published book but it is still evident. She tells Maria that it gives me pleasure to say thus; in the daytime, that I care for thee and when she tells her she is jealous of Robert Jordan wanting Maria (176). Hemingway talks about homosexuality in a lot of his writings and it makes people wonder if some of the ideas he shows in his books is stuff that he thinks. Since it is shown that he writes about the things and the people in his life, it can be said that he writes about some of his ideas. He probably had an interest in gay activities and their psychological thinking. Professional criticismCritics like Nancy R comely and Robert Scholes tended to view Hemingway s portrayal of women in a negative expect. He had females as people who caused trouble, wanted money or was just there to receive pleasure and not give it. People like Jake Smith says to understand Hemingway you have to understand his life. Then you will fully understand why he says things and write about certain topics. Rose Marie Burwell writes in The Postwar years and the posthumous novels about Hemingway situations and try to show the reader that Hemingway always had a reason for doing things. Although, some critics see him as a negative influence because he used people in real life instead of fictional characters. Hemingway was basically writing about his life and exaggerating some points here and there. Some critics believe that someone could be given a topic to write about and with their creative genius could write about anything. Hemingway went away from the idea of fictional writing and wrote about crisp accurate dialogue and exact descriptions of places and things. Bibliography Baker, Carlos. Hemingway: A Life Story. New York: Scribner s, 1969. Burwell, Rose Marie. Hemingway: The Postwar years and the posthumous novels. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1996. Comley, Nancy and Scholes, Robert. Hemingway s Genders: Rereading the Hemingway Text. Orwigsbug, Pennsylvania: Yale university Press, 1994.