Ernest Hemingway

1899-1961

About morals, I know only that what is moral is what you feel good after and what is immoral is what you feel bad after. Ernest Hemingway

Biography Timeline

1899: born in Oak Park, Illinois

1917: receives job on Kansas City Star

1918: becomes a Red Cross ambulance driver and is sent to Italian front during First World War where he is wounded; meets Agnesvon Kurowsky in Milan

1919: sails home to America;

1920: accepts job at Toronto Star Weekly; meets Hadley Richardson; leaves Toronto for Chicago to write for The Cooperative Commonwealth

1921: Hemingway marries Hadley Richardson; moves to Paris

1923: Three Stories and Ten Poems and In Our Time (only 170 copies) published in Europe; first son, John, born

1925: In Our Time, American edition, is the first of Hemingway's books to appear in his own country

1926: The Torrents of Spring and The Sun Also Rises;

Hadley and Hemingway separate

1927: Hemingway marries Pauline Pfeiffer; Men Without Women

1928: moves to Key West, Florida; father commits suicide; birth of second son, Patrick

1929: A Farewell to Arms

1930: Hemingway is severely injured in an automobile accident (1st of three serious car crashes)

1932: Third son and last child, Gregory, born; Death in the Afternoon

1933: Winner Take Nothing

1935: The Green Hills of Africa

1937: To Have and Have Not

1940: marries Martha Gellhorn; For Whom the Bell Tolls

1945: he and Martha divorce; marries Mary Welsh

1950: Across the River and Into the Trees 1951: mother dies

1952: The Old Man and the Sea; wins Pulitzer Prize; survives two plane crashes

1954: wins Nobel Prize for literature 1961: commits suicide on July 2

All good books have one thing in common - they are truer than if they had really happened. Ernest Hemingway

Themes & Issues In his early years, Hemingway was very close to Sherwood

Anderson, a writer he highly admired. Anderson found a willing, enthusiastic pupil in Hemingway.

Not long after the relationship that started with Anderson, people began labeling Hemingway as Anderson's disciple. Hemingway didn't like this because he wanted to be his own man. What resulted was The Torrents of Spring in which Hemingway

"ridiculed and parodied Anderson's style of writing, his characters, and his most cherished ideas about life."

Obviously, their friendship ended.

Themes & Issues

Hemingway was greatly disturbed by his father's suicide. He questioned his father's courage, or lack of courage. His father had taught him to admire courage.

Once, Hemingway defined courage as grace under pressure. Yet his father could not handle this extreme pressure.

He felt his father had somehow failed him. Soon, Hemingway assumed the nickname Papa, which he

held to the end of his life. He was taking on the burden of being the person, or ideal

papa, that his own father had failed to be.

By 1952, Hemingway had become the most publicized writer in America. Gurko notes that "everything he said and did was

avidly recorded by the columnists" and  "his emphatic personality supplied newspapers and magazine editors with endlessly colorful copy" (Gurko 48).

Style

Hemingway has had an enormous influence on American writers, mainly because of his unique writing style.

He used simple nouns and verbs and was still able to capture the scene precisely.

He provided detached descriptions of action in that he avoided describing the thoughts and emotions of his characters in a direct way.

In an interview from Modern Critical Views: Ernest Hemingway, Hemingway was asked how detached from and experience must he be before writing about it in fictional terms; i.e., the African air crashes.  Hemingway responded: “It depends on the experience. One part of you

sees it with complete detachment from the start. Another part is very involved. I think there is no rule about how soon one should write about it.  It would depend on how well adjusted the individual was and on his or her recuperative powers. Certainly it is valuable to a trained writer to crash in an aircraft which burns.” (135)

“In Another Country”

Theme of the Story and, and its relation to the Title: “In Another Country”

Literally: An American in Milan, Italy. Metaphorically: Look at the themes:

Loss Ruin Detachment Disability Fear of death

Theme of the Story and, and its relation to the Title: Many of the characters grapple with a loss of

function, a loss of purpose, and a loss of faith.

It appears contagious. Two characters lose the normal use of a

limb--the narrator (leg) and the major (hand). Almost all the characters in the story are

portrayed as casualties of some sort.

Theme of the Story and, and its relation to the Title:

For the soldiers, courage is not just facing enemy fire on the front line but also picking up the pieces of their damaged lives and facing the prospect of tomorrow.

War, it seems, is forever.

Theme of the Story and, and its relation to the Title:

So how do the themes in the story relate to the title?

Determine the Plot

“In Another Country” is a character driven plot. It focuses on the psychological conflicts and

development of the American and the Major. The action is usually the character’s inner

thoughts and feelings. The climax of the story is a psychological turning

point.

Characterization

Look at and interpret the American’s feelings and thoughts: How does he feel about his injuries? What is his view of the machines? Does he believe the doctor?

Look at and interpret the Major’s actions: Does he believe the Doctor? What has he lost? What will he regain?

Recognize the Point of View

First Person Limited: How does this affect the tale? What impact does it have on the themes? Is the Narrator reliable?

Images, Details, and Symbols: The Machines: The Bridges: The Wounds: The War: