Ernest Hemingway

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Ernest Hemingway
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The Man Behind the Words

• Born - July 21, 1899, Oak Park, Illinois
• Mother - Grace Hall
• Opera singer before marrying Ernests dad
• 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)

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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

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Interests

• Hunting
• Fishing
• Traveling
• Safari
• Bullfighting (watching it, not participating!)
• Drinking

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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

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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.

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In Europe

• The center of the modernist movement
• Associated himself with writers such as Gertude
  Stein and F. Scott Fitzgerald
• Supposedly coined the term Lost Generation for
  American expatriates
• Expatriate - person who lives outside his/her
  native country

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The Lost Generation

• Young people coming of age during and shortly
  after World War I
• Feeling a sense of dissatisfaction with America
  after the War
• Young men and women began to realize that old
  ideas and beliefs had not saved man from the
  catastrophe of war
• Believed that the only reality was that life was
  harsh

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Major Works

• The Sun Also Rises (1924-1926)
• First great success
• 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)

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Nobel Prize

• Awarded Nobel Prize for Literature (1954)
• Unable to attend award ceremony
• Recovering from injuries sustained when hunting
  in Uganda

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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

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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

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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

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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.

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Writing Style

• Few adjectives or adverbs
• Simple sentences (lets diagram some!)
• Concise, vivid
• He noted that, a writers 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

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The Six Word Story

• For sale
• baby shoes,
• never worn.

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Famous Words

• Ernest Hemingway, when asked what was the most
  frightening thing he ever encountered, answered
  "A blank sheet of paper.
• There are some things which cannot be learned
  quickly, and time, which is all we have, must be
  paid heavily for their acquiring. They are the
  very simplest things, and because it takes a
  man's life to know them the little new that each
  man gets from life is very costly and the only
  heritage he has to leave.