Ernest Hemingway - (1899-1961)
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Campbell County High School, Gillette, Wyoming
Read other essays on Ernest Hemingway written by Illinois students
Darcy Mowrer and Justin Jaczinski and Idaho student Hoss White.I. Biography
Ernest Hemingway was born in Oak Park, Illinois on July 21,1899, to his mother Grace Hall and his father Dr. Clarence. His mother was a musician and wanted to travel, until Ernest was born. Then she gave up her dream and became a music teacher at a local school. His father, a quiet man was a well-known doctor. Ernest had four sisters and one brother. Including himself there were six children in his family. (Wilson)
During the depression his family's financial problems were horrible, and this lead his father to become stressed and tired. This resulted in the death of his father, Dr. Clarence, by suicide. His father was not the only suicidal death in the family. Two of his brothers died by suicide, along with Hemingway later in his life. (Tripod).
Oak Park was a protestant suburb of Chicago. Hemingway referred to it as, "wide lawns and narrow minds." Hemingway was raised with the values of strong religion, hard work, physical fitness and self determination. He was told if he achieved these he could conquer anything and do anything he wanted to do.
Hemingway was taught many things by his father and mother. By his father he learned the best of skills about fishing and hunting. Many of his younger days were spent with his father. His mother taught him the finer points of music. This he used to please one of his wives. He was schooled in the Oak Park public School. He mastered in sports. Football, swimming, water basketball, and track team manager. He worked on the school newspaper called the Trapeze, where he wrote his first articles. He graduated in Spring of 1917, and afterwards took a job as a club reporter for the Kansas City Star.
Hemingway did not have what you call an easy life. He married several women, and usually divorced because he was disloyal. He was shot down by the army because his sight was too bad. So he took up a position as an ambulance driver for the Red Cross. Here during this job he was injured by a mortar shell. After being severally wounded, it is said that Hemingway carried another wounded soldier to safety. By doing this he received a silver medal of honor. Afterwards he returned home to Oak Park, where life was dull and boring compared to the horrors of the war life.
"I am trying to make, before I get through, a picture of the world or as much of it as I have seen. Boiling it down always, rather than spreading it out thin."(Wilson).
II. Professional Life
When Hemingway was 18 he was put on a mentor ship with the Kansas City Star . A lot of his writng style was created there.
After his being wounded he returned to the United States and became a reporter for Canadian and American newspapers. He was sent to Europe to cover such events as the Greek Revolution. (Nobe Foundation).
Hemingway's works were all influenced by happenings in his life, and his ideas come to him through these trials, and good times. He worked for the Kansas City Star and was an editorial writer of the paper. For example, when Hemingway was an ambulance driver for the Red Cross, a munitions factory exploded and he had to carry mutilated bodies and body parts to a makeshift morgue. This, his wounding and his relationship with the nurse, Agnes, all inspired his great novel A Farewell to Arms. Hemingway spoke to the public, and pushed his ideas and stories, especially about his experiences during the war. (Wilson).
During his lifetime many writers were known, and influenced him greatly as well as him influencing them. Hemingway may not have been the greatest American writer, but he was THE writer. He took writing and fictions to a different level, like new levels of pop culture status. Hemingway was the war hero, the womanizer, the overbearing ego, the expatriate, the lion hunter, the marlin fisher, and the tragic figure. Hemingway lived a very disciplined life, and it is difficult to tell where his life and legend part. Before his life came to an end Hemingway had had four wives and had been to many different countries. He was known to move a lot and always have new friends. Hemingway was an example of admirable literary talent and ironic personality. (Retrospective).
Meanwhile living his life as it was, Hemingway suffered a type of cancer and later in his life depression set in. The effects of shock treatment and high blood pressure wore heavily on Hemingway, and on July 2, 1961, he shot and killed himself. (Tripod).
"But man is not made for defeat. A man be destroyed but not defeated." (Retrospective)
III. Literary Works
Death in the Afternoon (1932)
Soldier's Home
A Farewell to Arms (1929)
The Sun Also Rises (1926)
For Whom The Bell Tolls (1940)
The Old Man and the Sea (1952)
Men Without Women (1927)
The FifthColumn and the FortyNine Stories (1938)
Ahora Brilla el Sol
Big Two Hearted River
Clark's Fork Valley
Complete Short Stories of Ernest Hemingway
Correspondence
Fiesta
Fifth Column
Four Poems
The Snows of Kilmanjeno
The Green Hills of Africa (WYLDCat)
IV. Works Cited
The Hemingway Resource Center. Copyright 1999-2000
A Hemingway Retrospective. 2/13/2000.
Wilson. The Hemingway Resource Center. Copyright @1999,2000. http://www.lostgeneration.com/hembio.html
This essay was submitted by students of Nathel Coca, a teacher at Campbell County High School in Gillette, Wyoming.