Ernest Hemingway

HEMINGWAY

My subject today is Ernest Hemingway. I would like to look at two of his works - 'A Farewell to Arms' and 'The Old Man and the Sea' - and discuss whether or not these works are autobiographical.

Ernest Hemingway - Forty years after killing himself with a shotgun, he remains one of the most famous American writers. Many of his works are regarded as classics of American literature and some have been made into motion pictures. According to CNN.com, "He took Americans around the world with his new style of fiction, and he took fiction to new levels of pop culture status. More than a writer, he was a war hero, the war correspondent, the expatriate, the lion hunter, the marlin fisherman, the womanizer, the drinker, the overbearing ego, the tragic figure."

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Born in Oak Park, Illinois in 1899, Hemingway was educated at Oak Park High School. After graduating from high school in 1917, he became a reporter for the 'Kansas City Star' but he left his job within a few months to serve as a volunteer ambulance driver with the Red Cross in Italy during World War 1. He was wounded in both legs by mortar and machine-gun fire, and while recuperating in a hospital in Milan, fell in love with a nurse.

Agnes von Kurowsky, an American born 26-year-old, was eight years older than Hemingway and had a reputation for being a flirt. Hemingway, a friend to her at first, eventually fell under her spell, and she too seems to have had feelings for Hemingway.

VIDEO CLIP - PHOTOS OF HEMINGWAY AND KUROWSKY

Hemingway returned to the States a war hero, but he was not able to keep Agnes' affections. She ended the affair with a letter that read in part, "I can't get away from the fact you're just a boy - a kid ..." She also told him she had fallen in love with another man and was going to marry him. Hemingway was heartbroken but moved on. The experience eventually led to Hemingway's classic novel, 'A Farewell to Arms'. - published in 1929, over ten years after the finish of World War 1.

On the surface there are many similarities between Hemingway's war experience and the experience of his character Frederic Henry. He too is an American, driving an ambulance for the Italian army during World War 1. The novel takes us through Fredric's experiences in war and his love affair with Catherine Barkley, and American nurse in Italy.

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The novel starts in the northern mountains of Italy at the beginning of World War 1. Rinaldi, Frederic's roommate, takes him to visit a nurse he has taken a liking to. Catherine Barkley, the nurse Rinaldi speaks of, is instantly attracted to Frederic and he is to her. Frederic courts her for a brief time before he goes to the front.

At the front, Frederic is wounded in the legs and taken to an aid station and then to an army hospital. He is then transferred to an American hospital in Milan where he meets up with Catherine again. Their love flourishes. They spend their nights together in Frederic's hospital bed and their days going to restaurants, horse races and taking carriage rides.

Frederic returns to the war after his recovery. The war is going badly in Italy. The German troops force a full-scale retreat. Soon after Frederic's return, he deserts the war in a daring escape. Frederic meets up with a pregnant Catherine in Stressa.

The two go over to Switzerland where they spend an idyllic time waiting for the birth of their baby. Catherine has a long and difficult labour. Their baby is delivered dead after Catherine undergoes a cesarean. Catherine dies soon after from "one hemorrhage after another." After Catherine dies, Frederic leaves and walks back to his hotel. 'A Farewell To Arms' is a story of love and pain and of loyalty and desertion set in the tragic time of war.

While Hemingway assured that public that his novel was not autobiography - that it is was a novel in its own right, there are many similarities between his life and that of the character Frederic. Not only were they both Americans involved in World War 1 in a medical capacity but as already pointed out, they both fell in love with a nurse after being wounded in the right knee and the relationship strengthened during their hospitalization. Agnes von Kurowsky left Hemingway for another Italian army officer however, while Catherine goes on to bear Frederic's child. Catherine's long labour and cesarean may well have been taken from the experience of Hemingway's second wife - Pauline Hemingway who in 1928 underwent a successful cesarean after twenty-four hours of labour.

According to 4essays.com, the differences between Hemingway's life and 'A Farewell To Arms' are only superficial. "There are deep psychological similarities that Frederic Henry and Hemingway share. These include their similar escapes, their morbid nature, their avoidance of relationships, their obsession with war and their similar views on death." 4essays.com maintains that Hemingway continued his relationship with Agnes through Frederic and Catherine. "He put his dreams of what his faded love affair would have been like in the love scenes between Catherine and Frederic."

"When I saw her I was in love with her. Everything turned over inside of me. She looked toward the door, saw there was no one, then she sat on the side of the bed and leaned over and kissed me."

Like Frederic, Hemingway acted out his feelings of inadequacy among other problems by hunting, fishing, drinking, spending lots of money. Escapism is a theme of the novel and both Frederic and Hemingway use it to deal with their similar wounds, psychological and physical. Hemingway also shows through Frederic his melancholy belief that death is in inevitable and that death ends life before anyone has the chance to live it. This is undoubtedly one of the reasons that Hemingway ended the book in Catherine's death and the death of her child. Frederic says in response to the deaths:

"You died. You did not know what it was about. You never had time to learn. They threw you in and told you the rules and the first time they caught you off base they killed you. They killed you in the end. You could count on that. Stay around and they would kill you."

Although it is easy to find many autobiographical elements in 'A Farewell To Arms', both factually and psychologically,