How Ernest Hemingway's War Experience Influenced His Writing as Shown in a Farewell to Arms and the Sun Also Rises

Research Paper

How Ernest Hemingway's war experience influenced his writing as shown in A Farewell to Arms and The Sun Also Rises

English 102

John Thompson

Mr. Teplitz

Table of Contents

Bibliography.....................................3-5

A Farewell to Arms.............................6-10

The Sun Also Rises............................11-15

Conclusion......................................16-17

Bibliography

Ernest Hemingway was born on July 21, 1899 in Oak Park Illinois to Physician Ed Hemingway and pianist Grace Hemingway . Hemingway spent his childhood summers in upper Michigan , where he was able to hunt and fish . At age six , his father decided to move into an eight bedroom . (Greenhaven Press Inc, page 14)

Hemingway's parents believed in a strict household . Sunday's were spent going to church and worshiping the lord . His father taught him how to survive . He taught him how to use an ax and handle a gun , build a fire , prepare the game he caught in the wild . Throughout his teen years , he participated in and outdoor sports such as canoeing . Hemingway also grew articles for his school newspaper .

(Waldhorn, page 6)

Graduating from high school in June of 1917 , Hemingway's on call now for Tyler Hemingway helped him get a job as a reporter working for the Kansas City Star newspaper . Even though he worked for the Star, he longed to be part of the American troops fighting in World War . Hemingway decided to join the military . Unfortunately, Hemingway was rejected due to an injury to his left eye . Still wanting to be a part of the war effort Hemingway and another man working for the Star, Theodore Brumback, signed up to be ambulance drivers for the American Red Cross . (Greenaven Press Inc, page 15)

On May 23rd, Hemingway and his friend Theodore Brumback when aboard the ship , Chicago , for the destination to France and then to Italy . On July 7 , 1918 they reached their destination and more quickly put to work as ambulance drivers in Milan, . Hemingway did not realize that ambulance drivers would be a significant part of the war . Their daily routine consisted of going into battlefields and picking up wounded or dead soldiers . They often would take the soldiers from their battlefields and take them to the mortuary . This was certainly a shock to Hemingway , he did not expect in ambulance driver would be picking up dozens of dead soldiers on the battlefields . (Greenhaven Press Inc, page 17)

Later on in the war , Hemingway volunteered to maintain a relief station In the Fossalta di Piave. On July 08th 1918, Hemingway was to deliver supplies to Italian soldiers, when an Austrian trench mortar shell hit him . Hemingway seen and Italian soldier by him who was also injured . In an attempt to rescue the soldier , Hemingway was wounded in the knees by a machine gun bullet . Hemingway was sent to a hospital for operations to try and remove shell . Two months later he was awarded the silver medal of valor by the Italian government . A few months later he was once again injured and had to return for hospitalization . (Waldorn, page 56)

While in the hospital , Hemingway became friendly with a nurse who attended to him named , Agnes Von Kurowsky. Shortly after he returned home , he received a letter from her saying she found someone else . Hemingway was heartbroken from the news and decided to write a novel about it called A Farewell to Arms. The novel is based on a nurse and meets a wounded soldier in a Milan hospital. In October 1926, The first printing of The Sun Also Rises sold out quickly . Hemingway and his wife Pauline decided to move to Key West, Florida . There, Hemingway worked on his novel of A Farewell to Arms . At the time, Pauline was pregnant so they moved to Kansas city or Pauline gave birth to their son, after a long labor, performed by caesarean section. The situation is similar to the end of the novel A Farewell to Arms.

(Greenhaven Press Inc, page 26)

In December, Hemingway's father committed suicide . Hemingway returned to Oak Park to comfort his family. Hemingway wanting to get away, went on a safari in Africa in 1935 . This made Hemingway write another novel named Green Hills of Africa that documented his journey. In 1936 , civil war broke out in Spain . Hemingway was offered a job as a war correspondent . In Spain of 1956 , the year he turned 60, This was also the year his life began to fall apart. Throughout Hemingway's life, he suffered from overwork , difficult relationships, a family history of depression and a lifetime of alcohol and several severe injuries . These problems all soon lead to more emotional trials . In July of 1961, Hemingway committed suicide

(Greenhaven Press Inc, page 30)

A Farewell to Arms

Ernest Hemingway's war experiences had a immense impact on his writing. Hemingway often wrote his novels, and short stories on his own life experiences . Ever since Hemingway was a young boy he has always longed to participate in the armed forces and participated in the war effort as long as he could. Hemingway spent most of his life traveling all across the world and reporting for newspapers and magazines about the events that were taking . At the age of eighteen, Hemingway decided to participate in world war one as a volunteer ambulance driver . When he arrived in Milan for his first duty , he reported the battlefields were covered with splattered body parts and fragments of flash caught on barbed wire fences. Throughout the time he spent there, he