A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway (Introduction of the Author)

 

A Farewell to Arms

by Ernest Hemingway

(Introduction of the Author)

 

Ernest Hemingway is one of those authors, whose lives and works are interdependent. The writer has derived most of his raw material for his novels and short stories from his personal experiences. He was an ambulance driver in the First World War and was decorated for his bravery on the front, a deep-sea fisherman who won several trophies in fishing competitions, a boxer of no mean stature, a big-game hunter who spent months shooting wild animals in Africa, a soldier of fortune during the Second World War, a Nobel Prize winner for literature, a brilliant columnist who covered major wars and conferences for important newspapers and journals in the United States and Canada, Hemingway was born on July 21, 1898, in a prominent family in the wealthy, conservative suburb of Chicago known as Oak Park. His father was a well-known physician and amateur sportsman. His mother had talent both in music and in painting. In 1917 he graduated from Oak Park High School. Hemingway received his grounding in the Bible and the English classics at school. Two of his teachers, Miss Dixons and Miss Fannie Biggs encouraged him to write stories and essays with emphasis on originality. Thus, Hemingway was initiated into the art of writing at an early age.

Hemingway at the age of nineteen, felt restless. His uncle Tyler Hemingway took him to Kansas where he became a cub reporter for The Star, the first assignment as a reporter. In 1918 he was enlisted as an Honorary Lieutenant in the Italian Army. Fired by the humanitarian impulse that had motivated American participation in the First World War, Hemingway’s idealism soon turned to skepticism as he had witnessed human suffering on a massive scale. In the battle, he was hit by the exploding fragments of a trench mortar, and his knee and ankle were badly hit by the machine-gun fire. The Italian war experience around Fossalta awakened Hemingway to the faithlessness in love. There he had a love affair with an American nurse, Agnes H. von Kurowski, who was older than him. He wanted to marry her. She changed her mind but it gave rude shock to Hemingway. The aborted love affair may be accounted for Hemingway’s dissatisfaction with a large number of women, including his four wives.

After the war, in 1920, Hemingway returned to Chicago to be a writer but met Hadley Richardson to be her husband in 1921. Soon after his marriage, he went to Europe to become a roving correspondent for The Star with headquarters in Paris. In Paris, he was associated with Ford Maddox Ford, Ezra Pound and Gertrude Stein and became famous while still in his twenties. His first really important publication was the slim Three Stories and Ten Poems which came out in Paris in 1923. The artistic flame that had been kindled in Europe made journalistic work look pale and lifeless. In 1927, the first marriage came to an end. Pauline Pfeiffer, a dark-haired fashion writer who worked for Paris office of Vogue, became his second wife. In Our Time and The Sun Also Rises were published during his sojourn in Paris. With the publication of The Sun Also Rises, the reputation of Hemingway had been established. From 1928 to 1938 he stayed at Key West and his reputation as a sportsman, big-game hunter and fisherman grew and became a world celebrity with the publication of A Farewell to Arms.

Hemingway was variously involved in both the Spanish Civil War and in World War II. In Spain, he met Martha Gellhorn who was also covering the Civil War for the Collier’s Magazine. She became Hemingway’s pupil. Eventually, the pupil and the tutor were attracted, and it resulted in the third marriage of Hemingway. The novelist went to Havana in Cuba in May 1938 to write For Whom the Bell Tolls. From 1942 to 1944 Hemingway utilized his forty-foot cabin cruiser The Pilar against the Nazi U-boats in the Pacific off the coast of Cuba. In the Spring of 1944, Hemingway flew with the Royal Air Force to England and was accredited as a correspondent with the Royal Air Force. During the war, Hemingway’s relations with Martha Gellhorn deteriorated as she was extremely ambitious, and Hemingway had a deep-rooted suspicion of ambitious, career women. When he fell ill in Paris, instead of Martha Gellhorn, who had certain grudges against Hemingway, it was Mary Walsh who attended upon the sick novelist, and became his fourth wife. With his fourth wife, Mary Walsh, Hemingway lived a semi-patriarchal life in Cuba.

The Nobel Prize, which came in 1954 raised his spirits for some time but the Kafkan nightmares made him bone-tired and beat up emotionally. The tragedy of his last days is potentially brought in his own words, “What do you think happens to a man going on sixty-two when he realizes that he cannot write the stories and books he promised to himself? Or do any of the other things he promised himself in the good days.” On July 2, 1961, Hemingway shot himself to death and thus came the end of a most colourful and versatile literary giant of modern times.