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The Life of Ernest Hemingway

(1898-1961)

            Ernest Hemingway was a famous American novelist known for his simplistic prose style, and the heavy symbolism that accompanied his literature. Hemingway influenced generations of writers by making the job of writer look easier than it actually is. His novels are deceptively easy to comprehend upon first reading, and only reveal their secrets after close, careful analysis. In 1954, Hemingway was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature "for his mastery of the art of narrative" and "for the influence he has exerted on contemporary style."

            Ernest Miller Hemingway was born in Oak Park, Illinois, in 1898, the son of Clarence Edmonds Hemingway and Grace Hall.  From his father, Hemingway received an interest in outdoors, but it was from both of his parents that he learned to love literature. During his youth, Hemingway published short stories and poems in his high school newspapers. In 1917, Hemingway graduated from high school and had a brief stint as a reporter for The Kansas City Star. That same year, however, he joined the army as a volunteer ambulance, and found himself on the frontlines of the war in Europe. It was from these experiences that Hemingway derived most of his hatred of warfare, as well as his disillusionment with the United States that led him to take up residence in Paris after the war. During WWI, Hemingway sustained a severe leg injury from shrapnel, but was decorated for his heroic efforts. It was during his stay in a hospital in Europe that he met an American nurse named Agnes von Kurowsky, with whom he had an affair. The experience was the influence for the novel he is best known, A FAREWELL TO ARMS (1929).

            After World War I ended, Hemingway returned to the states and worked as a reporter until 1921. That year he left for Europe. In Paris, France, Hemingway became friends with Gertrude Stein, who introduced him to a number of authors he befriended. Stein ran a parlor in Europe where writers, poets, and artists, among them Salvador Dali, Pablo Picasso, T.S. Eliot, Ezra Pound, and Sherwood Anderson, congregated. He also became acquainted with John Dos Passos and F. Scott Fitzgerald, with whom he had a stormy friendship. All of these writers, their pessimism, their struggle to write serious work around so many pseudo-intellectual hacks in Europe, were later used in Hemingway's novel, THE SUN ALSO RISES (1926). Many of the writers he met, including Stein, were members of the "Lost Generation," a group of artists who expatriated to Europe following WWI. From these contemporaries, Hemingway forged much of his initial format for writing literature.

            After publishing a number of short stories in rapid succession, Hemingway and his wife Hadley traveled to Greece and Turkey to cover the war going on in 1922. From the very beginning of the dictator's reign, Hemingway was distrustful of Benito Mussolini. The following year, Hemingway traveled to Spain first witnessed a bull fight at Pamplona, which sparked a lifelong interest in the rugged sport. Handsome, muscular, tall in stature, with a broad chest and boisterous manner, Hemingway seemed as if he could take on the world at that period in time. It was this energy that ran through him that led to the captivating power of his early short stories.

            That same year, Hemingway published THREE STORIES AND TEN POEMS (1923) and IN OUR TIME (1923). Following THE TORRETS OF SPRING'S publication in 1926, Hemingway's first serious novel was published. THE SUN ALSO RISES centers around a group of expatriate artists and their adventures with sex, alcohol, and violence. Hemingway spent a good deal of time revising the work, and his effort showed to the critics. THE SUN ALSO RISES released to rave reviews and good sales, and it began his career as a novelist. After publishing MEN WITHOUT WOMEN (1927), Hemingway returned to the United States and began writing his epic tale of love and war, A FAREWELL TO ARMS (1929). The novel featured to lovers who find happiness in each other for a brief period, and then have it torn away by the war. A commercial and critical success, A FAREWELL TO ARMS was the novel that made Hemingway one of the most sought after writers in America at the time.

            Following this novel were DEATH IN THE AFTERNOON (1932) and THE GREEN HILL OF AFRICA (1935). Neither brought Hemingway much money, so he wrote his own version of Faulkner's SANCTUARY, a confused and inferior work entitled TO HAVE AND HAVE NOT (1937). The novel was made into a film by director Howard Hawks, whom Hemingway befriended. During the years between these three novels, Hemingway was divorced twice and remarried once, and became a prolific short story writer. In 1937, following the publication of TO HAVE AND HAVE NOT, Hemingway witnessed the Spanish Civil War, and met Martha Gellhorn in Madrid. The two married in 1940; she was his third wife. That same year came the publication of FOR WHOM THE BELLS TOLL, the story of a young man named Robert Jordan who plots to blow up a bridge.

            Hemingway had a number of adventures over the next few years, including trips to the Bahamas, Cuba, China, and London. His wife wanted to go everywhere and see everything, which was contrary to the housewife Hemingway wanted her to be. The two began to fight bitterly, and in 1945, they divorced. Following the divorce, Hemingway married Mary Welsh, his fourth wife. It was at this point in his life that the author's drinking caught up to him. Always a heavy drinker, Hemingway's alcohol tolerance was high, but he eventually started to succumb. From his frequent and reckless bouts of alcoholism, Hemingway's health began to deteriorate. His blood pressure began to increase, as well as his weight. He also began to hear voices in his head as a strange after effect to his drinking.

            By the time that ACROSS THE RIVER AND INTO THE TREES (1950) was published, Hemingway had fallen into obscurity. It had simply been too long since he had produced any work of real notice, and his latest novel received poor reviews and sold badly. His salvation came with the publication of THE OLD MAN AND THE SEA, a novella depicting the struggles of a Cuban fisherman named Santiago in catching a giant marlin. The novella brought the author back into the spotlight, received rave reviews, including a Pulitzer Prize, and was the primary reason for his being awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1954. Of the novella, Faulkner said it was truly the first novel of Hemingway's in which the author "found God."

            Hemingway spent the next few years in Cuba until Fidel Castro led the Cuban revolution in 1959. Initially supporting Castro, Hemingway eventually lost all hope of a fair and balanced leadership for communist Cuba, and returned to the United States. After settling down in the U.S. for a short period, Hemingway left, and traveled to Africa. Bad luck struck the author during his trip, however, with two plane crashes occurring on two different occasions. On one of the incidents, Hemingway had to use his head as a battering ram in order to get the door of his plane open. He fractured his skull in the process. In 1960, Hemingway entered the Mayo Clinic for a number of ailments. After receiving electric shock treatment, Hemingway quickly sunk into a depressed stupor. Throughout the entirety of his professional career as a writer, Hemingway had had an image as an adventurer, but following his stay at the Mayo Clinic, the author was almost always in a weakened state.  In 1961, he was released from the clinic. On July 2, Hemingway returned to his residence in Ketchum, Idaho, and proceeded to his bedroom to "unpack." After a few minutes, a gun shot broke the silence of the Hemingway household. Hemingway had unpacked his favorite shotgun and taken his life.

The Works of Ernest Hemingway

Written by Cyanne Topaum

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