Ernest HemingwayNovels that defined a generation. Heroism unparalleled in war. Legendary outdoorsmanship and an unquenchable thirst for ad-venture. Ernest Hemingway possessed all of these qualities and more, and he truly was an American legend.

text and layout by Liam Greenamyre

rnest Hemingway stands as a monumen-tal figure in America’s history. His life has been ex-aggerated to the point of mythology, but his real-life exploits need no embellishment. Although both his fiction and his journalism helped to define a gen-eration, Hemingway was also a war hero, an avid outdoorsman, and a man who saw the world with a clear vision and lived his life to the very fullest.

Ernest Miller Hemingway came into the world on the cusp of a new century. He was born on July 21, 1899, in Oak Park, Illinois, to a physician father and a mother who was an aspiring opera singer. From an early age, he learned to fish, hunt, and camp at the family’s summer home near Petoskey, Michigan. In high school, Hemingway participated in a number of sports and wrote for the school newspaper, his first foray into writing. In his earliest articles, Hem-ingway attempted to imitate the simple language of a sports writer, and after graduating he went to work for the Kansas City Star as a cub reporter.

With Europe embroiled in World War I, Ernest volunteered to drive an ambulance for the Ameri-can Red Cross in Italy at the age of eighteen. In June of 1918, while running a canteen distributing

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supplies to soldiers, he was wounded by Austrian mortar fire. Despite his injuries, he carried an Italian soldier to safety, only to be wounded yet again by machine gun fire. For his bravery, the Italian government awarded him with the silver medal of valor.

Ernest’s injuries forced him to spend six months recuperating in a Milan hospital, where he fell in love with a nurse for the Red Cross. The two made plans to marry, but she left him unexpectedly, taking up with an Italian officer. Hemingway returned to Oak Park, a man fundamentally changed by his experiences of love and war.

fter returning from the war, Hemingway became a staff writ-

er and foreign correspondent for the To-ronto Star Weekly. He moved to Paris in 1921 with his first wife, Hadley, and lived in a small apartment at 74 Rue du Cardi-nal Lemoine in the Latin Quarter. While in Paris, he met Gertrude Stein, who would become his mentor, as well as James Joyce, Ezra Pound and the painters Pablo Picasso, Joan Miró, and Juan Gris. The expatriate artists, later called ‘The Lost Generation,’ provided inspiration for Hemingway’s writ-ing and helped him to develop his career.

THE FORMATIVE YEARS - Left: Hemingway in Milan, after being wounded by mortar fire. Above: Hemingway in Paris with the expatriate artists of ‘The Lost Generation.’

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Ernest Hemingway first witnessed Pam-plona’s Festival of San Fermín in 1923. En-thralled with the town and its bullfighting tra-dition, Hemingway es-tablished the tradition

of attending every year. In 1925, a trip to the festival with a group of American and British expatriates would provide the inspi-ration for The Sun Also Rises, Hemingway’s first novel and arguably his greatest work. The book epitomized the disillusioned and drifting post-war generation, and with this work Hemingway began to craft a new American style.

Hemingway was fascinated with bull-fighting throughout his life. The subject features prominently in For Whom The Bell Tolls as well as The Sun Also Rises, and Hemingway later wrote a comprehensive treatise on bullfighting, complete with appendices and a glossary.

emingway was a great out-doorsmen hunter, and fish-

erman throughout his life, often trave-ling to remote locations throughout the

United States and abroad. He often wrote about nature and its transcendent qualities, and many of Hemingway’s characters ex-perience nature as a form of healing and redemption.

Hemingway’s works are defined by lean, simple prose in a distinctly American ver-nacular. This style of writing contrasted sharply with the florid, elaborate works novelists were producing at the time. Much of the emotional content of Hemingway’s books remains beneath the surface, rather than being stated explicitly. Much like in his journalism, Hemingway strove to write

A TASTE FOR ADVENTURE - Above: A bull-fight in San Fermín. This fighter was the father of a seminal character in ‘The Sun Also Rises.’

Right: Hemingway poses next to his felled prey on a hunting trip to Africa.

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the facts, and to create a series of images that would lead to the inference of deeper meaning.

Of his approach to writing, Hemingway stated, “The writer’s standard of fidelity to the truth should be so high that this inven-tion, out of his experience, should produce a truer account than anything factual can be.”

lthough his fiction had begun to garner significant critical at-

tention, Hemingway’s war also known as a revolutionary and hugely influential war reporter. He was deeply committed and to witnessing events first hand, and often en-meshed himself in the action taking place around him. Hemingway covered the Span-

ish Civil War, which inspired him to write For Whom The Bell Tolls, and was witness to the final loyalist stand against Franco’s fascists. Watching the spread of fascism through Europe and the outbreak of wars across the continent, Hemingway strove to convey war’s devastating effects on or-dinary people. His writings brought home the terror and pain of war to a population that had not experienced it firsthand. Hem-ingway refused to adhere to established no-tions of patriotism and courage, instead de-crying the wastefulness and futility of war.

During World War II, Hemingway was present for the D-Day invasion at Nor-mandy, and he later attached himself to the 22nd Infantry regiment as they pushed to-wards Paris. At one point, he lead a small group of resistance fighters in the French town of Rambouillet. He was brought up on formal charges for this act, as the Ge-neva Convention prohibits civilians to lead

COMING INTO HIS OWN - Left: Ernest at work at his typewriter. Right: Help-ing a Spanish soldier unjam his gun. Hemingway was not a passive observer in his war journalism, but a part of the action himself.

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troops. Hemingway escaped persecution by claiming that his role was limited to giving advice, saying, “I had a certain amount of knowledge about guerilla warfare and irreg-ular tactics as well as a grounding in more formal war and I was willing and happy to work for or be of use to anybody.”

Hemingway was in Paris during its lib-eration, and in 1947 was awarded a Bronze Star for bravery. General ‘Buck’ Lanham of the 22nd Infantry wrote that Hemingway was “without exception the most coura-geous man I have ever known, both in war and peace. He has physical courage, and he has that far rarer commodity, moral cour-age.”

n 1934, Hemingway bought a boat he called Pilar and began to sail the Car-

ibbean. Five years later, as he was splitting with his second wife, Hemingway sailed to Cuba and rented a farm outside of Havana called ‘Finca Vigía,’ or ‘Lookout Farm.’ He began work on For Whom The Bell Tolls, a novel about the experiences of an Ameri-can expatriate in the Spanish Civil War.

In 1941, as the US entered WWII, he convinced the Cuban and American gov-ernments to assist him in outfitting the Pi-lar to monitor and ambush German sub-marines. Hemingway was an important intelligence link for the United States, care-fully recording all sightings and reporting them to intelligence officials.

Fidel Castro rose to power in 1959, while

HEROISM IN WAR - Below: Hemingway was present at the D-Day invasion of Normandy, arriv-ing on a Higgins boat with American forces. Right:

Hemingway at the helm of the Pilar.

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Hemingway was still in Cuba. After learn-ing that Castro’s government intended to seize properties owned by foreign nation-als, Hemingway fled Finca Vigía, leaving be-hind art and manuscripts in a Havana bank vault, as well as a library of thousands of books. Fidel Castro rose to power in 1959, while Hemingway was still writing in Cuba. After learning that Castro’s government in-tended to seize properties owned by for-eign nationals, Hemingway and his family fled the country.

In 1951, while in Cuba, Hemingway wrote The Old Man and the Sea, the story of a fisherman at the end of his life who

spends days on the open ocean fighting to catch an enormous marlin. The Old Man and the Sea was the final work published during Hemingway’s lifetime, and reestab-lished his reputation as a leading figure of American literature. The novella received the Pulitzer Prize in 1952 and the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1954, making Hem-ingway an international celebrity.

emingway was married four times and divorced three. Al-

though he had trouble sustaining relation-ships throughout his life, he was the loving father of three children: Jack, Patrick, and Gregory. Although analysis by early critics lauded Hemingway’s works as one-sidedly masculine and misogynistic, later readings have painted a more complex picture of Hemingway’s attitudes towards women.

In 1952, Hemingway left for his second trip to Africa. While he was on a sightseeing flight over the Belgian Congo with his wife, the plane struck an abandoned utility pole and crash landed in heavy brush. Hem-ingway sustained a head injury and his wife broke several A FULL LIFE - Above:

Helping Cuban boys bring in a fishing net.

Right: Hemingway with his first wife, Had-

ley Richardson.

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ribs. The next day, seeking medical atten-tion, the two boarded a plane bound for Entebbe, but the plane exploded upon takeoff. Hemingway suffered severe burns and a serious concussion, and arrived in Entebbe to find reporters already covering the story of his death.

Towards the end of his life, Heming-way’s numerous injuries and lifelong alco-holism began to take a major toll on his mental health as well as his physical. He became paranoid, believing he was being monitored by the FBI, and suffered from severe depression, sometimes retreating into bed for days at a time. He was admitted to the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota to receive electroconvulsive therapy. On July 2, 1961, at the age of 61, Ernest Hemingway put a shotgun in his mouth and took his own life.

lthough he was the leading writer of his generation Ernest Hem-

ingway’s legacy extends far beyond his nov-els. He brought the terror of war home to his readers and was an outspoken voice for peace and the dignity of common people. He helped to define the world between the wars, and inaugurated a new, distinctly American style of writing. Ernest Hem-ingway lived a life of bold action, of clear principles, and of outstanding courage. His legacy is that of a life lived to the full-est, and he is rightfully remembered as an American legend.

A LASTING LEGACY - Left: Hemingway’s physi-cal and mental health began to deteriorate to-

wards the end of his life. Right: Hemingway re-viewing one of his final manuscripts.

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