Review of Ernest Hemingway and Writings
Ernest Miller Hemingway was an American novelest and short-story writer
whose writings and personal life exerted a profound influence on American
writers of his time and thereafter. Many of his works are regarded as American
classics, and some have subsequently been made into motion pictures. A review of
Hemingway reveals many interesting points about his life, about the influences
upon his works, and of the the themes and styles of his writings.
An examination of Hemingway’s past brings to light many interesting
points and helps to create a better understanding of how he came to be the
master of the understated prose style. The second of six children born to
Clarence and Grace Hemingway, Ernest was born July 21, 1899 in Oak Park,
Illinois. The society he grew up in was one of strict disciplinarians. His
parents were no exception. In fact he spent much of his life trying to escape
the “repressive code of behavior” (CLC, 177) that was pushed upon him as a child.
After graduating high school in 1977 he chose not to go to college and instead
became a reporter for the Kansas City Star, where he remained for seven months.
His oppurtunity to break away came when he volunteered as a Red Cross ambulance
driver in Italy. In July of 1918 while serving along the Piave River, he was
severely wounded by shrapnel and forced to return home after recuperation in
January 1919. The war had left him emotionally and physically shaken, and
according to some critics he began as a result “a quest for psychological and
artistic freedom that was to lead him first to the secluded woods of Northern
Michigan, where he had spent his most pleasant childhood moments, and then to
Europe, where his literary talents began to take shape.” (CLC, 177) First he
took a part-time job as a feature writer for the Toronto Star, eager to further
pursue his journalistic ambitions. In the fall of 1920 he became the
contributing editor of a trade journal, which took him to Chicago. It was there
that he met his first wife, Hadley Richardson. They were married in September
1921. In December of that year they went to France and for a 19 month strech
Ernest travled over Europe and Anatolia as a foreign correspondant for the
Toronto Star. In late 1923 they returnned briefly to Toronto wh…
… wrote focus on Nick, or occasionally another young man so similar
that they could be one and the same. As a young boy, Nick’s reaction to the
world is that of shock. He stands to the side and observes events, more than
taking part in them. Terrible things happen to him, and about him, as he grows
up through the course of Hemingway’s work. His experiences teach the reader
about life, and help to reveal the truths we would otherwise encounter in a
manner similar to him. In other words, “He is the whipping-boy of our fearful
awareness…He suffers our accidents and defeats before they happen to us.” (CLC,
183)
The impact which Ernest Hemingway’s work has left upon society is
nothing short of astounding. He has taught about life’s harsh realities and the
importance of maintaining a code by which to live and deal with those realities.
Through his own extensive experiences he has compiled these stories of the dark
side of life, and of the good that can be found within. His own battle with the
unforgiving world in which we exist, from which his stories were derived, was
lost in 1961 when he committed suicide. The world will forever bear his mark.