ErnestHemingway

Grace Under Pressure

Death and Violence in Ernest Hemingway's Life and Work

1.Introduction

Death and violence were the two great constants in Hemingway's troubled and ever-changing life. In his infancy, he joined his father on hunting trips and was given his first shotgun at the age of ten. Fifty-one years later, he used one to commit suicide. In the meantime, he had hurt many and many had hurt him. He was a bit like Döblin's Franz Biberkopf, a tough, strong man with strong principles. Life thought that would be too bold to last, and started to hurt him. In fact, much of the beating he had to take and most of the losses he had to cope eith seemed neither his nor anybody else's fault. It seemed that life itself was against him sometimes. Hemingway "believed that life was a tragedy and knew it could only have one end"(Critiques (6.), p. 49), yet he was blessed by it with talent and fame. Maybe that made it harder for him to admit his failures and to correct them. This research paper tries, aside from analyzing the two novels as representatives of his work, to find out the reason for his ongoing decline and to point out mistakes and wrong decisions he made. It also tries to trace alternatives to Hemingway's actual development to reach a conclusion that sums up the effects of violence and death in its various forms upon Ernest Hemingway's life and work.

If you want to know where the quotes are coming from, please refer to the bibliography section. For easier reading, this text is split in several sections, you can get an all-in-one HTML version at http://people.freenet.de/sonics_homepage/hemtext.html

Main Part:Books and Beyond

FamousatTwentyFiveThirtyaMaster

FromBoytoManHemingwaysFirstWorldWar

FromRealitytoFictionAFarewelltoArms

TheTimeinBetween

SpaininFlames

ForWhomtheBellTolls

Robert Jordan and Frederic Henry: Two Facets of Hemingway

FredericHenry

Background

Character

Development