Earnest Hemingway

1
Earnest Hemingway

• Yuan Xuemei
• Foreign Languages Department

2
Ernest Hemingway (1899-1961)

• -American writer
• -Winner of Nobel Prize for Literature
• -A legendary figure in American literature

3
Major Works

• 1925 In Our Time The Torrents of Spring
• 1926The Sun Also Rises
• 1928 A Farewell to Arms
• 1932 Death in the Afternoon
• 1935 Green Hills of Africa
• 1937 To Have and Have Not
• 1938 The Fifth Column
• 1952 The Old Man and the Sea
• He also wrote a lot of short stories.

4
Life Experience

• Hunt and explorations in the African jungles, and
  fishing on the Cuban seas.
• During WWI, an ambulance driver in Italy
• During WWII, services for the US navy and then a
  reporter with the British Air Force.
• wounded many times and over a dozen injuries to
  the brain.
• All these sports and war experiences became his
  subjects and themes later.

5
Self-exile to Paris

• After WWII, Self-exile to Paris, like many other
  of the Lost Generation writers.
• Gertrude Steins encouragement.

6
Unique Style

• As a journalist, and the economy of expression.
• Short sentences and paragraphs, vigorous,
  positive language, and the deliberate avoidance
  of gorgeous adjectives.
• The Iceberg analogy

7
Hemingway Code Hero

• The major theme, grace under pressure acted out
  by the Code Hero with following traits
• (1) Measuring himself against the
• difficulties that life throw in his way,
  realizing that we will all lose ultimately
  because we are mortals, but playing the game
  honestly and passionately in spite of that
  knowledge.
• (2) Facing death with dignity, enduring physical
  and emotional pain in silence
• (3) Never showing emotions
• (4) Maintaining free-will and individualism,
  never weakly allowing commitment to a single
  woman or social convention to prevent adventure,
  travel, and acts of bravery

8
Hemingway Code Hero

• (5) Being completely honest, keeping one's word
  or promise
• (6) Being courageous and brave, daring to travel
  and have "beautiful adventures," as Hemingway
  would phrase it
• (7) Admitting the truth of Nada (Spanish,
  "nothing"), i.e., that no external source outside
  of oneself can provide meaning or purpose. This
  existential awareness also involves facing death
  without hope of an afterlife, which the Hemingway
  Code Hero considers more brave than "cowering"
  behind false religious hopes.

9
A Farewell to Arms

• A Farewell to Arms (1928)
• Fredric Henry goes to the war and discovers the
  insanity and unreason of the world.
• He becomes disillusioned and embarrassed by the
  words sacred, glorious, and sacrifice.
• The mood of the post-war generation.
• The speaker and describer of the Lost Generation.

10
The Break with Society

• In the chaotic and meaningless world, man fights
  a solitary struggle against a force he does not
  understand. The awareness that he must end in
  defeat, no matter how hard he fights against it,
  engenders a sense of despair.
• Finally, the Hemingway hero breaks with society
  in writings like
• Death in the Afternoon (1932),
• Green Hills of Africa (1935)
• and For Whom the Bell Tolls (1940).

11
The Grace Under Pressure

• The Hemingway hero possesses despairing
  courage.
• It is this courage that enables a man to behave
  like a man, to assert his dignity in face of
  adversity.
• This is the essence of a code of honor in which
  all the Hemingway heroes believe.

12
The Old Man and the Sea

• The Old Man and the Sea (1952) about an old
  fisherman Santiago and his battle with a giant
  marlin fish and sharks.
• Santiago, an example of the code hero, the
  spirit of the tragic but noble Hemingway hero,
  contending with a force he knows it is futile to
  fight with, nevertheless, believing that a man
  is not made for defeatA man can be destroyed but
  not defeated.
• Nobel Prize for Literature in 1954.

13
The Old Man and the Sea

• Something exceptional should be noticed in the
  novella is that the old man eventually realizes
  that he has met his doom, and he feels good to be
  in the human and natural world.
• The feeling of brotherhood and love for both his
  fellowmen and fellow creatures in nature.
• Hemingways world view has undergone a profound
  change.

14
Hemingways World View

• A negative writer
• Seldom saying yes
• Dark, naturalistic view of the world, all a
  nothing, and battles and tension, nothingness
  (??)

15
Typical Situation in Writings

• chaos and violence,
• crime, death, sport,
• hard drinking
• and sexual promiscuity

16

• Thank You