Ernest "Papa" Hemingway

Hemingway posing for a dust jacket photo (Wikipedia)

American author and journalist Ernest Hemingway (1899-1961) was one of the first writers to portray himself as a hard-drinking, bar-fighting tough guy--not a weak little fellow with glasses, but a manly man who participated in dangerous adventures and then put elements of them in his stories to share with his readers. (Jack London was another such writer.)

He wrote primarily from the mid-1920s, when he was living with the so-called "Lost Generation" in Paris, to the mid-1950s. He was prolific: in addition to his seven novels, there were around 70 short stories, as well as seven books of non-fiction. He received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1954.

Seven years later he killed himself.

Despite his success, his life had not been a particularly easy one. He was wounded while volunteering as an ambulance driver for the Red Cross in Italy during the First World War. From this experience came his book A Farewell to Arms (1929). Later, he observed battles and bombings as a newspaper correspondent in the Spanish Civil War, which inspired For Whom the Bell Tolls (1940). And after writing The Old Man and the Sea (1952, based on his experience in deep-sea fishing), he went hunting in Africa, where he was in not one, but two plane crashes. He was in pain and bad health for much of the rest of his life.

His private life was no more peaceful: he was married four times, and divorced three. He became a heavy drinker, and in the last year of his life was hospitalized twice for mental problems.

Finally, his mental and physical health a wreck, he took his own life at his home in the state of Idaho. Interestingly, his father (a physician), his brother (also a writer), one of his sisters, and his granddaughter also committed suicide.

The "machismo" of Hemingway's life is reflected in his style--and his nickname. His work is known for using short, repetitive sentences that sound like a tale told by a vigorous working man, instead of the flowery words of the 19th century authors. And within his own lifetime, he became known as "Papa." Some have guessed that this might reflect his manliness; others, that he had a softer, more fatherly side, demonstrated in his storytelling like a father speaking to his children.

---

PRACTICE:

Vocabulary: Match the words to their meaning. Correct answers are below.

1. ambulance
2. flowery
3. hospitalized
4. journalist
5. machismo
6. primarily
7. Red Cross
8. repetitive
9. suicide
10. vigorous

1. mainly; mostly
2. using a lot of fancy words; ornate
3. active; energetic
4. a person who writes for newspapers or magazines
5. put in the hospital
6. an emergency vehicle designed for carrying sick people
7. using the same words again and again
8. manliness (sometimes fake)
9. the act of killing oneself
10. an international humanitarian organization

QUESTIONS TO ANSWER:

Answer the following questions in your own words. Suggested answers are below.

1. How did Hemingway change the image of "the writer"?
2. What formative experience did Hemingway have during the First World War?
3. Where was Hemingway in the 1920s?
4. What were some of the causes for Hemingway's poor health?
5. What is distinctive about Hemingway's style?

QUESTIONS TO THINK ABOUT:

These questions do not have "right" or "wrong" answers. They only ask your opinion.

1. In addition to the story ideas it generated, how do you think Hemingway's life affected his work?
2. How do you think Hemingway's knowledge poor health and subsequent suicide might affect the way we read his works?
3. Is it possible for suicide to "run in the family"?

--------

ANSWERS:

Practice: 1. F; 2. B; 3. E; 4. D; 5. H; 6. A; 7. J; 8. G; 9. I; 10. C

Questions to Answer:

1. Hemingway wrote about his manly adventures, making "the writer" a tough guy.
2. Hemingway was wounded when he volunteered as a Red Cross ambulance driver in Italy.
3. Hemingway was in Paris in the 1920s.
4. In addition to his war wound, Hemingway survived two plane crashes in Africa. (Then there was the alcoholism.)
5. Hemingway's style was typically terse, using short, repetitive sentences.

Questions to Think About do not have any single correct answer. However, any answers you give should be supported by what you read or by things you know ("I think... because...").