Saturday, April 7, 2012

The Life of Ernest Hemingway


Ernest Hemingway was an exceptional author whose goal was to write stories as real to life as possible.  For someone who led such an incredible life, this was no easy task.  Ernest Hemingway was born on July 21, 1899 near Chicago, Illinois.  His family spent summers at the family’s lake house at Lake Walloon.  It was those summers in which his love for hunting and fishing began.  He had a fairly typical childhood, but this did not keep him from having an extraordinary life.  His writing career began in high school as a reporter for the school newspaper.  After high school Hemingway, with help from his uncle, was able to become a reporter for the Kansas City Star.  This turned out to be short lived because he soon turned his eyes to World War I.  He attempted to enlist in the Army but was unable due to his poor eyesight.  Not one to give up, Hemingway volunteered with the Red Cross as an ambulance driver and was soon sent to Italy.  He was in Italy only a month before becoming seriously injured.  He was recognized by the Italian government as a hero for his extraordinary actions.  This was just one of many awards Hemingway would receive in his life.  Hemingway’s injuries led to him having two operations.  During his recovery he fell in love with a nurse, but the love was not returned to him. 
                In 1918 Hemingway returned his family home in Michigan to recover from his injuries and from a broken heart.  While recuperating he began to write short stories, although none published in his lifetime.  Not being one to stay in one place long, Hemingway moved to Toronto where he became a reporter for the Toronto Daily Star.  While continuing to write for The Star, Hemingway began to also write for a farm journal in Chicago.  It was during this time that Hemingway married his first wife, Hadley Richardson.  The two moved to Paris where Hemingway became a correspondent for The Star.  The years Hemingway spent in Europe would prove to be very fruitful for him.  He wrote several short stories, poems and his first novel, The Sun Also Rises.  While his career began to take off, his marriage with Hadley was ending.  Hemingway soon married his second wife, Pauline. 
                Through two more failed marriages and two plane crashes, Hemingway would continue to write.  His life continued to be filled with adventures, romance and war.  He traveled and lived all over the world.  A few places would become very special to him, in particular Cuba.  Hemingway never passed up the opportunity to live life to its fullest.  While Hemingway is remembered for his incredible literary works, his life was often as incredible as his stories.  He was an adventurist and lived his life as though there was no tomorrow.  In spite of all the good things he had in his life he was far from perfect.  His life would be cursed by depression and alcoholism.   Unfortunately the story of Ernest Hemingway came to a tragic ending when he lost the battle with depression and took his own life in 1961.  It seems that he would even write the ending to his own story. 


Sources:

Dictionary of Literary Biography, Volume 330: Nobel Prize Laureates in Literature, Part 2: Faulkner-Kipling. A Bruccoli Clark Layman Book. Gale, 2007. pp. 309-325.

Oliver, Charles M. "Hemingway, Ernest." Critical Companion to Ernest Hemingway: A Literary Reference to His Life and Work, Critical Companion. New York: Facts On File, Inc., 2007. Bloom's Literary Reference Online. Facts On File, Inc. http://www.fofweb.com/activelink2.asp?ItemID=WE54&SID=5&iPin= CCEH0001&SingleRecord=True (accessed April 7, 2012).

Elliott, Ira. "Ernest Hemingway." Writers for Young Adults. Ed. Ted Hipple. Vol. 3. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1997. Scribner Writers Series. Web. 7 Apr. 2012.

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http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/1954/hemingway-bio.html

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