ERNEST HEMINGWAY 1899-1961 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fh-MCQsZ5eE Biography – Early Years • On July 21, 1899, Ernest Hemingway was born in Oak Park, Illinois. • Oak Park, just south of Chicago, was the city in which Hemingway grew up. • After graduating high school, he began writing for The Kansas City Star. Ambulance Driver • At the start of the First Word War, • Hemingway drove an ambulance on the Italian front. • Within a year of his service, Hemingway was severely injured. He returned to the states because of his wounds. Love and Work • Ernest Hemingway • He wrote about the married Hadley Greco-Turkish War Richardson in 1922. and travel pieces. • The young coupled relocated to Paris where Hemingway had found work as a foreign correspondent. • Before two years of living in Paris, Hemingway wrote over eighty articles for the Toronto Star. Influences – Became an active member of the so-called ‘Lost Generation.’ – Included many writers who were beginning to explore the possibility of Modernist writing. Hemingway and Ford Madox Ford edited a review which published the work of writers like Gertrude Stein, Ezra Pound and John Dos Passos. – Ernest Hemingway and F. Scott Fitzgerald formed a close friendship. Fitzgerald’s novel The Great Gatsby inspired Hemingway to write – Hemingway spent much time at Gertrude Stein's salon. In this social context, Hemingway met influential painters including Juan Gris, Joan Miró, and Pablo Picasso. Divorce and new love • The relationship between Hemingway and Hadley began to break down as Hemingway wrote his first novel. • Hadley also discovered that Hemingway was having an affair with the American Pauline Pfeiffer. • As Part of the divorce settlement, Hadley was to receive the revenue from The Sun Also Rises. • After the first divorce, Hemingway married Pauline Pfeiffer. Hemingway would end their marriage on returning from the Spanish Civil War. Mid-life Crisis • In June 1928, Hemingway and his second wife had a son in Kansas City. • Hemingway and his family traveled to Wyoming, Massachusetts and New York. • Hemingway’s father had committed suicide. He began to have premonitions that he would end his life by his own hand. • Throughout the 1930s, Hemingway would spend his winters in Key West, Florida. This region would become associated with Hemingway. • In the summer, Hemingway would return to Wyoming to take advantage of the hunting and fishing. • Went on African safari in 1933 Married….Again… • Hemingway sailed to Cuba in early 1939. • While in Cuba, Hemingway lived in a hotel and signaled the increased effort painfully separate from his second wife. • Martha Gelhorn was to join Hemingway in Cuba. • In 1940, Hemingway married Martha Gelhorn. • This marriage ended when Hemingway met PLAYER!!!!! Mary Walsh in Wyoming in the fall of 1940. • Summer home in Idaho. On the Road Again • Gelhorn gave Hemingway the inspiration to pen his most famous novel • nominated for the Pulitzer Prize for this work. • In 1941, Martha Gellhorn accepted an assignment for Colliers magazine that required her to travel to China. • Hemingway took the opportunity to travel China. World War II • For the second half of 1944, Hemingway traveled to the European front of the Second World War. • He was at the D-Day landingh • He was protected as “precious cargo.” • Some say that he went ashore during the Allied invasion. • During the conflict, Hemingway broke the Geneva Convention by leading an armed group of military resistors. • As a journalist, he was forbidden to engage in military action. • he escaped punishment by claiming that he had only given advice. • For his actions in the war, Hemingway was given a Bronze Star for bravery. New Wife and Secret Life • Returned to Paris • In London, Hemingway met Mary Welsh, a Time magazine correspondent. • On their third meeting, Hemmingway offered a marriage proposal. • The wedding occurred in 1946. • During a return trip to Europe, Hemingway became infatuated with the teenager, Adriana Ivancich (EWW!!!). • This romance would inspire Hemingway’s book Across the River and Into the Trees. Which was received very poorly. • However in 1952, Hemingway would win the Pulitzer Prize for The Old Man and the Sea. Two years later Hemingway would be awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. Death • His mental and physical health worsened during this period. • Hemingway’s alcoholism worsened. • From 1955 to 1956, Hemingway was confined to his bed. • His doctors told him to stop drinking, but he did not comply. • His mental health deteriorated. • He attempted electoroshock therapy. • In 1961, Ernest Hemingway committed suicide. Novels Novels: – The Sun Also Rises in 1926 – A Farewell to Arms in 1929 – For Whom the Bell Tolls in 1940 (most ambitious novel) – The Old Man and the Sea in 1952 (most outstanding short story) Used plain, forceful prose style characterized by simple sentences and few adjectives or adverbs He wrote crisp, accurate dialogue and exact description of places and things Created a type of male character (Hemingway Hero) who faces violence and destruction with courage “Hemingway Code” is known as the trait of “grace under pressure” which appeared to be the unemotional behavior even in dangerous situation Novels For Whom the Bell Tolls A classic war romance that takes place in the mountains of Spain in 1937. It tells a story of a man by the name of Robert Jordan who is an American fighting for the Republicans. He is ordered to blow up a bridge as part of a large offensive. He has to work with a colorful group of local guerillas to help him out on his mission. In the process of the mission, he ends up falling in love with one of them. Literally, a lot of blood, sweat and tears went into this book. It was Hemingway’s own visit to war-torn Spain as a journalist and film production assistant in 1937 and 1938. He called this book “the most important thing I’ve ever done.” Novels The Old Man and the Sea An old fisherman who hasn’t caught a fish in 84 years and doesn’t eat much. He has a dream of lions he used to see in the old days and wakes up and decides to get in his boat and fish. Not too long after, he hooks a ridiculously large marlin. The man ends up see this fish as a brother and not an enemy. He finds it hard to kill it but ultimately does. The man straps the fish to the side of his boat and heads back home. On the way, sharks attack the boat eating the marlin. He tries beating them with a harpoon, club and finally a knife. When he reaches home, its only a skeleton. He goes to sleep and dreams of the same lions as before. The story is an example of the emotional weight of his work, and the characteristics of his unemotional male protagonist. Extra Biography • • • • • • • • • • • • Following his entry into World War I, he tried to enlist into the US Army but failed his physical test due to poor eyesight. By 1927 his first marriage was over, he then married Pauline Pfeiffer the same year. They met in Paris, and left the city for a fresh new start. Lived in Pauline’s family home, including a studio were he wrote. Their home can be toured at the Hemingway-Pfeiffer Museum and Educational Center in Arkansas. On a visit back home, he stopped in the Key West. The Key West gave him an opportunity to enjoy fishing. He sailed his boat all around the Gulf Stream. His house in Key West is also open to the public. If not sailing on his boat, he was writing. The summer of 1933, Hemingway, Pauline and a friend visited Africa for a threemonth Safari. While in Africa, he got a severe illness and had to recover in the hospital. He was a hunter and outdoorsman. He brought trophies home and also writing about his travel. Extra Biography • • • • • • • • • • After the start of the Spanish War, he wrote for the American Newspaper Alliance. During his coverage of the war, he traveled with a reporter named Martha Gellhorn. They first met in Key West and became closer together in Spain. Later in 1940, they got married after his marriage with Pauline ended. In 1940, him and Martha purchased a home outside of the Havana, Cuba. They live there for 20 years. He wrote a lot from his home in Cuba, but little of his work was published. After his death they were all edited and published. In 194, he traveled to Europe to report WWII. His first stop was London where he wrote the Wars Effect on the city. He met another reporter in London named Mary Walsh who later became his fourth wife. They traveled England together and after returning home he divorced Martha in 1945 and married Mary in 1946. His final home is in Idaho where outside of town there is a memorial for one of the twentieth centuries greatest personalities.