Ernest Hemingway

Ernest Hemingway
Hemingway in 1939
Born	July 21, 1899(1899-07-21) Oak Park, Illinois, United States
Died	July 2, 1961 (aged 61) Ketchum, Idaho, United States
Nationality	American
Notable award(s)	Nobel Prize in Literature 1954 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction – 1953
Spouse(s)	Elizabeth Hadley Richardson (1921–1927) Pauline Pfeiffer (1927–1940) Martha Gellhorn (1940–1945) Mary Welsh Hemingway (1946–1961)
Children	Jack Hemingway (1923–2000) Patrick Hemingway (1928–) Gregory Hemingway (1931–2001)
Signature

Ernest Miller Hemingway (July 21, 1899 – July 2, 1961) was an American writer and journalist. During his lifetime he wrote and had published seven novels, six collections of short stories, and two works of non-fiction. Since his death three novels, four collections of short stories, and three non-fiction autobiographical works have been published. Hemingway had an enormous influence on 20th century fiction, not only for the writing style he introduced, but because of the apparent life of adventure he followed, and the public image he cultivated. In 1954 Hemingway received the Nobel Prize in Literature—when he was at the pinnacle of his career..

Hemingway was born and raised in Oak Park, Illinois. After high school he worked as a reporter but within months he left for the Italian front to be an ambulance driver in World War I. He was seriously injured and returned home within the year. He married his first wife Hadley Richardson in 1922 and moved to Paris, where he worked as a foreign correspondent. During this time Hemingway met, and was influenced by, writers and artists of the 1920s expatriate community known as the "Lost Generation". In 1924 Hemingway wrote his first novel, The Sun Also Rises.

Hemingway was married four times: he married Pauline Pfeiffer in the late 1920s after his divorce from Hadley; he divorced Pauline when his returned from the Spanish Civil War. He married Martha Gellhorn in 1940 but left her for Mary Welsh Hemingway after World War II. During the 1930s and 1940s he had permanent residences in Key West, Florida and in Cuba. He covered the Spanish Civil War after which he wrote For Whom the Bell Tolls. During World War II he was present at Operation Overlord, and in Paris during the liberation of Paris. Across the River and Into the Trees was the last novel he wrote that decade.

The Old Man and the Sea was published in 1952, after which Hemingway went on safari to Africa where he nearly died in a plane accident. Much of the rest of his life was spent in pain or in ill-health. In 1959, he moved from Cuba to Idaho, where he committed suicide in the summer of 1961.

Hemingway produced most of his work between the mid 1920s and the mid 1950s, though a number of unfinished works were published posthumously. Hemingway's distinctive writing style is characterized by economy and understatement, and had a significant influence on the development of twentieth-century fiction writing. His protagonists are typically stoical men who exhibit an ideal described as "grace under pressure." Many of his works are now considered classics of American literature. During his lifetime, Hemingway's popularity peaked after the publication of The Old Man and the Sea.

Biography

Early life

Birthplace in Oak Park, Illinois

Ernest Miller Hemingway was born on July 21, 1899 in Oak Park, Illinois, a suburb of Chicago.^[1] His father, Clarence Edmonds Hemingway, was a physician and his mother, Grace Hall–Hemingway (she hyphenated her last name) a musician. The family was well-educated and well-respected in the conservative community of Oak Park.^[2] The family lived in a seven–bedroom home, with a music studio for his mother and medical office for his father, that was located in a respectable neighborhood.^[3] When Clarence and Grace Hemingway married in 1896, they moved in with Grace's father, Ernest Hall.^[4] Hemingway was named after his maternal grandfather, although he claims to have disliked his given name which he "associated with the naive, even foolish hero of Oscar Wilde's play The Importance of Being Earnest".^[5]

Hemingway's mother was a classically trained musician who performed frequently in various venues in the village. Later in life he professed to hate his mother, though biographer Michael Reynolds points out that Hemingway himself mirrored his mother's energy and enthusiasm.^[6] Her insistence that he learn the cello became a "source of conflict", but he later admitted the music lessons were useful to his writing as in the "contrapunctal structure of For Whom the Bell Tolls.^[7] The family owned a summer home called Windemere on Walloon Lake, near Petoskey, Michigan where they went in the summers. At the cottage on the lake Hemingway learned to hunt, fish, and camp in the woods and lakes of Northern Michigan. His early experiences with nature instilled a passion for outdoor adventure, living in remote or isolated areas, hunting and fishing, and became permanent interests.^[8] His father Clarence was his teacher in the outdoor life until depression caused him become reclusive when Hemingway was about 12 years old.^[9]

Hemingway in WWI uniform.(JFK Library)

Hemingway attended Oak Park and River Forest High School from 1913 until 1917. He played a variety of sports: boxing, track, water polo, and football; and had good grades in English classes.^[10] He and sister Marcelline performed in the school orchestra for two years.^[11]Beginning his junior year, he wrote and edited the "Trapeze" and "Tabula" (the school's newspaper and yearbook), in which he imitated the language of sportswriters, and sometimes used the pen name Ring Lardner, Jr., a nod to his literary hero Ring Lardner of the Chicago Tribune who used the byline "Line O'Type".^[12] After high school, Hemingway was hired as a cub reporter at The Kansas City Star, and like Mark Twain, Stephen Crane, Theodore Dreiser and Sinclair Lewis he worked as a journalist prior to becoming a novelist.^[13] As a cub reporter, Hemingway learned that the truth often lurked below the surface of a story.^[14] Although he worked at the newspaper for only six months—from October 17, 1917 to April 30, 1918—he relied on the Star's style guide as a foundation for his writing: "Use short sentences. Use short first paragraphs. Use vigorous English. Be positive, not negative."^[15]

World War I

Early in 1918, Hemingway responded to a Red Cross recruitment effort and signed on as an ambulance driver. In the spring he returned for a quick trip home, and up to Michigan to fish, before leaving for New York.^[16] He left New York in May, and arrived in Paris as the city was under bombardment from German artillery.^[17] By June he was stationed at the Italian Front. The day he arrived in Milan he was dispatched to the scene of a munitions factory explosion where rescuers retrieved the shredded remains of the female workers.^[18] A few days later he was stationed at Fossalta di Piave. On July 8 he was seriously wounded by mortar fire, having just returned from the canteen to deliver chocolate and cigarettes to the men at the front line.^[19] Despite his wounds, Hemingway carried an Italian soldier to safety, for which he received the Italian Silver Medal of Bravery.^[20] According to Hemingway scholar Hallengren, Hemingway "was the first American to be wounded during World War I".^[21] Still only eighteen, Hemingway said of the incident: "When you go to war as a boy you have a great illusion of immortality. Other people get killed; not you....Then when you are badly wounded the first time you lose that illusion and you know it can happen to you."^[22] He sustained shrapnel wounds to both legs; underwent an operation at a distribution center; spent five days at a field hospital; and was transferred to the Red Cross hospital in Milan for recuperation.^[23] At the hospital in Milan, where he recuperated for six months, he met and fell in love with Agnes von Kurowsky, a Red Cross nurse seven years older than he.^[24] Agnes and Hemingway planned to marry; however, she became engaged to an Italian officer in March 1919. The incident provided material for the short and bitter work A Very Short Story.^[25] Biographer Jeffrey Meyers claims Hemingway was devastated by Agnes' rejection, and that he followed a pattern of abandoning a wife before she abandoned him in future relationships.^[26]

Toronto and Chicago

Hemingway's 1923 passport photo

Hemingway returned home in early 1919, and spent the following summer in Michigan, fishing and camping with high school friends.^[22] In September Hemingway left for the back country with two friends to fish and camp for a week. The trip became the inspiration for his short story "Big Two-Hearted River" in which Nick Adams takes to the country to find solitude after his return from war.^[27] Late in the year he moved to Toronto and began to write for the Toronto Star Weekly where he worked as a freelancer, staff writer, and foreign correspondent.^[28] In the fall of 1920, after having spent the summer in Michigan,^[28] he moved to Chicago for a short period while still filing stories for the Toronto Star. He also worked as associate editor of the monthly journal Co-operative Commonwealth.^[29] In Chicago Hemingway Hadley Richardson; she was eight years older than he (and one year older than Agnes).^[30] A few months later when Hadley and Hemingway decided to marry they planned a honeymoon in Europe. Sherwood Anderson convinced the young couple to visit Paris, a city quickly attracting expatriate artists, mostly because of the attractive exchange rate.^[31] Hemingway married Hadley on September 3, 1921. Two months later he became foreign correspondent for the Toronto Star and the couple left for Paris.^[32]

Paris

Sherwood Anderson wrote letters of introduction for Hemingway to Gertrude Stein and other writers he had recently met in Paris.^[33] Stein, who became Hemingway's mentor for a period, and introduced him to the "Parisian Modern Movement" in the Montparnasse Quarter, referred to the young expatriate artists as the "Lost Generation", a term Hemingway popularized with the publication of The Sun Also Rises.^[34] A regular at Stein's salon Hemingway met young and newly influential artists such as Pablo Picasso, Joan Miro, and Juan Gris.^[35] Eventually Hemingway withdrew from Stein's influence and their relationship deteriorated to a literary quarrel that spanned decades.^[36] During this period Ezra Pound mentored the young writer.^[37] Hemingway met Pound in February 1922, toured Italy with him in 1923, and lived on the same street in 1924. The two forged a strong friendship, and in Hemingway Pound recognized, and fostered, a talented writer.^[38] A popular gathering place for writers was Sylvia Beach's Shakespeare and Company. She published James Joyce's Ulysses, and Hemingway met Joyce there in March 1922. The two writers frequently embarked on "alcoholic sprees."^[39] Hemingway and Hadley lived in a small walk-up on the rue de Cardinal Lemoine and he worked single room in a nearby building.^[40]

Ernest Hemingway with Lady Duff Twysden, Hadley Hemingway, and three unidentified people at a cafe in Pamplona, Spain, July 1925. (JFK Library)

In his first 20 months in Paris, Hemingway filed 88 stories for the Toronto Star.^[41] He covered the Greco-Turkish War where he witnessed the burning of Smyrna; he wrote travel pieces such as "Tuna Fishing in Spain", "Trout Fishing All Across Europe: Spain Has the Best, Then Germany"; and he wrote about bullfighting—"Pamplona in July; World's Series of Bull Fighting a Mad, Whirling Carnival".^[42] In December 1922 Hemingway was devastated when Hadley lost a suitcase filled with his manuscripts at the Gare de Lyons as she was travelling from Paris to Geneva to meet him.^[43] A months later, when Hadley became pregnant, they returned to Toronto where their son John Hadley Nicanor was born on October 10, 1923. During their absence, Hemingway's first book, Three Stories and Ten Poems, was published. Two of the published stories were all he had left of his writings, after the loss of the suitcase, and the third had been written the previous spring in Italy. Within months a second volume, in our time (without capitals), was published. The small volume included six vignettes and a dozen stories Hemingway wrote the previous summer during his first visit to Spain. Hadley, Hemingway, and their son (nicknamed Bumby), returned to Paris in January 1924 and moved to a new apartment in the rue Notre Dame des Champs.^[44] Hemingway went to work for Ford Madox Ford helping edit The Transatlantic Review, in which were published works by Pound, John Dos Passos, and Gertrude Stein, as well as some of Hemingway's own early stories such as "Indian Camp".^[45] When "In Our Time" (with capital letters) was published in 1925 the dust jacket had comments from Ford.^[46][47] Six months earlier, Hemingway met F. Scott Fitzgerald, and they began a friendship of "admiration and hostility."^[48]

Ernest, Hadley, and Bumby Hemingway 1926 (JFK Library)

In the summer of 1925, Hemingway and Hadley went on their annual trip to Pamplona to the Festival of San Fermín accompanied by a group of American and British ex-patriates.^[49] The events of the trip inspired Hemingway's first novel, The Sun Also Rises. He began writing the story immediately after the fiesta and finished in September.^[50] He decided to slow down during the revision process and devote all of the fall and winter to the rewrite.^[51] The revised manuscript arrived in New York in April,^[52] and he corrected the final proof in Paris in August, 1926.^[53] Scribner's published The Sun Also Rises in October 1926.^[54]

While Hemingway wrote and revised The Sun Also Rises, his marriage to Hadley fell apart.^[53] In the spring of 1926, Hadley found out about his affair with Pauline Pfeiffer.^[55] In July Hadley endured Pauline's presence in Pamplona.^[56] But back in Paris, Hadley and Hemingway decided to separate.^[57] Hadley formally asked Hemingway for a divorce in the fall, and by November they had split their possessions. She accepted his offer to the proceeds from The Sun Also Rises.^[58] Hemingway divorced Hadley in January 1927, and in May married Pauline Pfeiffer.^[59]

Pauline was from Arkansas—her family was wealthy and Catholic—and prior to their marriage Hemingway converted to Catholicism.^[60][61] In Paris she worked for Vogue.^[60] After a honeymoon in Grau-du-Roi, where he became infected with anthrax, Hemingway settled in Paris, and planned his next collection of short stories.^[62] Men Without Women was published in October 1927.^[63] By the end of the year Pauline was pregnant, and wanted to move back to America to have her baby. John Dos Passos recommended Key West; in March, 1928, they left Paris. Sometime that spring Hemingway suffered a severe injury in their Paris bathroom, when he pulled a skylight down on his head, thinking he was pulling on a toilet chain. This left him with a prominent forehead scar which he would carry the rest of his life. ^{[64][note 1]} After his departure from Paris, Hemingway "never again lived in a big city."^[65]

Key West and the Caribbean

Ernest Hemingway House on Key West

In the late spring Hemingway and Pauline travelled to Kansas City where their son Patrick Hemingway was born on June 28, 1928. Pauline had a difficult delivery, which Hemingway fictionalized in A Farewell to Arms.^[66] After Patrick's birth, Pauline and Hemingway travelled to Wyoming, Massachusetts and New York.^[66] In the fall, he was in New York with Bumby, about to board a train to Florida, where he received a cable notifiying him that his father had committed suicide.^[67]

During 1928, Hemingway worked on the draft of A Farewell to Arms; he finished the draft in late summer and waited a few months to begin revisions. By the winter of 1929 the serialization in Scribner's magazine was set for May, but that spring Hemingway continued to work on the book's ending in France, which he may have rewritten as many as seventeen times. When the book was published on September 27th,^[68] Hemingway's stature as an American writer was secured.^[69] In France and Spain during the summer of 1929 he gathered material for his newest work, Death in the Afternoon.^[70]

In the early 1930s, Hemingway spent his winters in Key West, and summers in Wyoming, where he found "the most beautiful country he had seen in the American West" and where the hunting included deer, elk, and grizzly bear. His third son, Gregory, was born on November 12, 1931. Pauline's uncle bought the couple a house in Key West where the second floor of the carriage house was converted to writing den.^[71] While in Key West he also spent time fishing the waters around the Dry Tortugas with his longtime friend Waldo Peirce, and at Sloppy Joe's.^[72]

The Hemingway family with marlins. Bimini, 1935 (JFK Library)

In 1933, Pauline's uncle paid for their safari to Africa. The 10-week trip provided material for Green Hills of Africa, and the short stories "The Snows of Kilimanjaro" and "The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber".^[73] They visited Mombasa, Nairobi, and Machakos in Kenya, then Tanganyika where they hunted in the Serengeti, around Lake Manyara and west and southeast of the present-day Tarangire National Park. Hemingway contracted amoebic dysentery that caused a prolapsed intestine and he was evacuated by plane to Nairobi, an experience reflected in "The Snows of Kilimanjaro". Their guide was noted "white hunter" Philip Hope Percival, who had guided Theodore Roosevelt on his 1909 safari. On his return to Key West in early 1934, Hemingway began writing Green Hills of Africa, published in 1935 to mixed reviews.^[74]

Back in Key West, Hemingway bought a boat in 1934, named it the "Pilar", and began sailing the Caribbean.^[75] In 1935 he discovered Bimini where he spent considerable time.^[73] During this period he also worked on To Have and Have Not, published in 1937 when he was in Spain, and the only novel he wrote during the 1930s.^[76]

Spanish Civil War and World War II

Ivens, Hemingway, and Ludwig Renn (German writer as International Brigades officer). Spanish Civil War, 1937

In 1937 Hemingway reported on the Spanish Civil War for the North American Newspaper Alliance (NANA).^[77] He arrived in France in March, and in Spain ten days later with Dutch filmmaker Joris Ivens.^[78] Ivens, who was filming The Spanish Earth, needed Hemingway as a screenwriter to replace John Dos Passos who left the project when his friend José Robles was arrested and later executed.^[79] At that time Dos Passos changed his opinion of the republicans, and created a rift between himself and Hemingway who spread a rumor that Dos Passos was a coward for leaving Spain.^[80]

Journalist Martha Gellhorn, whom Hemingway met in Key West in 1936, joined him in Spain.^[81] While in Madrid with Gellhorn, Hemingway wrote the play The Fifth Column during the bombardment of Madrid late in 1937.^[82] He returned to Key West for a few months, then back to Spain in 1938 where he was present at the Battle of the Ebro, the last republican stand. With fellow British and American journalists, Hemingway rowed the group across the river, some of the last to leave the battle.^[83][84] A later letter to XI International Brigade's commander Hans Kahle gives the impression that he had seen the war as an exciting adventure.^[85]

Ernest Hemingway with sons and kittens in Finca Vigia, Cuba 1946. (JFK Library)

Hemingway and Martha Gellhorn moved to Cuba in 1939, and in 1940 bought the "Finca Vigia" ("Lookout Farm") which they had been renting. A few months later Hemingway divorced Pauline and married Martha.^[86] As he had after his divorce from Hadley, he changed locations: he moved his primary summer residence to Ketchum, Idaho, just outside of the newly built resort Sun Valley; and the winter residence to Cuba.^[87] He was at work on For Whom the Bell Tolls, which he started in March 1939, finished in July 1940, and was published in October 1940.^[88] Consistent with his pattern of moving around while working on a manuscript, he worked on For Whom the Bell Tolls in Cuba, Wyoming, and Sun Valley.^[89] For Whom the Bell Tolls became a Book-of-the-month choice, sold half a million copies within months, was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize, and became a literary triumph for Hemingway.^[90]

In January 1941, Martha was sent to China on assignment for Collier's magazine, and Hemingway accompanied her. Although Hemingway wrote dispatches for PM, he had little affinity for China.^[91] However, in the recently-published Spies: The Rise and Fall of the KGB in America, co-written by John Earl Haynes, Harvey Klehr and Alexander Vassilev, it is alleged that Hemingway's KGB file identifies him as 'Agent Argo'. He was apparently recruited in 1941 before the trip to China, but he ultimately failed to "give [the Russians] any political information" and was not "verified in practical work". Contact with 'Argo' ceased by 1950.^[92]

When he returned to Cuba, after the beginning of World War II, Hemingway refitted the Pilar to hunt down German submarines.^[22] From June to December 1944, he was in Europe, and was present at the D-Day landing. He then attached himself to "the 22nd Regiment commanded by Col. Charles "Buck" Lanaham as it drove toward Paris", and he also had a small band of village militia in Rambouillet outside of Paris.^[93] Of Hemingway's exploits, a war historian remarks: " 'Hemingway got into considerable trouble playing infantry captain to a group of Resistance people that he gathered because a correspondent is not supposed to lead troops, even if he does it well.' "^[22] On August 25 he was present at the liberation of Paris, though the assertion that he was first in the city, or that he liberated the Ritz is considered part of the Hemingway legend.^[94][95] While in Paris he attended a reunion hosted by Sylvia Beach and also made up his long feud with Gertrude Stein.^[96] Hemingway was present at heavy fighting in the Hürtgenwald at the end 1944.^[97]

When Hemingway arrived in Europe, he met Time correspondent Mary Welsh in London.^[98] During the war his marriage to Martha disintegrated and the last time he saw her was in March 1945 as he was preparing to return to Cuba.^[99] In 1947 Hemingway was awarded a Bronze Star for his bravery during World War II. His valor for having been " 'under fire in combat areas in order to obtain an accurate picture of conditions,' " was recognized, with the commendation that " 'Through his talent of expression, Mr. Hemingway enabled readers to obtain a vivid picture of the difficulties and triumphs of the front-line soldier and his organization in combat.' "^[22]

Cuba

Ernest Hemingway writing in Kenya in 1953 (JFK Library)

Hemingway married Mary Welsh in March 1946, and five months later she suffered an ectopic pregnancy. Hemingway and Mary suffered a series of accidents after the war: in 1945 Hemingway had a car accident and injured his knee; and over the next five years Mary suffered a number of broken bones. In 1947 his sons Patrick and Gregory were in a car accident and Gregory consequently was severely ill.^[100] The 1940s became a decade when many of Hemingway's friends died: in 1939 Yeats and Ford Madox Ford died; in 1940 Scott Fitzgerald died; in 1941 Sherwood Anderson and James Joyce died; in 1946 Gertrude Stein died; and the following year in 1947, Max Perkins, Hemingway's long time editor and friend, died.^[101] Although he suffered from headaches, high blood pressure, weight problems, depression, and eventually diabetes, he continued to struggle with the manuscript of The Garden of Eden.^[102]

In 1948 Hemingway and Mary travelled to Europe, and in Italy he visited the site of his World War I accident. Soon thereafter he began work on Across the River and Into the Trees, which he worked on through 1949 and was published in 1950 to bad reviews.^[103] A year later he wrote the draft of Old Man and the Sea in eight weeks and considered it "the best I can write ever for all of my life."^[102] When it was published, The Old Man and the Sea became a Book-of-the Month selection, made Hemingway an international celebrity, and won the Pulitzer Prize in May 1952, a month before he left for his second trip to Africa.^[104][105]

In Africa he was seriously injured in two successive plane crashes: he sprained his right shoulder, arm, and left leg; had a concussion; temporarily lost vision in his left eye and the hearing in his left ear; suffered paralysis of the spine; had a crushed vertebra, ruptured liver, spleen and kidney; and sustained first degree burns on his face, arms, and leg. Some American newspapers published his obituary, believing he had been killed. A month later he was again badly injured in a bushfire accident, which left him with second degree burns on his legs, front torso, lips, left hand and right forearm.^[106]

Back in Cuba, in October 1954 Hemingway received the Nobel Prize in Literature. Politely he mentioned Carl Sandburg and Isak Dinesen, who in his opinion, deserved the prize. The prize money was welcome he told reporters. ^[107] Because he was in pain as a result of the African accidents, and he had recently returned home to Cuba after an absence of almost a full year, Hemingway chose not to travel to Stockholm to accept the prize in person.^[108] Instead he sent a speech to be read in which he defines the writer's life: "Writing, at its best, is a lonely life. Organizations for writers palliate the writer's loneliness but I doubt if they improve his writing. He grows in public stature as he sheds his loneliness and often his work deteriorates. For he does his work alone and if he is a good enough writer he must face eternity, or the lack of it, each day."^{[109][note 2]}

On the Pilar: 1950s (JFK Library)

As a result of the severe accidents and injuries he sustained in Africa, Hemingway was bedridden from late 1956 to early 1957.^[110] The Finca Vigia became crowded with guests and tourists, he began to become unhappy with life in Cuba, and considered a permanent move to Idaho. In 1959 he bought a home, overlooking the Big Wood River, outside of Ketchum and left Cuba, although he apparently remained on easy terms with the Castro government, going so far as telling the New York Times he was "delighted" with Castro's overthrow of Havana.^[111][112] However, the Hemingway story "The Shot" is used by Cabrera Infante and others as evidence of conflict between Hemingway and Fidel Castro dating back as early as 1948 and the killing of "Manolo" Castro, a friend of Hemingway.^{[113][note 3]} In 1960, he left Cuba and Finca Vigía for the last time. The Cuban government claims that after her husband's death, Mary Welsh Hemingway deeded the home to the government, which made it into a museum devoted to the author.^[114] In fact, the house was appropriated after the Bay of Pigs invasion (two months before Hemingway's death), complete with Hemingway's collection of "four to six thousand books". The Hemingways lost their home, and were forced to leave art and manuscripts in a bank vault in Havana.^[115]

Idaho and suicide

Hemingway in Sun Valley, 1959. (JFK Library)

In 1957 he began A Moveable Feast, which he worked on in Cuba and Idaho from 1957 to 1960.^[116][117] In 1959, his passion for bullfighting was renewed when he spent the summer in Spain for a series of bullfighting articles he was to write for Life Magazine.^[118] The following winter the manuscript grew to 63,000 words—Life only wanted 10,000 words—and he asked his friend A.E Hotchner for help organizing the manuscript that was called The Dangerous Summer.^[119][120] Although Hemingway's mental deterioration was noticeable, he travelled to Spain to gather photographs for the manuscript. Alone in Spain, without Mary, Hemingway's mental state disintegrated rapidly. The first installments of The Dangerous Summer were published in Life in September 1960 to good reviews. When he left Spain, Hemingway travelled straight to Idaho; that November he was admitted to the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota.^[121] He had been receiving treatment for high blood pressure and liver problems, and he may have believed he was going to be treated for hypertension.^[122] His paranoia became acute and he believed the FBI was actively monitoring his movements. In fact, the FBI had opened a file on him during WWII when he used the Pilar to patrol the waters off Cuba, and J. Edgar Hoover had an agent in Havana watch Hemingway during the 1950s.^[123] The FBI knew Hemingway was at the Mayo, as an agent documented in a letter written in January, 1961. Hemingway suffered from physical problems as well: his eyesight was failing; his health was poor. Furthermore, his home and possessions had been lost in Cuba (spring, 1961).^[124]

In the spring of 1961, three months after his initial treatment at the Mayo with a series of ECT treatment, Hemingway attempted suicide. Mary convinced Saviers to an immediate hospitalization at the Sun Valley hospital, and from there he was returned to the Mayo for more shock treatments.^[125] He was released in late June and arrived home in Ketchum on June 30. A few days later, in the early morning hours of July 2, 1961, Hemingway "quite deliberately" shot himself with his favorite shotgun.^[126]

Other members of Hemingway's immediate family also committed suicide: his father Clarence Hemingway; his sister Ursula; and his brother Leicester.^[127] During his last years, Hemingway's behavior was similar to his father's before he committed suicide.^[128] Hemingway's father may had the genetic disease haemochromatosis in which the inability to metabolize iron culminates in mental and physical deterioration.^[129] Medical records, available in 1991, in fact confirm that Hemingway's haemochromatosis had been diagnosed early in 1961.^[130] Additionally, Hemingway had been a heavy drinker for most of his life.^[102]

Ernest and Mary Hemingway graves, Ketchum, Idaho

Hemingway is interred in the town cemetery in Ketchum, Idaho, at the north end of town. A memorial was erected in 1966 at another location, overlooking Trail Creek, north of Ketchum. It is inscribed with a eulogy he wrote for a friend, Gene Van Guilder:

Best of all he loved the fall
The leaves yellow on the cottonwoods
Leaves floating on the trout streams
And above the hills
The high blue windless skies
Now he will be a part of them forever
Ernest Hemingway - Idaho - 1939

Themes

Leslie Fiedler believes themes recurrent in American literature exist with great clarity in Hemingway's work. A theme Fiedler defines as "The Sacred Land"—the American West—is extended in Hemingway's work to include the mountains of Spain, Switzerland and Africa, and the streams of Michigan. The American West is symbolized by the use of the "Hotel Montana" in The Sun Also Rises and in For Whom the Bell Tolls. Furthermore, Fiedler considers the American literary theme of the evil "Dark Woman" vs. the good "Light Woman" to be inverted in Hemingway's fiction. The dark woman (Brett Ashley) is a goddess; the light woman (Margot Macomber) is a murderess.^[131]

The theme of death permeates Hemingway's work. Stoltzfus believes Hemingway's writings exhibit the concept of existentialism: redemption is possible at the moment of death if the concept of "nothingness" is embraced. When death is faced with dignity and courage then life can be lived with authenticity. In Hemingway's works those who live an "authentic" life find redemption at the moment of death. Francis Macomber dies happy because the last hours of his life are authentic; the bullfighter in the corrida represents the pinnacle of a life lived with authenticity.^[132]

Though Hemingway writes about sports, Carlos Baker claims the emphasis is not on sport but on the athlete.^[133] According to Stoltzfus the hunter or fisherman has a moment of transcendence when the prey is killed. Nature is a place for rebirth, for therapy, as in "The Big Two-Hearted River".^[134] Nature is the great refuge, according to Fiedler. Nature is where men are without women: men fish; men hunt; men find redemption in nature.^[135]

Finally the theme of emasculation is prevalent, most notably in The Sun Also Rises in which Jake Barnes's war wound—and his inability to consumate the relationship with Brett—contributes to the tension of the piece. Emasculation, according to Fiedler, is both a result of a generation of wounded soldiers, but of more importance, a generation in which women such as Brett gained emancipation.^[136] Baker believes Hemingway's work emphasizes the "natural" vs. the "unnatural". For example, the short story "Alpine Idyll" is about the "unnaturalness" of skiers in the high country where the late spring snow is juxtaposed against the "unnaturalness" of the peasant who allowed his wife's dead body to linger too long in the shed during the winter. The skiers and peasant retreat to the valley to the "natural" spring for redemption.^[137]

Writing style

The New York Times wrote in 1926 of Hemingway's first novel: "No amount of analysis can convey the quality of The Sun Also Rises. It is a truly gripping story, told in a lean, hard, athletic narrative prose that puts more literary English to shame".^[138] The Sun Also Rises is written in the spare, tightly written prose for which Hemingway is famous, a style which has influenced countless crime and pulp fiction novels.^[139] It is a style which some critics consider Hemingway's greatest contribution to literature.^[140][141] The Nobel Prize committee acknowledged Hemingway's style. In 1954, when he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature the award was for "his mastery of the art of narrative, most recently demonstrated in The Old Man and the Sea, and for the influence that he has exerted on contemporary style".^[142]

Hemingway began as a writer of short stories, and as Baker explains, he learned how to "get the most from the least, how to prune language how to multiply intensities, and how to tell nothing but the truth in a way that allowed for telling more than the truth." ^[144] The style is known as the Iceberg Theory because in Hemingway's writing the hard facts float above water; the supporting structure, complete with symbolism, operates out-of-sight. ^[144] Jackson Benson believes Hemingway used autobiographical details to work as framing devices to write about life in general—not only about his life. For example, Benson postulates that Hemingway used his experiences and drew them out further with "what if" scenarios: "what if I were wounded in such a way that I could not sleep at night? What if I were wounded and made crazy, what would happen if I were sent back to the front?"^[145] The concept of the iceberg theory is sometimes referred to as the "theory of omission." Hemingway believed the writer could describe one thing (such as Nick Adams fishing in "The Big Two-Hearted River") though an entirely different thing occurs below the surface (Nick Adams concentrating on fishing so to the extent that he doesn't have to think about anything else).^[146]

The simplicity of the prose is deceptive. Zoe Trodd believes Hemingway crafted skeletal sentences in response to Henry James' observation that WWI had "used up words". In his writing Hemingway offered an almost photographic reality that was often "multi-focal". His iceberg theory of omission was the foundation on which he built. The syntax, which lacks subordinating conjunctions, creates static sentences. He used a photographic "snapshot" style to create a collage of images. Short sentences build one on another; events build to create a sense of the whole. Multiple strands exist in one story; an "embedded text" bridges to a different angle. He also used other cinematic techniques of "cutting" quickly from one scene to the next; or of "splicing" a scene into another. Intentional omissions allow the reader to fill the gap, as though responding to instructions from the author, and create three dimensional prose.^[147]

Hemingway uses polysyndeton to convey both a timeless immediacy and a Biblical grandeur. Hemingway's polysyndetonic sentence—or, in later works, his use of subordinate clauses—uses conjunctions to juxtapose startling visions and images; the critic Jackson Benson compares them to haikus.^[141][148] Many of Hemingway's acolytes misinterpreted his lead and frowned upon all expression of emotion; Saul Bellow satirized this style as "Do you have emotions? Strangle them."^[149] However, Hemingway's intent was not to eliminate emotion but to portray it more scientifically. Hemingway thought it would be easy, and pointless, to describe emotions; he sculpted his bright and finely chiseled collages of images in order to grasp "the real thing, the sequence of motion and fact which made the emotion and which would be as valid in a year or in ten years or, with luck and if you stated it purely enough, always".^[150] This use of an image as an objective correlative is characteristic of Ezra Pound, T.S. Eliot, James Joyce, and of course Proust.^{[151][note 4]} Hemingway's letters refer to Proust's Remembrance of Things Past several times over the years, and indicate he might have read the massive book at least twice.^[152] His writing was likely also influenced by the Japanese poetic canon.^{[153][note 5]}

Influence and legacy

Hemingway's most important legacy to American literature is his style: writers who came after Hemingway either attempted to emulate his style, or attempted to avoid his style.^[154] In a 2004 speech at the John F. Kennedy Library, Russell Banks declared that he, like many male writers of his generation, was influenced by Hemingway's philosophy of the writing process, Hemingway's style, and Hemingway's life and public image.^[155] With the publication of The Sun Also Rises Hemingway's reputation was sealed. He became the spokesperson for the post-World War I generation, and he established a style to be emulated.^[156] His books were burned in Berlin in 1933, and disavowed by his parents.^[157] Hemingway biographer Michael Reynolds asserts Hemingway's legacy is that "he left stories and novels so starkly moving that some have become part of our cultural heritage."^[158]

The American Mercury with Al Hirschfeld's caricature of Ernest Hemingway

Jackson Benson claims Hemingway, and the details of his life, have become a "prime vehicle for exploitation" which has created a "Hemingway industry."^[159] The "hard boiled style" that is often used to describe Hemingway's work should not be confused with the author, according to Hemingway scholar Hallengren, who considers the machismo of the man should be separated from the author himself. ^[160] Benson agrees, going so far as to point out that Hemingway was as introverted and private as J.D. Salinger, yet paradoxically, Hemingway masked his true nature with braggadacio.^[161] In fact, during World War II, J. D. Salinger met and corresponded with Hemingway, whom he acknowledged as an influence.^[162] In a letter to Hemingway, Salinger wrote that their talks "had given him his only hopeful minutes of the entire war," and jokingly "named himself national chairman of the Hemingway Fan Clubs."^[163]

The degree to which Hemingway's influence reached is seen in the many tributes to the man, and echoes of his fiction to be found in popular culture. In 1978 a minor planet, discovered in 1978 by Soviet astronomer Nikolai Stepanovich Chernykh, was named for him—3656 Hemingway;^[164] on July 17, 1989, the United States Postal Service issued a 25-cent postage stamp honoring Hemingway.^[165]; Ray Bradbury wrote the story The Kilimanjaro Device in which Hemingway doesn't die, but instead is transported to the top Mt. Kilimanjaro, which represents a heaven for writers, according to Hemingway's own story "The Snows of Kilimanjaro";^[166] the 1993 motion picture Wrestling Ernest Hemingway, about the friendship of two retired men, one Irish, one Cuban, in a seaside town in Florida, starred Robert Duvall, Richard Harris, Shirley MacLaine, Sandra Bullock, and Piper Laurie.^[167] Furthermore, Hemingway's influence is evident in popular culture with the existence of many restaurants named "Hemingway"; and the proliferation of bars called "Harry's" (a nod to the bar in Across the River and Into the Trees).^[168] A line of "Hemingway" furniture, introduced by a popular manufacturer and promoted by Hemingway's son Jack (Bumby), has pieces such as the "Kilimanjaro" bedside table.^[169]

Family

Parents

• Father: Clarence Hemingway. Born September 2, 1871, died December 6, 1928. (death by suicide)
• Mother: Grace Hall Hemingway. Born June 15, 1872, died June 28, 1951

Siblings

• Marcelline Hemingway. Born January 15, 1898, died December 9, 1963
• Ursula Hemingway. Born April 29, 1902, died October 30, 1966 (death by suicide)
• Madelaine Hemingway. Born November 28, 1904, died January 14, 1995
• Carol Hemingway. Born July 19, 1911, died October 27, 2002
• Leicester Hemingway. Born April 1, 1915, died September 13, 1982 (death by suicide)

Wives, children and grandchildren

• Elizabeth Hadley Richardson. Married September 3, 1921, divorced April 4, 1927, died January 22, 1979.

• Son, John Hadley Nicanor "Jack" Hemingway (aka Bumby). Born October 10, 1923, died December 1, 2000.

• Granddaughter, Joan (Muffet) Hemingway
• Granddaughter, Margaux Hemingway. Born February 16, 1954, died July 2, 1996 (death by suicide)
• Granddaughter, Mariel Hemingway. Born November 22, 1961
• Great-Granddaughter, Dree Hemingway. Born 1987

• Pauline Pfeiffer. Married May 10, 1927, divorced November 4, 1940, died October 21, 1951.

• Son, Patrick Hemingway. Born June 28, 1928.

• Granddaughter, Mina Hemingway

• Son, Gregory Hemingway (called 'Gig' by Hemingway; later called himself 'Gloria'). Born November 12, 1931, died October 1, 2001.

• Grandchildren, Patrick, Edward, Sean, Brendan, Vanessa, Maria, Adiel, John Hemingway and Lorian Hemingway

• Martha Gellhorn. Married November 21, 1940, divorced December 21, 1945, died February 15, 1998.
• Mary Welsh. Married March 14, 1946, died November 26, 1986.

See also

World War I portal

• Ernest Hemingway bibliography
• American Literature
• Great American Novel

Notes

Footnotes

References

Further reading

External links

Wikisource has original works written by or about: Ernest Hemingway

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Ernest Hemingway

• Ernest Hemingway.org.uk
• Timeless Hemingway
• The Charles D. Field Collection of Ernest Hemingway(call number M0440; 1.25 linear ft) are housed in the Department of Special Collections and University Archives at Stanford University Libraries
• The Hemingway Society
• New York Times obituary, July 3, 1961
• Michael Palin's Hemingway Adventure Based on a PBS lecture series narrated by Michael Palin.
• CNN: A Hemingway Retrospective
• Ernest Hemingway Home and Museum in Key West, Florida, official website
• The Hemingway-Pfeiffer Museum and Educational Center
• Hemingway’s Reading 1910–1940
• Works by or about Ernest Hemingway in libraries (WorldCat catalog)
• Hemingway's work on IBList
• Ernest Hemingway's Collection at The University of Texas at Austin