Ernest Hemingway: The Most Influential Writer Of The 20th Century

Wagner-Martin, Linda, Reynolds, David S., and Myerson, Joel, eds. A Historical Guide to Ernest Hemingway. New York: Oxford University Press, Inc., 2000. Print.

Ernest Hemingway started his career as a writer in a newspaper office in Kansas City at the age of seventeen. Here he learned to get to the heart of a story with direct, simple sentences. After the United States entered the First World War, he joined a volunteer ambulance unit in the Italian army. Here he was wounded near the Italian/Austrian front. Hospitalized, he fell in love with his nurse, who later called off their relationship. After his return to the United States, he became a reporter for Canadian and American newspapers and was soon sent back to Europe to cover such events as the Greek Revolution. During the twenties, Hemingway became a member of the group of expatriate Americans in Paris, which he described in his first important work ‘The Sun Also Rises’ (1926).

In Hemingway’s writing, he is always searching for truth, although, he often looks at the world in a nihilistic way. When reading through the authors’ short-stories or novels, he often refers to nothingness and the meaninglessness of existence. However, he also uses a practical application to repair his existential nihilistic viewpoints. Hemingway’s work is often seen as a representation of himself, and I believe that he used pragmatism as a distraction from the meaninglessness of the world. With suicide being prevalent in his family, I firmly believe that Hemingway himself strived for meaning in life, but eventually opted out because life is chaotic and there are too many unknown answers in the world. Hemingway tried to establish values and morals through pragmatism, but in reality, values are constantly changing and everything is temporary. By looking through a philosophical lens, I will demonstrate how Hemingway uses absurdism, nihilism, and pragmatism as a way to understand and interpret the world. In order to do so, I will look through Hemingway’s short-stories and novels and analyze passages critically to showcase the theories that are present in his work. In order to undertake this grand idea, I will also incorporate biographical elements to display Hemingway’s family history of suicide and to showcase his personal struggle to find meaning in the world.

Hemingway chose a unique approach to his story. Many short stories are filled with formal speech. However, Hemingway presented to us his story, without using exquisite words or elongated sentences. His writing was direct and minimal, but also precise. The author allowed us to create our own environment, by playing off common experiences in everyday life. By doing that he produced an atmosphere that can easily be fashioned and manipulated by the reader in order to create a relatable surrounding.

Ernest Hemingway is noted as being one of the greatest authors in American history. His style of writing and the topics he chose were appealing to readers of his time and his works are widely read to this day. Ernest was born on July 21, 1899 in Oak Creek, Illinois to Clarence and Grace Hemingway. As a young boy, he spent most of his time outdoors and enjoyed staying at his family's cabin in Michigan. It was here that he discovered his passion for hunting, fishing, and the outdoors. During high school, Hemingway wrote for the sports section of his school's newspaper and continued his newspaper career immediately after graduating when he went to work for the Kansas City Star. It was here that he gained valuable writing experience and adapted

Hemingway’s writing career began at Oak Park and River Forest High School, where he had several articles published in the school newspaper. Like Mark Twain and Sinclair Lewis, after high school young Ernest started his career as a journalist. He went to work for the Kansas City Star. Although he only stayed there for six months, his lifelong writing style was based on the guidelines contained in their style book - short sentences, short first paragraphs, vigorous English, and a positive attitude.

The period between World War I and World War II was a very turbulent time in America. Ernest Hemingway most represented this period with his unrestrained lifestyle. This lifestyle brought him many successes, but it eventually destroyed him in the end. His stories are read in classrooms across America, but his semi-autobiographical writings are horrible role models for the students who read them. Hemingway’s lifestyle greatly influenced his writings in many ways.

Hemingway starts the book out by moving to Italy where he joined the Army during World War 1 as an ambulance driver (Sindelar, 2014). Hemingway joined the war to end all wars, ready to display honor and courage (Sindelar, 2014). During battle, he was blown up in a trench (Sindelar, 2014). After the war returning home, he fell in love, contemplated marriage, and was rejected by the woman he loved (Sindelar, 2014). His conflict with death, battle wound, and first experience with love, all became key events for developing a code of behavior for facing life’s challenges (Sindelar,

He was an extraordinarily talented fisherman. He was an accomplished boxer. He was the winner of the bronze star as a war correspondent during World War II. Hemingway’s acts of bravery and manliness make him the epitome of manhood. This view of masculinity

Hemingway was a man of many talents. At an early age Hemingway found a certain fondness within nature. As you read in any of his works, he embraces nature as if it were a vase. Gentle when needed yet firm gripped, not to damage the serenity of natural order. Hemingway was average as a child, yet unlike the boys he grew up with he found solace in writing. Hemingway was no different than any other child of today. He had plans concerning his future, plans that were anything but what his parents wished. After high school he took a job with a newspaper, the "Kansas City Star". Not long after taking the job, Hemingway tried to be a fellow patriot and join the Army, however he was denied due to poor vision. He then did the next best thing and signed up with the American Red Cross, as a driver for emergency vehicles. He left for Europe the following May. Although he was not employed with the "Kansas City Star" but for a short time, he picked up on valuable information in which he incorporated

Ernest Hemingway can be described through countless different, positive personality traits. This includes words such as fearless, intelligent, heroic, and even courageous. However, can one truly describe Hemingway as “happy?” When taking a closer inspection of Hemingway’s life, along with all the pieces of literature he had written, one is able to see that Hemingway had a troubling life. Furthermore, like many authors, he reflects his struggles in life through his writing. As a result, in one of his very well-known short stories, “The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber,” Hemingway reveals his dysfunctional relationships with women and his own insecurity about his masculinity.

Hemingway’s childhood was infused with many hardships and roadblocks that continued to affect him later in life. He was extremely competitive and participated in boxing, football, and track, although he

returned to Illinois, he would give speeches at the public library recounting his adventures in Italy. At one of these lectures, one of the women in the audience was so taken by the young man’s diction, she asked her husband, who was the editor of the Toronto Star, to give him a job. Hemingway wrote for the paper, and soon asked to be a foreign correspondent, so that he could move to Paris and begin his writing career (Baker, 28).

This paper will discuss Ernest Hemingway's early affects and developments as a writer, literary pieces, and critics and reviews of his work. The area where Ernest Hemingway grew up affected his development as a writer. Ernest Hemingway was born in Oak Park, Illinois. He grew up in an upper-class suburb of Chicago (Gerogiannis). After some

Ernest Miller Hemingway was an American novelist, journalist, writer of short stories, and winner of the 1954 Nobel Prize for literature. He created a distinguished body of prose fiction, much of it based on adventurous life. He was born on July 21, 1899, the second of six children, in Oak Park, Ill., in a house built by his widowed grandfather, Ernest Hall. Oak Park was a Protestant, upper middle class suburb of Chicago. He died on July 2, 1961.