Perhaps one of the most well-known American writers of the 20th century, Ernest Hemingway (1899-1961) crafted a uniquely simple literary voice through novels like A Farewell to Arms (1929), The Old Man and the Sea (1952), and For Whom the Bell Tolls (1940). His distinctive writing style, combined with a focus on the themes of war, masculinity, and love, gave his novels a gravity that had a powerful effect on 20th-century western fiction.
Ernest Hemingway: facts
Ernest Hemingway, one of the most iconic writers of the 20th century, was not only a master of the written word but also a larger-than-life figure whose adventurous lifestyle rivalled the characters in his own novels.
Fig. 1 - An artist's impression of Ernest Hemingway.
- Hemingway was an ambulance driver in World War I and was injured during his service. He was hit by mortar fire and sustained shrapnel wounds, which inspired his novel A Farewell to Arms.
- Hemingway was known for his love of adventure and the outdoors. He was an avid hunter and fisherman, and his love of these activities is evident in many of his works, such as The Old Man and the Sea.
- Hemingway was a notorious drinker and often referenced alcohol in his writing. He was known for his love of absinthe, mojitos, and daiquiris, among other drinks.
- Hemingway was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1954 for his contributions to the field. He was recognized for his unique style, which emphasized simple, direct language and a focus on real-life experiences.
- Hemingway had a love-hate relationship with fame and publicity. While he enjoyed the attention and accolades that came with his success as a writer, he was also fiercely protective of his privacy and often avoided interviews and public appearances.
- Hemingway was a polyglot and spoke several languages fluently, including English, Spanish, French, and Italian. He often incorporated foreign words and phrases into his writing, adding depth and richness to his prose.
Ernest Hemingway: biography
Hemingway's biography spans the early 20th century.
Ernest Hemingway's Biography |
| Birth: | 21st July 1899 |
| Death: | 2nd July 1961 |
| Father: | Clarence Edmonds Hemingway |
| Mother: | Grace Hall Hemingway |
| Spouse/Partners: | Hadley Richardson (1921-1927), Pauline Pfeiffer (1927-1940), Martha Gellhorn (1940-1945), Mary Welsh (1946-1961) |
| Children: | 3 |
| Cause of death: | Suicide |
| Famous Works: | |
| Nationality: | American |
| Literary Period: | Modernist, The Lost Generation |
Hemingway biography: early life and military career
Ernest Hemingway was born on 21 July 1899 in Oak Park (formerly Cicero), Illinois, a conservative suburb of Chicago. In his youth, Hemingway also spent time in northern Michigan, where he gained an appreciation for sports, nature, and the outdoors. At the age of seventeen, his career as a writer began in a newspaper office in Kansas City.
In 1918, after the United States joined World War I, Hemingway travelled abroad to volunteer as an ambulance driver in the Italian army. He served on the front lines and was severely injured, for which he received the Italian Silver Medal of Bravery. While being treated for his injury in Milan, he was attended by a Red Cross nurse with whom he fell in love but who did not reciprocate his feelings.
After the war, Hemingway worked as a journalist for various newspapers and journals in the US and Canada before moving to Paris in 1921.
Hemingway biography: life in Paris
Hemingway became a foreign correspondent for The Toronto Star in Paris, where he fell into the company of fellow expatriate artists and writers, including F. Scott Fitzgerald, Pablo Picasso, Ezra Pound, and James Joyce, often called ‘The Lost Generation’. At this time, Hemingway worked on his non-journalistic writing and began to see it in print. His first literary release, In Our Time, was published in 1924. This collection of stories set the stage for a promising writing career.
It was writer Gertrude Stein who dubbed this group of expatriate artists ‘The Lost Generation’. Stein hosted various salons in Paris during the 1920s, fostering important relationships between these artists and creating an interesting space for modernist art to flourish after the war.
Ernest Hemingway: death
Hemingway returned to the United States after the revolution took hold in Cuba and reflected on his life. He wrote a manuscript entitled A Moveable Feast, which served as a memoir of his time in Paris during the 1920s.
Hemingway’s long battle with depression came to a head during this period when he was hospitalised twice, and it ended with his suicide on 2 July 1961.
Ernest Hemingway: books
In 1926, Hemingway first experienced literary success with his debut novel, The Sun Also Rises. The novel, which was inspired by his time with ‘The Lost Generation’, follows a group of aimless, disillusioned expatriates in France and Spain.
Hemingway: A Farewell to Arms
He wrote various other novels while travelling, but his next major work was A Farewell to Arms, published in 1929. The novel was informed largely by Hemingway’s experiences as a young soldier in Italy. It follows an American lieutenant serving in the Italian army during WWI who falls in love with an English nurse.
As the war rages on around them, Frederic and Catherine fall deeply in love and attempt to build a life together in Italy. However, their happiness is short-lived as tragedy strikes and they are forced to face the harsh realities of war and the limitations of their own mortality. The novel is notable for its spare and direct prose, which is characteristic of Hemingway's writing style. It explores themes of love, loss, and the human struggle to find meaning in a chaotic and violent world.
Hemingway: Death in the Afternoon
During the 1930s, Hemingway spent much of his time travelling, especially in Spain. His passion for the country and for Spanish bullfighting formed the inspiration for his next major novel, Death in the Afternoon (1932).
Death in the Afternoon is a non-fiction book written by Ernest Hemingway about the cultural and historical significance of bullfighting in Spain. Hemingway became a passionate aficionado of the sport, and this book is his tribute to its beauty and brutality.
The book is divided into several sections, each of which explores a different aspect of bullfighting. Hemingway provides a detailed description of the various elements of a bullfight, including the toreros (bullfighters), the picadors (mounted assistants), and the matadors (the lead bullfighters). He also discusses the cultural significance of bullfighting in Spain and its evolution over time.
Hemingway: For Whom the Bell Tolls
Soon after, in 1936, Spain was plunged into civil war. Hemingway continued to travel there as a war correspondent, an experience which informed his next major novel, For Whom the Bell Tolls (1940). At the time of this novel’s release, Hemingway was at the peak of his literary success, both critically and commercially, and the book garnered a nomination for the Pulitzer Prize.
The novel is set during the Spanish Civil War and tells of an American volunteer who becomes attached to an anti-fascist guerrilla unit in the mountains of Spain.
In 1941, the United States entered World War II, during which Hemingway served again as a correspondent, covering major events during the war, including D-Day and the liberation of Paris.
Hemingway: The Old Man and the Sea
Following the war, Hemingway returned to his home in Cuba, which provided inspiration for his next novel, The Old Man and the Sea (1951). It follows an old Cuban fisherman who has a heroic struggle with a giant marlin.
The novel eventually won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1953. Hemingway’s critical acclaim culminated the next year when he won the Nobel Prize for Literature.
Ernest Hemingway: significance
Ernest Hemingway is important for many reasons, but two of the most important ones include his writing style and his coverage of the theme of war.
Hemingway’s writing style
Hemingway’s prose style became widely imitated in its simplicity. Through language, he sought to create a space for objectivity and honesty by doing away with literary embellishment and verbosity. His writing style was particularly distinctive: sentences remained short and simple with few adjectives and adverbs, creating a sense of narrative objectivity.
In The Old Man and the Sea, Hemingway writes, ‘The fish came alive, with his death in him, and rose high out of the water showing all his great length and width and all his power and his beauty. He seemed to hang in the air above the old man in the skiff. Then he fell into the water with a crash that sent spray over the old man and over all of the skiff.’
Hemingway’s style can be seen here in simple sentences without adjectives, relying mostly on repetition and rhythm rather than other complicated metaphorical devices.
Hemingway’s terse, concentrated sentences allowed little room for ambiguity. In eliminating emotional rhetoric from his language, Hemingway created a writing style that conveyed a harsh reality while still retaining a stoicism that powers the narrative onwards. Monosyllabic sentences served to capture a reality that seemed lost by using long, wordy, and overcomplicated prose.
Stoicism is a philosophy that emphasises clear, rational thought by overcoming emotions to form unbiased, informed opinions and ideas.
Themes of war
War was the setting for many of Hemingway’s novels, exposing the horrors and hardships of those involved. It was during these times that Hemingway saw it most necessary for one to adhere to a code of dignity, honesty, and honour.
In a world filled with moral complexity, pain, and destruction, Hemingway’s characters provide a sense of calm courage that he saw as the only mode of survival. The main characters of many of his novels are young men who had become scarred by their experiences in combat but who steel themselves by maintaining strong principles. By using war as a symbol of the harsh realities of the world, Hemingway exposes his contemporary reality as morally ambiguous and destructive.
Leaving behind an extensive body of work and an indelible impact on 20th-century fiction, Ernest Hemingway cemented his place in the literary canon. His chivalric principles and distinct narrative style created a literary voice that still remains unique. The stripped-down simplicity of his prose contrasts with his profound mediation on complex themes, like war, mortality, and the power of nature, lending a gravity that is authentic and honest.
Ernest Hemingway: quotes
The below quotes reflect some of the main themes and ideas in Hemingway's works.
The world breaks everyone and afterward many are strong at the broken places. But those that will not break it kills. It kills the very good and the very gentle and the very brave impartially. If you are none of these you can be sure it will kill you too but there will be no special hurry
(Ernest Hemingway, A Farewell to Arms, 1929).
Hemingway considers the harshness of ‘the world’, reflecting on mortality. His plain writing style emphasises the gravity of these themes.
Then the fish came alive, with his death in him, and rose high out of the water showing all his great length and width and all his power and his beauty. He seemed to hang in the air above the old man in the skiff. Then he fell into the water with a crash that sent spray over the old man and over all of the skiff (Ernest Hemingway, The Old Man and the Sea, 1951).
During the climax of The Old Man and the Sea, the Old Man kills the marlin. In this key moment, Hemingway once again considers life and death, especially in the natural world. Nature forms a formidable opponent that seems comparable to forces at war.
If you are lucky enough to have lived in Paris as a young man, then wherever you go for the rest of your life, it stays with you, for Paris is a moveable feast (Ernest Hemingway, A Moveable Feast, 1964).
In his posthumously published memoir, Hemingway coins this famous phrase about his time in Paris during the 1920s.
Ernest Hemingway - Key takeaways
- Ernest Hemingway was born in 1899 in Oak Park (formerly Cicero), Illinois.
- Hemingway served as an ambulance driver in Italy during WWI, where he had wartime experiences that informed much of his writing.
- In the 1920s, Hemingway moved to Paris, where he became acquainted with many other contemporary artists, often referred to as ‘The Lost Generation’.
- Hemingway published seven major novels, including key works like The Sun Also Rises (1926), A Farewell to Arms (1929), For Whom the Bell Tolls (1940), and The Old Man and the Sea (1951). Ernest Hemingway won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1954.
- Hemingway had a distinct writing style comprised of simple sentences with few literary embellishments and often wrote narratives that involved war or conflict.
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