Ernest hemingway the writer of the lost generation course work

1.2.The Life Story of E. Hemingway 
hemingway language style novel 
Influential American writer of the 20th century famouse for his novels and 
short stories was born in July 21, 1899 in the town of Oak Park near Chicago in a 
wealthy family. He was the second of six children of doctor Edmund Clarence 
Hemingway and his wife Grace Ernestine Hall. His father, who was not only a 
good surgeon, but also an excellent hunter and fisherman, played and important 
role in the educating of Ernest. Every summer, Ernest lived in a father’s summer 
cottage on Lake Vallun, where he learned fishing and hunting, learned the nature, 
customs and history of his native land. Along with his father he went not only to 
hunting and fishing, but also to the Indian village, where Clarence Hemingway 
treated settlers free of charge. The memories of these all formed the basis for one 
of the first writer’s short stories “In the Indian Village”. When Ernest was twelve 
years old, his paternal grandfather, taking part in the Civil War, presented the boy 
the first gun in his life. And since that moment hunting and fishing were his the 
most favorite activities. The grandfather revealed the boy all the secrets of fishing 
known to no one but him. 
The only educational institution that Ernest Hemingway finished in his life 
was a school in Oak Park. At school ages the boy was very fond of sports. He was 
one of the best sportsmen of the school: he played football and water polo, went in 
for swimming and boxing. And not less than sports, he admired literature. 

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After finishing school, he firmly decided to become a journalist. In 1917 Ernest 
went to Kansas City, where he became a reporter of the newspaper “Kansas City 
Star”. Thanks to work as a reporter he improved his powers of observation, visual 
acuity; his work was a great experience he needed in further life. Besides, the 
environment, the level of the newspaper for which he worked, helped the future 
writer to get major skills of journalism. And a hundred “rules” made for newspaper 
“Star” reporters by the founder, largely coincided with Hemingway’s 
understanding of creativity: “Use short sentences. Use short first paragraphs. Use 
vigorous English, not forgetting to strive for smoothness. Be positive, not negative 
[33, с. 12]. Being a mature writer Hemingway considered these rules as the best 
ones he had ever written in keeping with. He believed that no person who felt and 
wanted to write truthfully would not write well if he rejected these rules. 
In spring of 1918 Hemingway went to Europe: he went as a volunteer to the 
Italian-Austrian front, and stayed in the U.S. Medical Corps. Here he was badly 
wounded in both legs. Having operated him twelve times, one after another, 
doctors found on him 227 wounds, took out of his legs twenty-eight fragments. For 
courage and bravery Hemingway won the Italian military awards. Demobilized in 
January 1919 he arrived to America. There he worked as a reporter, devoting all 
his free time to writing, and gravitated to Europe. In 1921 he received from the 
Toronto editorial office suggestion to become its European correspondent and send 
the material on his own. Along with his wife, pianist Hadley Richardson, 
Hemingway went to Europe for several years and settled in Paris. 
As a correspondent, Hemingway traveled a lot, visited many countries, sending to 
the editorial office sketches from Italy, France, Spain, Germany, Austria, 
Switzerland, Turkey. 
In December 1923, having quitted the career of journalist, Hemingway 
returned to Paris as a freelancer. Paris period was very bright and rich for Ernest 
Hemingway. He met such writers as James Joyce, Ezra Pound, Thomas Stearns 
Eliot, Gertrude Stein and Francis Scott Fitzgerald. 

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In 1923 in Paris his first collection, “Three Stories and Ten Poems”, was 
published, and in 1924 – his booklet “In Our Time”, which contained twenty-four 
miniatures. The author expected these stories and miniature-epigraphs to them to 
create an overall image of “our time” – so tragic and troubled time. After war, in 
peace time, he told of those incurable injuries the recent war caused mankind. The 
story collection comprised continuous autobiographical character, Nick Adams. By 
the book “In Our Time” Hemingway displayed himself as the author of a particular 
topic – anti-war and the “lost generation” – and style, marked by restraint and 
laconic narrative style. 
In 1926 Hemingway wrote a novel “The Sun Also Rises”, which is also 
known as “Fiesta”. This was a story about a group of American expatriates living 
in Europe after the First World War. In this novel the Hemingway’s style was 
crystallized, it was characterized by specific “chopped” dialogues omissions or 
implications and absence of the author’s marks [33, с.12]. The protagonist of the 
novel was Jake Barnes, a journalist and writer, which seemed internally devastated 
and spiritually broken off. He told his personal tragedy: he was shot and wounded 
in the battle and the consequences were too grave for him as for a man. To run 
away somehow from the memories, to get rid of dark thoughts about him, he and 
Brett Ashley – the woman he loved – became frequent visitors of Montmartre 
taverns, having fun at fiesta. 
Hemingway won the world fame when wrote his novel “A Farewell to 
Arms” (1929). It displayed the evens at the Italian-Austrian front in 1917. The 
author created a striking image of life in war, oppressive melancholy of hospitals. 
The style of the novel was characterized by extreme restraint, “telegraphic style” 
[33, с.18]. But beneath the external simplicity a complex content, the world of 
thoughts and feelings lurked. Hemingway said that the writer had to know well of 
the things he wrote about, in such case he could omit much details and, if he told 
the truth, the reader would feel everything omitted as if it was not omitted [33, 
с.19]. 

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Hemingway proved “the theory of the iceberg” which demanded from the 
writer to be able to choose the most important and most characteristic events, 
words and details saying that literary work seemed to him like an iceberg only the 
seventh part of which was seen above the level of water; the writer had to throw 
out everything he could throw: those things would change his iceberg and all the 
omitted details would fade beneath the water; but if the writer missed something he 
didn’t know his story would have holes [23, с.19]. 
In 1930 Hemingway and his wife returned to America. They bought a house 
in Key West, a fishing village located on the southern edge of Florida. Hemingway 
went in for boxing, hunting for deer, elks and quails in the states of Idaho and 
Wyoming, catching big fish. He ordered and equipped its own yacht “Pillar” to go 
fishing by it. In 1934, along with wife, he went to Africa to his first safari – 
hunting big animals. Before leaving to Africa, he visited Spain and Paris once 
more, attended fiesta in Pamplona, met his Spanish friends and matadors. 
In 1932 Hemingway’s “Death in the Afternoon” was published – a book of 
sketches, dedicated to fighting bulls that gave the writer an opportunity to express 
love to Spain and its people, its nature, customs and arts. The next book of essays, 
“Green Hills of Africa” (1935) was a diary of safari, in which interesting 
observation of the African tribes, the fauna, descriptions of landscapes and hunting 
were combined with reflections of art, of literary work, of the essence of life and 
death. 
The Hemingway’s stories widely published in the early 1930’s in American 
magazines were collected to a book called “Winner Take Nothing” (1933). The 
characters of the stories were the people from the lower classes of society, the 
people 
who 
suffered 
from 
physical 
and 
psychological 
injuries 
of 
uncommunicativeness. In 1936 “The Snow of Kilimanjaro” was released. It was a 
story about physical and creative destruction of a writer Harry. It outlined the 
problem of lost talent of a writer tempted by material prosperity. The next year the 
novel “To Have and Have Not” was printed. The events described in it took place 
in America. The main character of the work, Harry Morgan, turned a smuggler; 

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because of poverty he stepped to the way of crime and went down the thorny way 
of his insight [1, c.36]. 
In the summer of 1937 Hemingway met Martha Helhorn, a journalist who 
went to Key West to take writer’s interview. A few years later, having been to 
Spain, they returned to the States together and become and got married. 
Literary work of Hemingway in the late 1930’s was closely related to his 
participation in the anti-fascist struggle of Spanish people. He purchased a column 
of health cars and sent them to Spanish Republicans. In the spring of 1937 he 
arrived to Madrid. He stayed in Spain one and a half year, wrote essays “The 
Spanish soldier”, “The Madrid Drivers”, a scenario of the film “The Spanish 
Earth”. Spanish events became the theme of his play “The Fifth Column” and the 
novel “For Whom the Bell Tolls”. Since the early 1940’s Hemingway lived in 
Cuba. During World War II, he took part in hostilities. In 1942-1943, by his armed 
yacht “Pillar”, he repeatedly went out to the Caribbean Sea to hunt for German 
submarines. In 1944 the writer came to England, took part in the landing of 
American troops in Normandy and fought for the “Siegfried Line” and the 
liberation of Paris. During the war Hemingway worked at a book about the sea 
which remained unfinished and was published only in 1970. It was named “Islands 
in the Stream”. 
In London Hemingway met military correspondent Merry Welsh, they liked 
each other. In March 1945, Hemingway returned to America, parted with Martha 
Helhorn and along with Mary settled near Havana, in his estate. In 1950 his new 
novel “Across the River and Into the Trees” appeared. The protagonist of the work 
was colonel Richard Kentuell, fifty-year-old soldier who went through two world 
wars. Having turned out to be in Venice after the Second World War, he was going 
through his last love – love to a young beautiful countess Renate. The general tone 
of the story was gloomy: ill Kentuell, feeling the end getting near, summed up 
disappointing results and committed a suicide [1, c.44]. 

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In 1952 Hemingway published a story “The Old Man and the Sea” for which 
he received the Pulitzer Prize, the highest literary award of the United States, and 
the Nobel Prize in 1954. 
In 1950 Hemingway acquired nostalgic mood, he visited his memorable 
places and countries, took part in the African safari, went to bullfighting in Spain 
four times, and in 1956 he visited Paris. Twice he fell in plane crash. In 1957 he 
wrote a book about Paris in twenties, which was printed after his death, entitled 
“The Movable Feast”. 
In 1959 Hemingway and Merry settled in Ketchum, Idaho. During his last 
years the writer felt sick, suffered both physically and mentally. In one 
conversation Hemingway said that the man had no right to die in bed, he had to die 
in a battle or to send a bullet in his temple [33, с.28]. In July 2, 1961, being in hard 
depression, he committed suicide, having shot himself with a rifle. 
Hemingway’s genius as an American original was evident long before he 
produced his novels that are today considered masterpieces of American literature. 
Both critics and readers have hailed his short stories as proof that a pure, true 
American literature was finally possible. American literature was no longer merely 
watered-down British reading fare. American literature had at last come into its 
own. Hemingway set the standard – and the writers who came after him honored 
his achievement. 
Hemingway’s style proves to be equally complex and worthy of study, as he 
was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1954. His terse prose requires the 
reader to make inferences and construct meaning beyond the words on the page. 
This novel provides multiple opportunities to explore how a writer uses syntax and 
diction to create meaning and enhance his purpose. He uses understatement to 
follow a description of the fatigue and sickness that had struck the Italian army, 
underscoring his disgust and horror of the conditions that soldiers endured; he 
employs stream-of-consciousness to reinforce the drunken stupor that Henry finds 
himself in to numb the pain associated with war; and his use of dialogue forces the 

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reader to be influenced by the speech of the characters to explore his or her own 
thoughts on the subject. 
In short, Hemingway’s stylistic influence on American writers has been 
enormous. The success of his plain style in expressing basic yet deeply fell 
emotions contributed to the decline of the elaborate prose that characterized 
American writing in the early 20th century. Legions of American writers have 
cited Hemingway as a major influence on their own work [9, c.57]. 
It is interesting that his works remain topical; they don’t lose their value for 
long time. We can see their reflection in modern fiction, music, painting and other 
spheres of human spiritual activities. His novels and short-stories are included into 
school and high-school study programme and actively used in the process of 
teaching English as they contain a lot of lexical, grammatical and stylistic patterns, 
interesting idioms; cultural information; philosophical thoughts and many other 
things helping master the language and take up the culture of the native-speakers or 
just to widen one’s outlook.