Although Ernest Hemingway is considered by many to be the most brilliant writer in modern literature, he can easily be considered one of the most troubled also. His works such as, The Sun Also Rises, A Farewell to Arms, and The Old Man and the Sea, are American classics, each one representing different stages in his life. He is an undeniable collision of literary talent and iconic personality who took Americans around the world with his new style of fiction, and he took fiction to new levels of pop culture status (Retrospective).
It is clear to anyone who reads Hemingways stories that the things he experienced from his childhood throughout the rest of his life, no matter if it was joy or pain, it was reflected within his work. Hemingways early life begins in such a fashion that one could only assume that the best possible way for him to express himself completely, without having to wonder whether or not he is fully understood, is through writing. His mother, Grace Hemingway, suffered from a medical condition called the Oedipus complex, which is a subconscious sexual desire for the parent of the opposite sex.
Because his mother suffered from this disease, she used to groom his sister and him to look like dolls. Hemingway still managed to be close with his mother and father, due mostly to the fact that his father would take him out hunting and things of that nature on the weekends. If one thing had to be pointed out as the reason for Hemingways confusion, it has to the fact that he was dressed up like a little girl. He went from hating his father and idolizing his mother because he had thought his mother was castrated by his father, and he thought that his mother was the head of the household.
His emotions later shifted toward his father because after his father had committed suicide, he seemed to believe that his mother had castrated his father, and that she was a part of the reason he had killed himself (cocoa pg. 1). After Hemingway finished school, he acquired a job working for a local newspaper, but it was nothing to brag about. In 1921, four years after his graduation, he married and relocated to Paris to pursue a writing career. While in Paris Hemingway became friends with such known authors as Ezra Pound and F. Scott Fitzgerald.
It was in Paris that Hemingway was introduced to a publisher named Charles Scribner, Jr. (Desnoyers). Through Scribner Publishing Hemingway released The Sun Also Rises, Men Without Women and A Farewell to Arms (thinkquest). In 1922 Hemingway joined the Army and participated in World War One. It would not be fair to the soldiers to actually had to battle on the front lines to say that he fought in the war. He was, however, seriously injured in the line of duty. While driving a truck that was delivering food to the soldiers who were at war and putting their lives on the line, Hemingway was shot (usafa).
He severely injured his leg and had to have surgery on it, the operation was successful and Hemingway was awarded an Italian medal of valor, and the local media dubbed him a hero because he was the first American soldier wounded in the war (Desnoyers). And so the legend begins. People claim that Hemingway told them he was a soldier fighting on the front lines in the war and that is how he got shot and why he received a medal. Then there were the people that knew what his role really was in the war and because the rumor that he started spread so quickly, a lot of people did not know which story to believe.
This is all attributed to the fact that he is a great story teller and now he has a serious achievement under belt. The mysteries of Hemingways life and Hemingways writings begin to deepen. Which stories actually happened? Which did he invent? Did he come to believe the fiction as many of his family, friends, and admirers did? Hemingway, the ultimate storyteller, was not only telling stories, he was reinventing himself, according to a student of his life and work, Megan Floyd Desnoyers. A Sun Also Rises is the book that boosted Hemingway into the spotlight.
This story, which was written in the late 1920s, is a story about affairs of the heart. Not necessarily love, but lust. The main characters in the story are Jake and Brett. Brett seems to bounce from one man to another, growing fond of Jake at one point but sill floating around hopelessly. Jake never really lets go of the feelings that he holds for Brett, even though she is continuously going from one man to the next. At the end of this story, Jake is left with only a hug and a kiss as he gets to watch Brett leave him to go be with another guy named Mike.
Hemingway gives the reader the feeling that this is a daytime soap opera, but what makes things so strange is the fact that he pulled this from within himself. The events that take place within this story are, in reality, the same emotions, thoughts and feelings that Hemingway posses. Because of the way he was treated by his mother as a child, he felt that women were the dominant figures in society (cocoa pg. 1). Men were considered the heartbreakers, not women, but Hemingway knew nothing of this. In A Farewell to Arms Hemingway gives indications of his state of mind during the World War One period.
The main character, Frederic, falls in love with this woman named Catherine, and as the story goes along she becomes pregnant. He gets injured in the war (just as Hemingway had) and discharged. Still in Europe, he moves to a small town way from the war so that he and Catherine are safe. It is in this town that Catherine goes into labor, there are complications, and the baby dies because it is choked by the umbilical cord. On top of this tragedy, Catherine starts hemorrhaging and soon dies. It is at this point that the novel ends with Frederic roaming the rainy streets in complete shock and grief.
Comparing the similarities between Frederic and Hemingways actual life, there is no wonder why this mans novels were so great. The creativity and emotional energy in all of his literature developed into a successful pattern (McCaffery pg. 115). Desnoyers says that He was great at putting things together and made up whatever was needed to suit his artistic purposes. It was right after the war that Hemingway began writing this novel, but it was during the war that Hemingways first wife, Hadley, gave birth to his first child, John. Soon after the war though, Hemingway got a divorced and married Pauline Pfeiffer.
They moved to Key West, Florida, and it was there that Hemingway got the news that his father had committed suicide. It would seem that Hemingway was in love with life. He had his new bride; they were expecting a child and living in a beautiful area. Then he got the telegram informing him of his fathers death and all of a sudden he was at an emotion low. When he became a middle-aged man, Hemingways opinion on his mother and fathers situation had changed. He took notice to the way his mother controlled his father which led him to now believe that she castrated his father.
Hemingway now hated his mother because he blamed her for his fathers suicide and this hatred grew stronger once he became aware of how he was treated as a child. He was angry that his mother never truly assigned him a specific gender (cocoa pg. 1). With the swing in his emotions favoring his father and not his mother, Hemingway felt that his father, who he at one time wished to kill, did not deserver to die. The same empty and lonely feeling that Frederic felt at the end are clearly the same feelings that Hemingway felt after his fathers suicide.
The style in which this novel also gives an indication that he is drawing from his real life experiences. Jackson J. Benson explains it that Hemingway was able to assume the both the father and the son roles and both an objective and subjective point of view. In a sense Hemingway is twice removed from the emotional turmoil at the center of the story, (pg. 72). It is through this novel that Hemingway escaped his pain. Finally, his most famous work, The Old Man and the Sea gives a glimpse into Hemingway the older man. After he moved to Florida with Pauline, he took up fishing as a hobby and became quite good at it.
This is the story of a man named Santiago who is running low on luck. He has not caught a fish in about 40 days and he goes out to sea in hopes of catching something to prove to his one single friend, Manolin, that he still has luck. Out to sea the old man spots a huge marlin and manages to capture it, but sharks follow a trail of blood left by the fish and they come to eat the marlin remains. The old man tries his hardest to fight the sharks off but they wont stop until they have eaten the entire marlin. Near death, the old man fights until he has no more fight left in him.
The sharks devour everything including the marlin bones, the old man heads back in-land returning home with the same thing he left with, nothing. Hemingway is questioning why human beings (himself in particular) try to go against nature. He is making a statement by saying that people put themselves in horrible situations because of they have too much pride. This novel does not reflect upon Hemingway as easily as the previous two. One can only assume that Hemingway is nearing the end of his life and he feels guilty somehow for not being the perfect son, husband, or father.
He has a quote that he used in Farewell to Arms that sums up his attitude. He says There are some things which cannot be learned quicklythey are the very simplest things, and because it takes a mans life to know them the little new that each man gets is very costly (cocoa pg. 3). The Old Man and the Sea was Hemingways last major work before he committed suicide. He left behind a ton of negative speculation about himself, but he also left behind a legacy. Hemingway changed the face of fictional literature with his style.
As Ronald Berman states, Hemingway is concerned with two related problems, telling the truth and staying silent about it (pg. 123). Hemingway spoke the truth in his writings and that was his intent. John Baker, another student of Hemingways work says, No biography can portray a man that he actually was. The best that can be hoped for is an approximation, from which all that is false has been expunged and in most of what is true has been set forth, (vii). He was one of the greatest writers in the history American literature, and did not live long enough to see the lasting impression that was left by the life he lived and wrote about.
