Ernest Hemingway's Accomplishments
“The world breaks everyone, and afterward, many are strong at the broken places.” The world had broken Ernest Hemingway, time and time again, but the man continued to rebuild himself. He became the literary genius we know him as after he had been beaten down by the cruel world he so loved to write about. Ernest Hemingway lived a full life with a bright childhood, influential women, inspirations, a collection of successful novels, and a constantly-growing legacy. It was 1929 when the Stock Market crashed, and after that, the Depression began. Many Americans were left unemployed and homeless. With what little jobs were offered during this time, pay was low. A paycheck was not enough to feed a family. The Dustbowl eliminated the growth of crops
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in the southern part of the United States. Families who had relied on the success of their farm to support their family were evicted from their homes and forced to migrate to a place where there was cheap work because the Dustbowl blew away their profits. The American people were hopeless during this time; they needed a way to escape the personal hell they were living, so Hemingway gave them a more eloquent one to live through. His novels were known to be melancholy with the realities of the natural world. Ernest Hemingway was raised with a promising childhood. Born in Oak Park, Illinois in 1899, Ernest Miller Hemingway was the second child of Grace and Clarence Hemingway. Things seemed peaceful in the Hemingway household, but soon trouble started to arise for young Ernest. “Hemingway’s mother...was delusional and believed he was the twin of his older sister, Marcelline” (Means n.p.). His mother, who now had five children, had become senile. She often dressed Ernest to match his sister because she was so firm in her belief that they were twins. Though Ernest was subject to his mother’s deranged thoughts, that never stopped him from becoming brilliant. He participated in many activities such as playing on the football team and cello, and even writing for his school’s newspaper. At such a young age, Hemingway had started to develop his passion for writing, forming a knack for embellishing his stories to make them more interesting (Means n.p.). Ernest graduated high school in 1917, where his father advised him to become a doctor, as Clarence was one himself. But Ernest refused to even attend college and began writing for the sports column at the Kansas City Star. After going against his father and turning down the opportunity of college, Ernest had severed the bond between he and his father. It would be decades before they truly spoke again. Hemingway was a man with bold and flirtatious personal life. Hemingway served in World War II as an ambulance driver in France, but he was in the infantry when he was stationed in Italy. He returned home from the war in 1920, where the young author began working for the Toronto Star. The Toronto Star had hired him as a freelance writer so that he could continue traveling, one of his favorite activities. Hemingway traveled to many different locations which inspired many of his stories such as Paris, Spain, and Cuba, as well as surviving multiple plane crashes. Through his many different travels to the many welcoming locations, he met his share of women whom he pursued. Ernest Hemingway had four wives: Hadley Richardson, Pauline Pfieffer, Martha Gelhorn, and Mary Welsh. His first three marriages all ended in divorce due to Hemingway’s infidelity. As soon as the divorce was final, he would marry his mistress. Hemingway often had his times of depression, and to combat that, Hemingway would become active in many physical activities like hunting and womanizing. Though this had been a temporary fix for his sadness, he destroyed his marriages with his philadering, thus starting new ones. Hemingway committed suicide on July 2, 1961. “The man who had always claimed he was fearless had finally given into his fears, shooting himself through the temple with his favorite two-barreled shotgun” (Harmon n.p.).
Ernest used the people around him and other literary inspirations to create his own personal writing style. Hemingway’s mentor, Gertrude Stein, was one of the most influential writers in what she titled, The Lost Generation. “He celebrate literary style, influenced by Ezra Pound and Gertrude Stein, is direct, terse, muscular, and often monotonous, yet particularly suite to his elemental subject matter” (Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia n.p.). He appeared to lightly reflect those that he found inspiration in in his writing. Hemingway began to dabble in modernism, which was a style of writing that abandoned tradition and created a movement that was for new ways for authors to express themselves. This is the style that was portrayed in many of his novels. “Ernest Hemingway’s aesthetic--a better term than style--is based on constant acts of choice, decisions that he makes as a writer at every moment about which word and phrase to set down on the page” (Cain n.p.). His way of writing straight to the point; Hemingway wrote to avoid sugar coating. He wrote in a way where he could omit details, but the reader could still understand and comprehend the missing evidence. Hemingway himself called his writing style “The Iceberg Theory,” because he did not give the reader the whole story, leaving them to fill in the rest.
Hemingway published many critically acclaimed novels and short story collections.
He wrote many poems and short stories before releasing his first novel. The Torrents of Spring was the first novel Hemingway published; it was not received well. The characters in Hemingway’s novels commonly depicted those who did the jobs that made you altruistic. These people often had hardships but overcame them gallantly. Hemingway often based his characters off events he had either been involved or witnessed. With these experiences, he was able to create more complex characters (Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia n.p.). The first novel that Hemingway published in 1926 that was well acclaimed was The Sun Also Rises which the passionate author wrote in six weeks. This novel was about travelers who were looking to attend a bullfighting festival. For Whom the Bell Tolls was based on his time during the Spanish Civil War. It was published in 1940 and is considered one of his most famous works. In For Whom the Bell Tolls, the main character has a mission to blow up a bridge, but along the way, he finds love. “Agnes would reemerge, years later, as the adoring, submissive, and doomed Catherine Barkley in A Farewell to Arms” (Harmon n.p.). A Farewell to Arms was published in 1929 and was based on Hemingway’s experience while fighting the war. While fighting in the Italian infantry, he met a woman named Agnes who was a nurse. Hemingway fell in love with the nurse while he was in the hospital, healing from a wound received on the battlefield. Ernest eventually proposed to Agnes, who turned him down and forever changed his view on women. Death in the Afternoon was released in 1932 to be met with scrutiny. Friends of his, including his inspirations, such as Gertrude Stein, claimed his work was unoriginal. Hemingway, like many times before, developed an infatuation for a young girl who was 19 when he was around 50. He knew that she would never marry him, though the wishful man always had hoped
she would. So instead, the author displaced his feelings for her and put them into his novel, Across the River and Into the Trees, which received his worst reviews (Harmon n.p.). Hemingway may have left the world physically, but his literary works and life story will live on forever. He received the Pulitzer Prize for The Old Man and the Sea. The Old Man and the Sea was his last major novel to be published before his demise. In 1954, following the publication of The Old Man and the Sea, he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in Literature. “He had lived out his time, and in the course of that painful journey, had firmly established himself as one of the most important writers in America” (Harmon n.p.). Ernest Hemingway impacted many people with his writing. The way he wrote harsh truths was one that the citizens of America enjoyed in the Depression but also now in our modern times. Today, he is well-acclaimed for his moving novels that tell the tragic love stories between complex characters. He gave us his own unique writing style than caused a greater connection between the writer and the reader as they had to connect their thoughts to comprehend the outcome of the situation in the story. Ernest Hemingway is responsible for inspiring modern literature today. Without his novels and dangerously charming characters, we would lack such complexity in character development as well as self-thinking whilst reading. Living his life in such an adventurous and bold way, Ernest Hemingway was raised with a promising childhood, a series of women who influenced him, literary inspirations, outstanding arrays of novels and collections of short stories, and an on-going legacy that will be cherished for centuries to come. Though he was raised in a loving household, Ernest disobeyed his father in becoming a doctor and became a writer, thus beginning his career. His personal life influenced much of his writing, many of his novels being written about his then wife, as well as other authors of the time inspiring his own style of literature. The novels he created gave us the brutal honesty of the era he was living in. And his legacy remains, regardless of his mortifying demise. His works left us with somber stories of reality where the princess does not always end with her prince charming, and because of that, we can embrace the grim truths of the world around us.
in the southern part of the United States. Families who had relied on the success of their farm to support their family were evicted from their homes and forced to migrate to a place where there was cheap work because the Dustbowl blew away their profits. The American people were hopeless during this time; they needed a way to escape the personal hell they were living, so Hemingway gave them a more eloquent one to live through. His novels were known to be melancholy with the realities of the natural world. Ernest Hemingway was raised with a promising childhood. Born in Oak Park, Illinois in 1899, Ernest Miller Hemingway was the second child of Grace and Clarence Hemingway. Things seemed peaceful in the Hemingway household, but soon trouble started to arise for young Ernest. “Hemingway’s mother...was delusional and believed he was the twin of his older sister, Marcelline” (Means n.p.). His mother, who now had five children, had become senile. She often dressed Ernest to match his sister because she was so firm in her belief that they were twins. Though Ernest was subject to his mother’s deranged thoughts, that never stopped him from becoming brilliant. He participated in many activities such as playing on the football team and cello, and even writing for his school’s newspaper. At such a young age, Hemingway had started to develop his passion for writing, forming a knack for embellishing his stories to make them more interesting (Means n.p.). Ernest graduated high school in 1917, where his father advised him to become a doctor, as Clarence was one himself. But Ernest refused to even attend college and began writing for the sports column at the Kansas City Star. After going against his father and turning down the opportunity of college, Ernest had severed the bond between he and his father. It would be decades before they truly spoke again. Hemingway was a man with bold and flirtatious personal life. Hemingway served in World War II as an ambulance driver in France, but he was in the infantry when he was stationed in Italy. He returned home from the war in 1920, where the young author began working for the Toronto Star. The Toronto Star had hired him as a freelance writer so that he could continue traveling, one of his favorite activities. Hemingway traveled to many different locations which inspired many of his stories such as Paris, Spain, and Cuba, as well as surviving multiple plane crashes. Through his many different travels to the many welcoming locations, he met his share of women whom he pursued. Ernest Hemingway had four wives: Hadley Richardson, Pauline Pfieffer, Martha Gelhorn, and Mary Welsh. His first three marriages all ended in divorce due to Hemingway’s infidelity. As soon as the divorce was final, he would marry his mistress. Hemingway often had his times of depression, and to combat that, Hemingway would become active in many physical activities like hunting and womanizing. Though this had been a temporary fix for his sadness, he destroyed his marriages with his philadering, thus starting new ones. Hemingway committed suicide on July 2, 1961. “The man who had always claimed he was fearless had finally given into his fears, shooting himself through the temple with his favorite two-barreled shotgun” (Harmon n.p.).
Ernest used the people around him and other literary inspirations to create his own personal writing style. Hemingway’s mentor, Gertrude Stein, was one of the most influential writers in what she titled, The Lost Generation. “He celebrate literary style, influenced by Ezra Pound and Gertrude Stein, is direct, terse, muscular, and often monotonous, yet particularly suite to his elemental subject matter” (Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia n.p.). He appeared to lightly reflect those that he found inspiration in in his writing. Hemingway began to dabble in modernism, which was a style of writing that abandoned tradition and created a movement that was for new ways for authors to express themselves. This is the style that was portrayed in many of his novels. “Ernest Hemingway’s aesthetic--a better term than style--is based on constant acts of choice, decisions that he makes as a writer at every moment about which word and phrase to set down on the page” (Cain n.p.). His way of writing straight to the point; Hemingway wrote to avoid sugar coating. He wrote in a way where he could omit details, but the reader could still understand and comprehend the missing evidence. Hemingway himself called his writing style “The Iceberg Theory,” because he did not give the reader the whole story, leaving them to fill in the rest.
Hemingway published many critically acclaimed novels and short story collections.
He wrote many poems and short stories before releasing his first novel. The Torrents of Spring was the first novel Hemingway published; it was not received well. The characters in Hemingway’s novels commonly depicted those who did the jobs that made you altruistic. These people often had hardships but overcame them gallantly. Hemingway often based his characters off events he had either been involved or witnessed. With these experiences, he was able to create more complex characters (Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia n.p.). The first novel that Hemingway published in 1926 that was well acclaimed was The Sun Also Rises which the passionate author wrote in six weeks. This novel was about travelers who were looking to attend a bullfighting festival. For Whom the Bell Tolls was based on his time during the Spanish Civil War. It was published in 1940 and is considered one of his most famous works. In For Whom the Bell Tolls, the main character has a mission to blow up a bridge, but along the way, he finds love. “Agnes would reemerge, years later, as the adoring, submissive, and doomed Catherine Barkley in A Farewell to Arms” (Harmon n.p.). A Farewell to Arms was published in 1929 and was based on Hemingway’s experience while fighting the war. While fighting in the Italian infantry, he met a woman named Agnes who was a nurse. Hemingway fell in love with the nurse while he was in the hospital, healing from a wound received on the battlefield. Ernest eventually proposed to Agnes, who turned him down and forever changed his view on women. Death in the Afternoon was released in 1932 to be met with scrutiny. Friends of his, including his inspirations, such as Gertrude Stein, claimed his work was unoriginal. Hemingway, like many times before, developed an infatuation for a young girl who was 19 when he was around 50. He knew that she would never marry him, though the wishful man always had hoped
she would. So instead, the author displaced his feelings for her and put them into his novel, Across the River and Into the Trees, which received his worst reviews (Harmon n.p.). Hemingway may have left the world physically, but his literary works and life story will live on forever. He received the Pulitzer Prize for The Old Man and the Sea. The Old Man and the Sea was his last major novel to be published before his demise. In 1954, following the publication of The Old Man and the Sea, he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in Literature. “He had lived out his time, and in the course of that painful journey, had firmly established himself as one of the most important writers in America” (Harmon n.p.). Ernest Hemingway impacted many people with his writing. The way he wrote harsh truths was one that the citizens of America enjoyed in the Depression but also now in our modern times. Today, he is well-acclaimed for his moving novels that tell the tragic love stories between complex characters. He gave us his own unique writing style than caused a greater connection between the writer and the reader as they had to connect their thoughts to comprehend the outcome of the situation in the story. Ernest Hemingway is responsible for inspiring modern literature today. Without his novels and dangerously charming characters, we would lack such complexity in character development as well as self-thinking whilst reading. Living his life in such an adventurous and bold way, Ernest Hemingway was raised with a promising childhood, a series of women who influenced him, literary inspirations, outstanding arrays of novels and collections of short stories, and an on-going legacy that will be cherished for centuries to come. Though he was raised in a loving household, Ernest disobeyed his father in becoming a doctor and became a writer, thus beginning his career. His personal life influenced much of his writing, many of his novels being written about his then wife, as well as other authors of the time inspiring his own style of literature. The novels he created gave us the brutal honesty of the era he was living in. And his legacy remains, regardless of his mortifying demise. His works left us with somber stories of reality where the princess does not always end with her prince charming, and because of that, we can embrace the grim truths of the world around us.