Hemingway if Literary Genius Can Be Described

Hemingway

If literary genius can be described as one person's ability to influence the thinking of others and to do it only with written words, then Ernest Miller Hemingway was certainly deserving of the title. With his direct, declarative and streamlined style of writing, a style he first learned while writing as a newspaper journalist, Hemingway observed the world around him and the people in it, and then wrote of his observations on the nature of mankind.

Born on July 21, 1899 in the family home at Oak Park Illinois, Hemingway was the second of six children for his parents. His father, Dr. Clarence Hemingway, was a family physician, and his mother, Grace Hall Hemingway a music teacher. As a boy he was taught by his father how to hunt and fish, and it was in his childhood that he developed a passion for exploring nature that would not only endure throughout his life, but would also drive him restlessly to seek adventures in the wild. In seeking his adventures, as well as observing the ongoing battles between man and beast, man and element, man and self, Hemingway then wrote about all that he sought and saw (CNN "Hemingway," 2000).

After graduating from high school in 1917, Hemingway went to work for the Kansas City Star, and it was there that he learned a particular writing style that he would utilize for most of his life's work in literature. The Star's stylebook instructed their reporters to, "Use short sentences. Use short first paragraphs. Use vigorous English, not forgetting to strive for smoothness. Be positive, not negative." The emphasis was on clear writing, and Hemingway displayed a typical Hemingway-passion for those rules. Only rarely did he break away from that style. "Those were the best rules I ever learned for the business of writing," he stated. "I've never forgotten them. No man with any talent, who feels and writes truly about the thing he is trying to say, can fail to write well if he abides with them. On the Star you were forced to learn to write a simple declarative sentence. That's useful to anyone" (Desnoyers. Para.12).

After Hemingway turned eighteen he tried to enlist in the army, but was deferred because of vision problems with his left eye, but when he learned that the Red Cross was taking volunteers as ambulance drivers he quickly signed up. He was accepted in December of 1917, left his job at the paper in April of 1918, and sailed for Europe in May. On July 8, 1918, only a few weeks after arriving, and while distributing cigarettes and chocolates to Italian soldiers in the trenches, Hemingway was seriously wounded by over 200 pieces of shrapnel from an Austrian mortar shell that landed just a few feet away. The explosion knocked Hemingway momentarily unconscious, killed an Italian soldier and blew the legs off another.

He was awarded the Italian Silver Medal for Valor with the official Italian citation reading: "Gravely wounded by numerous pieces of shrapnel from an enemy shell, with an admirable spirit of brotherhood, before taking care of himself, he rendered generous assistance to the Italian soldiers more seriously wounded by the same explosion and did not allow himself to be carried elsewhere until after they had been evacuated" (Lost Generation, para. 2).

After the war he became acquainted with writer Sherwood Anderson who advised Hemingway that if he was serious about becoming a novelist, he should move to Paris and live among the expatriate writers there. Although an inherent talent for writing belonged solely to Hemingway and was apparent even during his childhood, while living in Paris, his writing style matured into something memorable and great, perhaps due to the guidance or influence of other writers also living in Paris at that time. The names of those within his circle of friends, allies and mentors included Gertrude Stein, Ford Madox Ford, Ezra Pound, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and James Joyce (CNN para. 28), making Hemingway's apprenticeship - like nearly all of his other ventures and adventures - a rare one. Finesse was added to his style of literary sparseness and compression and his short stories and novels began attracting the attention and admiration of both the public and the critics.

In many of his works, Hemingway wrote from his own personal observations and experiences regarding bullfighting, big game hunting and deep-sea fishing on three continents. In the 1930's, however, he began writing for particular causes, including democracy, as he defined it in the Spanish Civil War and World War II. In each conflict he sought support for the side he favored, while true to his early training at the Star, he remained impartial in the presentation. All of his works showed an underlying brilliance as well as a pessimism born from observation. The pessimism was perhaps a precursor to the overwhelming depression that would eventually cloud Hemingway's later years.

Following World War II, many critics felt his writing career was finished - that he had produced all that he was capable of producing. Hemingway then wrote The Old Man and the Sea, however. It was his last major work and it led directly to his receiving the 1954 Nobel Prize "for his mastery of the art of narrative, most recently demonstrated in The Old Man and the Sea, and for the influence that he has exerted on contemporary style."

In this novella, in which the main character is said to have been inspired by Hemingway's longtime friend and boat captain, Gregorio Fuentes, he told the story of an old fisherman who struggles with a giant marlin, only to have it eaten by sharks after the fisherman finally succeeds in landing the fish. Some feel that the story, like so many of his stories, is symbolic of human courage, endurance and dignity in the face of defeat.

Hemingway's own endurance would be put to an overwhelming and terrible test during the last years of his life. Having suffered from numerous accidents and illnesses in his lifetime, in his later years he survived two near-fatal plane accidents that left him with additional permanent injuries. In the aftermath of the plane crashes, Hemingway's mental and physical health began a downward spiral. His physical injuries left him with a compromised kidney function for which he required medication. The medications necessary to sustain him physically left him incapacitated with depression. The treatment for depression included numerous electro-convulsive procedures ("shock therapy"), and those, in turn, robbed him of portions of his memory.