Earnest Hemingway
As one of the 20th century's most important and influential writers. His writings drew heavily on his own experiences for his writing. His writing reflected his trouble with relating to women and his tendency to treat them as objects, as he had four marriages and countless affairs, highlighting his theme of alienation and disconnection. Now here is why he is what he is by writing about what he was.
Ernest Miller Hemingway was born on July 21, 1899, in Oak Park, Illinois, to Dr. Clarence Hemingway and Grace Hall Hemingway. Oak Park was a mainly Protestant, upper middle-class suburb of Chicago that Hemingway would later refer to as a “town of wide lawns and narrow minds" (Gerogiannis 188). The second among six children, Ernest spent the first two years of his life dressed as a girl by his mother. She called him “Ernestine” and fantasized that he was the twin of his older sister, as she dressed them both in matching dresses and gave them similar hairstyles (Rozkis 233) As he grew older, however, his father stepped in and insisted that Ernest be “raised like a man,” teaching Ernest how to behave and introducing him at a young age to hunting, fishing, and boxing, all activities in which he would stay interested for the rest of his life (Gerogiannis) It is perhaps this early start at questioning his manliness and his father’s attempts to drive any femininity out of him that instilled his characteristic obsession with proving his masculinity throughout his life.
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Hemingway received his schooling in the Oak Park public school system. In high school he was mediocre at sports, joining the football, swimming, basketball, and water polo teams and serving as the track team manager (Nelson 5). He began his journalistic career writing for the school paper, the Trapeze, where he wrote his first articles and often humorous pieces in the style of Ring Lardner, a popular satirist of the time. After graduating in the spring of 1917, against the wishes of his parents, he forwent college and took a job as a cub reporter for the Kansas City Star. It is here that the seeds of his unmistakable staccato writing style were planted as he followed the rules of the Star’s stylebook exactly. “Use short sentences,” it said. “Use shor...
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...Modified August, 1999. Viewed April 20, 2005. http://www.ernest.hemingway.com
Ernest Hemingway in Oak Park, Illinois Last Modified 2004. Viewed April 21, 2005. http://www.ehfop.org
Gerogiannis, Nicholas. "Ernest Hemingway." Dictionary of Literary Biography: American Authors in Paris. Vol. 4. Detroit: Gale, 1982. 187-211.
Meyers, Jeffrey. Hemingway: A Biography. New York: Harper & Row, 1985.
Nelson, Raymond S. Ernest Hemingway: Life, Work, and Criticism. Fredericton, N.B., Canada: York Press, 1984.
Picturing Hemingway: A Writer in His Time Last Modified January, 1998. Viewed April 21, 2005. http://www.npg.si.edu/exh/hemingway/index.htm
Rozkis, Laurie E. Macho, Macho Man: Ernest Hemingway. New York: Pearson Press, 1999.
The Ernest Hemingway Home & Museum Last Modified 2002. Viewed April 20, 2005. http://www.hemingwayhome.com
Timeless Hemingway. Last Modified January, 2005. Viewed April 20, 2005. http://www.timelesshemingway.com
3.Westbrook, Max. "Grace under Pressure: Hemingway and the Summer of 1920." Ernest Hemingway: The Writer in Context. Ed. James Nagel. University of Wisconsin Press, 1984.
One observation that can be made on Hemingway’s narrative technique as shown in his short stories is his clipped, spare style, which aims to produce a sense of objectivity through highly selected details. Hemingway refuses to romanticize his characters. Being “tough” people, such as boxers, bullfighters, gangsters, and soldiers, they are depicted as leading a life more or less without thought. The world is full of s...
Meter, M. An Analysis of the Writing Style of Ernest Hemingway. Texas: Texas College of Arts and Industries, 2003.
In The Heath Anthology of American Literature, Volume II. Edited by Paul Lauter et al. Lexington, MA: D.C. Heath and Company, 1991: 1208-1209. Hemingway, Ernest. A.
Gajduske, E. Robert. Hemingway's Paris. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1978. Mahoney, John. Ernest Hemingway. New York: Barnes and Noble INC., 1967. McSowell, Nicholas. Life and Works of Hemingway. England: Wayland, 1988. Meyers, Jeffery. Hemingway: A Biography. New York: Harper and Row Publishers, 1985. Shaw, Samuel. Ernest Hemingway. New York: Fredrick Ungar Publishing Company, 1974. Tessitore, John. The Hunt and The Feast, A life of Ernest Hemingway. New York: Franklin Watts, 1996. Waldhorn, Arthur. A Reader's Guide to Ernest Hemingway. New York: Octagon
There are many authors in this world, but there are also many legends. Legends who changed the face of literature. One of these legends was none other than Ernest Hemingway. Ernest Miller Hemingway was born on July 21st, 1899, in Oak Park, Illinois. He was born to a physician and former opera performer named Clarence and Grace. Hemingway showed a talent in writing when he was in high school. He wrote for the school’s newspaper and yearbook. After he graduated at the age of 17 in 1916, he began his writing career as a reporter for a newspaper called, the Kansas City Star. After he worked as a reporter for six months, he dropped out because he wanted to join the U.S army during World War I. But because he failed the medical test, he joined the American Field Service Ambulance Corps in Italy. Unfortunately, while he was delivering supplies, Hemingway was wounded, which ended his career as an ambulance driver. Because of this, he spent lots of time in hospitals and met a nurse named Agnes von Kurowsky, with whom he fell in love with. Sadly, she didn’t return his feelings so Hemingway was heartbroken. This incident inspired him to write one of his well known books, “A Farewell to Arms”. Like this book, many other of his famous works came to be because of incidents in his past. His pieces of literature started to be known and read worldwide which provided him a route to become one of the most celebrated authors of his time.
When a writer picks up their pen and paper, begins one of the most personal and cathartic experiences in their lives, and forms this creation, this seemingly incoherent sets of words and phrases that, read without any critical thinking, any form of analysis or reflexion, can be easily misconstrued as worthless or empty. When one reads an author’s work, in any shape or form, what floats off of the ink of the paper and implants itself in our minds is the author’s personality, their style. Reading any of the greats, many would be able to spot the minute details that separates each author from another; whether it be their use of dialogue, their complex descriptions, their syntax, or their tone. When reading an excerpt of Hemingway’s A Moveable Feast one could easily dissect the work, pick apart each significant moment from Hemingway’s life and analyze it in order to form their own idea of the author’s voice, of his identity. Ernest Hemingway’s writing immediately comes across as rather familiar in one sense. His vocabulary is not all that complicated, his layout is rather straightforward, and it is presented in a simplistic form. While he may meander into seemingly unnecessary detail, his work can be easily read. It is when one looks deeper into the work, examines the techniques Hemingway uses to create this comfortable aura surrounding his body of work, that one begins to lift much more complex thoughts and ideas. Hemingway’s tone is stark, unsympathetic, his details are precise and explored in depth, and he organizes his thoughts with clarity and focus. All of this is presented in A Moveable Feast with expertise every writer dreams to achieve. While Hemingway’s style may seem simplistic on the surface, what lies below is a layered...
" The Hemingway Review. 15.1 (Fall 1995): p. 27. Literature Resource Center -.
middle of paper ... ... This story supplies the reader with insight into Hemingway's personality and controversial themes. Works Cited Baker, Carlos. Heard.
... Bender, David. A. Readings by Ernest Hemingway. San Diego: Greenhaven Press, 1997. Bloom, Harold, ed., pp.
Donaldson, Scott. "Frederic Henry's Escape and the Pose of Passivity." Hemingway: A Revaluation. Ed. Donald R. Noble. Troy: Whitson, 1983.
Hemingway’s writing style is not the most complicated one in contrast to other authors of his time. He uses plain grammar and easily accessible vocabulary in his short stories; capturing more audience, especially an audience with less reading experience. “‘If you’d gone on that way we wouldn’t be here now,’ Bill said” (174). His characters speak very plain day to day language which many readers wouldn’t have a problem reading. “They spent the night of the day they were married in a Bostan Hotel” (8). Even in his third person omniscient point of view he uses a basic vocabulary which is common to the reader.
Trogdon, Robert W. Ernest Hemingway: A Literary Reference. New York: Carroll & Graf, 2002. Print.
Waldhorn, Arthur. Ernest Hemingway: A Collection of Criticism (Contemporary Studies in Literature). Chicago: Syracuse University Press, 1978.
Hemingway, Ernest. "To Maxwell Perkins." 16 Nov. 1933. Ernest Hemingway/Selected Letters, 1917-1961. Ed. Carlos Baker. New York: Charles Scribner?s Sons, 1981. 400.