Ernest Hemingway English II Biotechnology High School

Ernest Hemingway

English II

Biotechnology High School

The Man Behind the Words• Born - July 21, 1899, Oak Park, Illinois• Mother - Grace Hall

– Opera singer before marrying Ernest’s dad– He never forgave her for dressing him in girl’s

clothes, giving him a girl’s haircut, and passing him off to neighbors as her daughter Ernestine

• Father - Clarence Edmonds Hemingway– Taught Ernest to love outdoor life– Took own life in 1928 after losing health (diabetes)

and money (Florida real estate bubble)

More About Young Ernest

• Education– Public schools in Oak Park– Published earliest stories and poems in

school newspaper

• Graduated from hs in 1917

• Worked six months as reporter for Kansas City Star

Interests

• Hunting

• Fishing

• Traveling

• Safari

• Bullfighting (watching it, not participating!)

• Drinking

Army Career

• World War I– Joined volunteer ambulance unit in Italy– Suffered severe leg wound (1918)

• Had affair with American nurse during his recovery (basis for A Farewell to Arms)

– Decorated twice by the Italian government for his service

After the War

• Worked as journalist in Chicago

• Moved to Paris in 1921– "If you are lucky enough to have lived in

Paris as a young man, then whenever you go for the rest of your life, it stays with you, for Paris is a moveable feast.”

In Europe

• The center of the modernist movement– Modernism - a style or movement in the

arts that aims to break with classical and traditional forms

• Associated himself with writers such as Gertrude Stein and F. Scott Fitzgerald

Gertrude Stein• Catalyst in modern art and literature

movements• Supposedly coined the term “Lost

Generation” for American expatriates– Expatriate - person who lives outside

his/her native country

F. Scott Fitzgerald

• You know about him already, don’t you?

• Edited some of Hemingway’s drafts

• Acted as his agent

• Hemingway portrayed Fitzgerald in a somewhat negative light in A Moveable Feast - friendship suffered for it

• Fitzgerald regretted the lost friendship

Travels (He’s SO an Orange!)

• Toured with wife (Elizabeth Hadley Richardson)– Italy, France, Switzerland

• Traveled as reporter (1922)– Turkey, Greece (reported on the war

between them)

• Two trips to Spain (1923)– Bullfights!

Major Works• The Sun Also Rises (1924-1926)

– First great success– Narrated by American journalist– Group of expatriates in France and Spain– Members of the Lost Generation

• A Farewell to Arms (1929)– Italian front in WWI– Two lovers find brief happiness

• For Whom the Bell Tolls (1940)

Nobel Prize

• Awarded Nobel Prize for Literature (1954)

• Unable to attend award ceremony– Recovering from injuries sustained when

hunting in Uganda

A Later Success

• The Old Man and the Sea (1952)– Cuban fisherman named Santiago

(modeled off of a fisherman who worked on Hemingway’s boat)

– Catches giant marlin after weeks of disappointment

– Story of his journey with the marlin - comes back with nothing but won a spiritual battle

A Whole Lotta Weddings• Divorced Elizabeth (1927)• Married Pauline Pfeiffer in the same year

(suspicious!)• Third wife (1940) - Martha Gellhorn - writer

and war correspondent– She called Hemingway her “unwilling companion”– Bitter divorce (1945)

• Fourth wife - Mary Welsh - correspondent for Time magazine

A Warning About Alcohol• Hemingway started drinking when he was a

reporter– Built up tolerance

• Downward spiral (1940s)– Heard voices in his head– Became overweight– Had high blood pressure– Cirrhosis of the liver– Taught 12-year-old son to drink (son later became

an alcoholic)

Tidbits• Went on hunting expeditions in Africa and

Wyoming• Went deep-sea fishing off Cuba, Key West,

and Bahamas• Bought house in Cuba - a paradise for his

many cats!– Lived there until Fidel Castro’s revolution in 1959 -

then moved back to America

• Childhood nickname: Champ• Nickname in his older years: Papa

The Later Years• Depression - hospitalized at the Mayo Clinic

(1960 - released in 1961)– Two months of electroshock therapy

• July 2, 1961 – Committed suicide with his favorite shotgun in his

Idaho home

• Posthumous publication - True at First Light – Considered one of the worst books by a Nobel

Prize winning author

The Iceburg Theory• “If a writer of prose knows enough

about what he is writing about, he may omit things that he knows and the reader . . . will have a feeling of those things as though the writer had stated them.”

• In other words, when you write, just show the tip of the iceburg

Writing Style• Deceptively simple - straightforward• Understatement and omission (see Iceberg

Theory)• Repetition• Spare dialogue• Focus on facts

– “Find what gave you the emotion; what the action was that gave you the excitement. Then write it down making it clear so the reader will see it too and have the same feeling as you had.”

Writing Style• Few adjectives or adverbs• Simple sentences (let’s diagram some!)• Concise, vivid• He noted that, “a writer’s style should be

direct and personal, his imagery rich and earthy, and his words simple and vigorous. The greatest writers have the gift of brevity, are hard workers, diligent scholars and competent stylists”

The Hemingway Hero• Sometimes referred to as the “code

hero”• Easily identifiable• A man’s man

– Moved from one love affair to another– Participated in game hunting– Enjoyed bullfights– Drank wildly

The Hemingway Hero

• Soldiers, hunters, bullfighters, etc.– Tough, courageous, honest– Courage and honesty set against the brutal

ways of modern society– Lose hope and faith because of this

confrontation

The Six Word Story

For sale: baby shoes, never worn.