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ERNEST HEMINGWAYThe Author and his Narrative Technique
WHY STUDY HEMINGWAY? Hemingway marks a new era in American
writing, the modern era, and is often considered the American writer
Hemingway makes extensive use of his own experiences in his fiction, so to fully understand (and enjoy) his work, a little knowledge of his life and narrative technique is needed
In class we will study a number of stories from the collection of short stories In Our Time (1925)
OAK PARK, HEMINGWAY’S BIRTHPLACE
OAK PARK, ILLINOIS
Born 21 July 1899 in Oak Park, a Chicago suburb Oak Park protected its children against
corruptive forces until they were 18 – so no uncensored movies, boxing matches, gambling, smoking, drinking etc. And no information about birth control, venereal diseases etc.
Oak Park curfew: 8 P.M. in autumn and winter, 9 P.M. in spring and summer. Later than that you had to be escorted by an adult
Village values: going to church, charity, musical evenings, public lectures etc.
Unlike most other authors, Hemingway never wrote about his hometown
WINDEMERE COTTAGE, MICHIGAN
WINDEMERE, MICHIGAN The year Hemingway was born his family
bought a cottage on Walloon Lake in Michigan
Hemingway, his parents, four sisters and a brother spent every summer there until Hemingway was 19
Here Hemingway learnt to appreciate nature and was taught how to fish and hunt by his father
Hemingway spent the summers camping out, hiking and being with friends from Horton Bay
He got aquinted with the last of the Ojibway Indians who lived in the woods close to Horton Bay
Many of Hemingway’s stories are set in this area and some of his characters resemble ’real’ people
CLARENCE HEMINGWAY (1871-1928)
PARENTS His father, Clarence Edmonds Hemingway (Dr. Ed),
was a doctor and out of a respected and well-known family
He loved outdoor life and shared this passion with Ernest
He was a devoted father and husband until illness made him withdraw from society
Clarence met Grace Hall, at first she was unsure about whether to choose marriage or a career
"When Ed was courting the rather reluctant Grace, he promised that she would never have to do housework and kept his word. He always prepared the children's breakfast and served Grace in bed. He bought the groceries, did most of the cooking, took care of the laundry and managed the servants despite his medical responsibilities." (Jeffrey Meyers, biographer)
GRACE AND CLARENCE, 1896
PARENTS Grace and Clarence had six children, Ernest
was the second. When Ernest was born Clarence blew a horn on the porch to announce the birth of his first son
He suffered from depression and diabetes and was worried about the family’s financial future and shot himself in 1928. Ernest blamed his mother for his death
THE HEMINGWAY FAMILY, 1916
PARENTS Grace Hall-Hemingway (1872-1951) was a great
opera singer, she auditioned for The Metro-politan Opera in New York and was offered a contract but decided to marry Clarence instead
Grace was very religious (Protestant) She was a feminist and a member of a club
demanding suffrage for women – her mother Adelaide was the director of the club
Grace wanted equality and kept her maiden name in marriage, hence the last name Hall-Hemingway
She gave up her career as an opera singer, but continued working as a music teacher and helped support the family with her income
She used her inheritance to build the family a new home in 1906, still in Oak Park
PARENTS Hemingway thought his mother failed to be
feminine which led to his father’s lack of masculinity – his father was treated for hysteria although it was considered a women’s disease
He hated his mother and blamed her for his father’s death: ”I hate her guts…she forced my father to suicide…I will not see her and she knows she can never come here”
He refused to attend her funeral in 1951 because ”she would be as dangerous dead as most women alive, I know I’d never go to her funeral without being afraid she was booby trapped”
WRITING When Hemingway graduated from high
school he was too young to enlist in the Army Instead he got a job as cub reporter at the
newspaper the Kansas City Star through some relatives
At the Star he learned to write about small events for small-town people using simple, declarative sentences
He quickly adopted the Star writing style: short first paragraphs, vigorous language, no superfluous words, few adjectives and no worn-out phrases.
He continued working as a journalist and war correspondent all his life
NARRATIVE TECHNIQUE This style of objective, unemotional and
minimalistic writing influenced Hemingway greatly and is found all through In Our Time
This technique is often referred to as the iceberg technique or tip of the iceberg as Hemingway shows only 10% - the remaining 90% he has deliberately omitted, just like you only see one tenth of an iceberg.
NARRATIVE TECHNIQUE Mastering this technique takes a lot of editing
and Hemingway spent a lot of time revising and taking out everything that wasn’t absolutely essential to the story
All words about feelings are left out, but still you feel the pain and tension when you read them, this is due to Hemingway’s view that “if a writer could accurately describe the facts that cause emotion, it was unnecessary for him to describe emotion”
Recurring themes in Hemingway’s work are: masculinity, femininity, pain (mental and physical), growing up, war, life, death, fishing, bullfigthing, light, darkness, childbirth, relationships, numbness, suppressed emotion – all things he knew about from his own life
EDITING AND REVISION
SYMBOLISM Hemingway makes heavy use of nature
symbolism, rain represents death, pain and despair in A Farewell to Arms for instance
Rain is also an important theme in Cat in the Rain where it has several symbolic meanings
In Indian Camp it is misty, indicating that we don’t see or know everything that goes on
In general there are a lot of double meanings in Hemingway’s work, and often more words are used in the same story for the same thing
In Cat in the Rain the American woman is both called a woman and a girl, and the cat is also called a kitten – so watch out for choice of words!
THE ARMY Hemingway hadn’t forgotten about the Army, but
failed to enroll due to bad eyesight Instead he volunteered as an ambulance driver for
the American Red Cross in Italy in 1918 After barely a month he was severely wounded by
an Austrian trench mortar and spent 5 months recovering in an Italian military hospital
His nurse was an American woman named Agnes von Kurowsky with whom Hemingway fell in love
He thought they were engaged to be married, but Agnes broke off whatever their relationship might have been saying she was much too old for him (she was 8 years his senior)
She was one of the few women who turned Hemingway down
AGNES VON KUROWSKY, HIS FIRST LOVE
THE ARMY AND WRITING The setting and opening of the novel A
Farewell to Arms draws heavily on his experience with Agnes although the ending is greatly changed
Just like many of Hemingway’s stories are set in Michigan, many are set in war situations in Italy or Spain (the Spanish Civil War)
Hemingway returned to America as a decorated war hero
HEMINGWAY, 1918
MARRIAGES Hemingway’s first wife was Hadley Richardson
(married 1921-1927), they had a son John Hadley was not interested in feminism, but more
of a ”true woman” than a ”new woman” She was fragile, gentle and dependent – a born
follower. In short everything Hemingway’s mother wasn’t
Zelda Fitzgerald once said: ”I notice in your family you do everything Ernest wants”
Hemingway had ”a powerful desire to pay his own way – or to convince himself and others that he had done so”, still he let Hadley pay for their time in Paris
Hemingway was unfaithful to Hadley as he was to all his wives
HADLEY, ERNEST AND THEIR SON JOHN (BUMBY)
MARRIAGES Hemingway’s second wife was Pauline Pfeiffer
(married 1927-1940). They had two sons, Patrick and Gregory
Like Hadley, Pauline was a submissive woman who made Hemingway feel more masculine and strong because she was weak
Pauline was devoted to him during their entire marriage and ”made her husband her life’s work”
By choosing these women Hemingway tried to avoid the mistake he saw in his own parents’ marriage
From 1936 Hemingway had an affair with Martha Gellhorn, Pauline knew about it
PAULINE AND ERNEST
MARRIAGES His third wife was Martha Gellhorn (married
1940-1944) She was a journalist and war correspondent
like Hemingway and a ”truly ambitious woman”
Martha was full of courage and Hemingway admired her deeply, later he also resented her independence, ambition and determination because these qualities reminded him of his mother
He felt unable to write when she wasn’t there and wanted her to give up her job
Martha on the other hand felt confined, bored and ill-used when she was at home
MARTHA GELLHORN AND ERNEST HEMINGWAY
MARRIAGES When she worked in Italy and Africa he kept
sending her cables saying: ”Are you a war correspondent or a wife in my bed?”
He started drinking heavily and decided to punish her
He offered to work for the magazine she had worked for for years – and as each newspaper was only allowed one war correspondent she couldn’t work at the front anymore
Hemingway went to London by plane (leaving Martha to go by a ship carrying explosives and no lifeboats)
He had a car accident and started dating Mary, when Martha finally arrived she said that ”she considered herself free and separate from him”
MARRIAGES His fourth and last wife was Mary Welsh
(married 1946-) Whereas Martha didn’t stand up to any ill-
treatment and refused the submissive female role, Mary was the old-fashioned woman who endured all Hemingway’s whims
During their marriage his paranoia and depressions increased and he became more and more abusive to Mary
Also his view on women became increasingly patronizing (he generally called women ”daughter”)
She considered divorce, but stayed with him to his death in1961
MARY AND ERNEST
GREAT WORK Hemingway wrote In Our Time and The Sun also
Rises, among others, when he lived in Paris in the 1920s with his wife Hadley and writers like James Joyce and F. Scott Fitzgerald
He went on safari in Africa in 1933 which gave rise to Green Hills of Africa and The Snows of Kilimanjaro
The Spanish Civil War, during which he worked as a war correspondent, also inspired him to write the novel For Whom the Bell Tolls. In Spain he was also introduced to bullfighting
In 1952 The Old Man and the Sea was published, critics and readers alike loved it and in 1953 he won the Pulitzer Prize
In 1954 he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature
SUICIDE
In his last years Hemingway drank heavily and had serious depressions for which he was treated with shock therapy
In 1961 he attempted suicide twice and was re-admitted to hospital
On 2 July Hemingway committed suicide by shooting his brains out and thereby ended his life like his father
HEMINGWAY’S TOMB IN KETCHUM,IDAHO