FREE ESSAY ON ERNEST HEMINGWAY - THE MAN AND HIS WORK

ERNEST HEMINGWAY - THE MAN AND HIS WORK

Ernest Hemingway - The Man and His Work
On July 2, 1961, a writer whom many critics call the greatest writer of this century, a
man who had a zest for adventure, a winner of the Nobel Prize and the Pulitzer Prize, a
man who held esteem everywhere - on that July day, that man put a shotgun to his head and
killed himself. That man was Ernest Hemingway. Though he chose to end his life, his heart
and soul lives on through his many books and short stories. Hemingway's work is his voice
on how he viewed society, specifically American society and the values it held. 
No other author of this century has had such a general and lasting influence on the
generation which grew up between the world wars as Ernest Hemingway (Lania 5). The youth
that came of age during this time came to adopt the habits, way of life, and essentially
the values of Hemingway's characters. The author , however, was just depicting his
characters as he saw the typical American in the 1920's. In his mind this meant a people
filled with melancholy denial. Hemingway became the chief reporter of what became known
as the "Lost Generation". This phrase is attributed to Gertrude Stein, a friend of
Hemingway's, who meant youth, angry with life itself after the war; drowning themselves
in alcohol; sleeping away the days and sharing their beds with a new partner each night.
Thus, Hemingway depicts America as a society with a profuse amount of twisted values.
A constant theme runs through all of Hemingway's work. That man can be defeated but not
destroyed. Once such novel that depicts this, as well as American values, is A Farewell
to Arms. During the course of the story, the two main characters lieutenant Frederick
Henry and nurse Catherine Barkley, become the victims of a cruel and hostile age. Their
love story, which starts in a field hospital where the lieutenant is being treated for
severe leg injuries, ends with Catherine's death. She dies in childbirth but it is
actually the war that condemns them both to destruction. After the Italian defeat at
Caporetto, the lieutenant becomes a deserter. He flees with his now impregnated lover to
Switzerland, but they cannot escape the despair and horror of the war. Their attempts to
wipe it out by consuming bottle after bottle of alcohol has only ill effects.
This novel is a drawn out definition of Stein's generation. It is the story of a man torn
apart by the reality of war and love. In the beginning of the war Frederick is
disappointed at the lack of action. When his first test on the field of battle occurs,
however, he sees the truth of war as a friend dies in his arms. At first the reader may
think that the lieutenant was insensitive, but his true feelings show in these two
lines:
"I wiped my hand on my shirt and another floating light came very slowly down and I
looked at my leg and was very afraid. Oh, God, I said, get me out of here." (Hemingway
55)
From this point on the war begins to break him down. The lieutenant's increasing
consumption of alcohol lets on that he is trying to avoid thinking about what has
happened to him. The wine flows so freely that the porter at the hospital carries out the
lieutenant's trash by the sack load. The drinking causes him to have jaundice as well as
happy thoughts…the price he pays for the liquor. Hemingway shows American drinking
habits in this book which coincide with Stein's idea. Frederick, like many men and women
in the 1920's, sought to avoid his problems by turning to alcohol to make him feel better
about himself and his situation.
Along with a drinking problem the bedridden man decides to take his nurse as his lover.
Lieutenant Frederick convinces himself he is in love with her and thinks nothing of it
when he finds the nurse is with child. To avert his attention from the war he takes
responsibility for Catherine and in the end becomes a deserter only to have his lover die
in the end. Sex without marriage plays a major role in the book, as it was a
characteristic of America's youth during that time. All that was considered was feeling
good and having fun, not having an emotional attachment to the person that slept with
you.
A Farewell to Arms is a modest chapter from Hemingway's own life. Not only does the
lieutenant's fate correspond with his own - from the trenches, through injury, to the
hospital - but Catherine's death was also inspired by personal experience. Hemingway's
second son, Patrick, was born while writing the first draft of the novel. The delivery
was difficult and the mother had to have a Cesarean delivery, like Catherine in the
novel. Then, just as Hemingway was starting on his final draft, his father committed
suicide. This greatly influenced the author's views on death. "The fact that the book was
a tragic one," Hemingway wrote, "did not make me unhappy since I believed that life was a
tragedy and knew it could only have one end."
Along with the numerous novels he wrote, Ernest Hemingway was also a devoted short story
writer. His stories covered every subject from fishing to hunting to death. One story
that continues the man cannot be destroyed theme, is The Macomber Affair, also called The
Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber. There are three main characters in this story of
courage and cowardice: Francis Macomber, his wife Margot, and their English guide
Wilson.
Macomber is a weakling, completely dominated by Margot. Fundamentally, the marriage is
breaking apart, and is only held together by the fact that Margot is reluctant to part
with her husband's wealth. She takes Wilson as her lover and does not even attempt to
conceal the affair, for she knows her husband is too weak and cowardly to do anything
about it. Hemingway examines again the separation between emotional attachment and sexual
acts in this short story. Margot does not feel anything for the guide but sleeps with him
to show Francis her domineering power.
Macomber's weakness causes him to suffer greatly. Twice he makes himself look ridiculous
in front of Wilson by running away from a wounded lion on the attack. These episodes
cause him to lose even the last bit of his self-respect. However, Macomber makes up for
the occurrences when tracking down a buffalo. When a wounded animal decides to attack,
Francis fires continuously at it, fearlessly staring death in the face. It is in these
few moments that he finds himself at last a happy man. Finally he has conquered his
weakness. His happiness is short lived, for Margot shoots him a few minutes later. She
begrudges Macomber the triumph of having proved himself as a man. He must die, as he
threatens to escape from her domination.
The destructive power of wealth, the senseless greed for money and its harmful effects on
relationships and on American life were subjects which occupied Hemingway greatly at the
time he wrote this story. In The Macomber Affair he portrayed a marriage which he felt
was typical of the corruption found in certain parts of wealthy American society. In
these places, marriage was a business devoid of any sincere feeling or passion.
A key to understanding Hemingway can be found in the characters of his heroes and in
their beliefs. The leading character appears in various roles in the many novels and
short stories, although he is always the same type. Whether an ordinary soldier, smuggler
or gambler, black man or journalist - he is a man scarred by experience. He has always
been seriously wounded physically or mentally, either during war, in the sports ring,
during his childhood or in the fight for existence. At some time or another something
terrible has happened to him, and the memory constantly haunts him. However strong and
tough he seems, he is centrally a sick man. He must prove himself to himself: his
strength and his courage are nothing but a victory over fear.
Hemingway's world is a world at war…either in the literal sense or the unforgiving,
brutal fight for existence. A hostile and unsympathetic world. Those who wish to survive
must know how to kill. In The Old Man and the Sea, the old Cuban fisherman triumphs
through the devoted determination of his fight with the great fish. In the end, however,
the sharks eat away his prey and deprive him of the reward for his sacrifice. 
The part played by women in Hemingway's work is significant. He handles sex without being
sensitive or finicky. His lovers have nothing in common either spiritually or
intellectually, nor do they seek it in each other. They are not partners - not even
enemies. As a result their relationship is neither exalted or pitiful. It always has a
flavor of rape or harlotry.
The heroine is either a "man-eater", an aggravating, even dangerous element in a man's
world, or a passive creature, completely submissive to man, a willing instrument in the
pouring out of his desire. These types of women are found in The Macomber Affair's
Margot, and A Farewell to Arms' Catherine respectively. Hemingway's women seem unreal and
hollow to the reader but they are how the author perceives American females.
Behind his portrayals of characters, his reports, and his fiction there is the beat of a
suffering heart and the fight of a wounded soul --the heart and soul of Hemingway
himself. The hero of a Hemingway novel is Hemingway. His life unfolds to the reader and
explains the enigma in his literature.
Ernest Hemingway was born on July 21, 1899 in Oak Park, Illinois. A small town close to
Chicago where Hemingway's parent's were members of high society. His father, Clarence
Edmunds Hemingway, was a busy doctor who enjoyed hunting and fishing. He took more pride
in the animals he killed than in the patients he saved. Ernest's mother, Grace, was
interested in religion and music, two interests she was unable to pass on to her son.
Unsatisfied with life at home, ( later Hemingway remarked that the best schooling for a
writer was an unhappy childhood),Ernest ran away from home twice before finding his love
… sports. He participated in boxing, swimming, and football, excelling in all
three. His thirst for action was not quenched, however, until he joined the Italian army
with the Red Cross.
Hemingway's service experiences later became the basis for many short stories and novels.
In fact his injury shortly after joining the Red Cross became the story line of A
Farewell to Arms. Two weeks before his nineteenth birthday, a grenade landed a few feet
from Hemingway on one of his daily trips to the trenches. He was severely wounded. When
he came to, Ernest hauled a screaming comrade onto his back and began dragging himself
away. An enemy spotlight found him, however, and rained machine gun fire down on him.
When he regained consciousness he was on a stretcher and his comrade was dead. This is
exactly what happens to lieutenant Frederick Henry in the novel, and it is the point of
the story where he begins to fall apart.
On his return to America after the war, Hemingway suffered from insomnia and horrible
nightmares. Attempting to rid his mind of war memories, he wrote about his experiences in
many short stories and best novels. He described his horror of war, never making it sound
wonderful or full of glory, on the other hand he never brings up any complaint or protest
against it. It is Hemingway's belief that the horrors of war are unavoidable (Hotchner
117). 
The travels of Hemingway are another source of influence on the author's work. Many, in
fact most, of his short stories and novels take place in a foreign country. France,
particularly Paris, Spain, and Africa are Hemingway's treasured spots. The author always
seemed to come back to America, but left after only a short while, being disgusted with
the society. "It is interesting that Hemingway became the best chronicler of the lost
generation, for he hated them and took no part in it." (Hotchner 188)
Perhaps the one situation that had the most effect on Ernest Hemingway was his father
committing suicide. Ernest had never had a good relationship with father. In the novel
For Whom the Bell Tolls, the hero Jordan touches on the subject of his father's suicide
and says: "I'll never forget how sick it made me the first time I knew he was a
…coward." Jordan continues: "If he wasn't a coward he would have stood up to that
woman and had not let her bully him. I wonder what I would have been like if he had
married a different woman." This passage, as well as several domineering women characters
in Hemingway's work, makes you question how he felt towards his mother.
Ernest Hemingway's literature is work in which happiness is short lived, caused
temporarily by alcohol then destroyed by the reality of death. He did not glorify love
affairs, but make them cheap and unemotional. Wealth is described as evil and corrupting
in his novels. Though not delightful stories, the author makes the reader think and
question values in a different way. Hemingway looked down upon American society during
the 1920's, yet he himself was overcome by denial in the end. Though the unsympathetic
world, and diseased mind, destroyed Ernest Hemingway's flesh, his heart and soul were
placed upon the page and will never be defeated.
Bibliography
Works Cited
Baker, Carlos. Ernest Hemingway Selected Letters. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons,
1981.
Hemingway, Ernest. The Complete Short Stories of Ernest Hemingway. New York: Charles
Scribner's Sons, 1987
Hemingway, Ernest. A Farewell to Arms. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1957.
Hemingway, Ernest. For Whom the Bell Tolls. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1968.
Hemingway, Ernest. The Old Man and the Sea. New York: Simon and Schuster Inc., 1980.
Hotchner, A.E. Papa Hemingway; A Personal Memoir. New York: Random House Inc., 1966.
Kraus, Michael. "World War I." Colliers Encyclopedia. 1974 ed.
Lania, Leo. Hemingway: A Pictorial Biography. New York: The Viking Press, 1961.
Madden, David. A Pocketful of Prose, Vintage Short Fiction. Vol. 2. Fort Worth: Harcourt
Brace and Co., 1996.
Tames, Richard. The 1920s. New York: Franklin Watts Inc., 1991.
White, William. By-line: Ernest Hemingway; Selected Articles and Dispatches of Four
Decades. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1967.