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Earnest
Hemingway was one of the most noted of the American writers of the 1920’s and 30’s. He is well known for his short stories
and his crisp and laconic language. He was the model of many writers of
the era and exerted great influence on molding the style of many writers. Even
today some of his books are considered as American classics and some have even
been made into movies.
Hemmingway
was born on 21st. July 1899 in Oak Park, Chicago. He had six other
brothers and sisters and was the second child. At the age of three weeks he
was taken to his father’s property in Bear Lake and on his parent’s third
wedding anniversary was christened as Earnest Miller Hemingway. He was a quick and
clever child and by the age of three was already catching fish, helping
his father, making forts and cannons with building blocks and counting and spelling with ease. When he was six years old his grandfather died
and the
Hemingways moved away from the ancestral house to a three storied, eight bedroom
house at the junction of N. Kennilworth and Iowa Street. Here his father Dr.
Ed Hemingway had his consulting room as well.
His
was a strict and orthodox family. Sunday was not a day of enjoyment in the
family, but a day to be spent in church and in remembering God. No
disobedience was tolerated in the Hemingway household and any sort of
misbehavior was remedied by a sound thrashing from either of the parents. Each
parent had a hand in moulding their children, with Ed Hemingway teaching them a
love for nature, using weaponry and fishing and their mother inculcating in
them a love for the arts. It was little wonder then that Earnest turned out such
an exceptional person. On his twelfth birthday, his father, who insisted that
all his children learned to handle weapons and tackles from an early age,
presented him with a single barrel shotgun. He had a happy and normal
childhood, spending his summers at Bear Lake and his winters in Chicago. Since
he was a child, he liked to make up stories in which he was invariably the hero.
He grew up into a well-rounded young man who loved to be scrupulous and courageous.
He
did his schooling at the Oak Park and River Forest Township High School. He
was always good at English but showed little inclination for other subjects.
While in school he started writing for the school newspaper. Later on his work
was considered as some of the most important work of the twentieth century. A
lot of his work draws inspiration from his real life experiences. He was an
ambulance driver in Italy in the First World War in 1914. Later he was
transferred to the Italian infantry where he was grievously wounded. He was a
correspondent with a Spanish newspaper during the Spanish Civil War. In World
War II he was a correspondent and then a reporter. After the war he settled
down in Havana, Cuba and moved to Ketchum, Idaho in 1958.
Hemington
first became famous when at the age of 25 he wrote his first book ‘The Sun
Also Rises’, where he wrote about American expatriates in Paris. In his book
‘For whom the Bell Tolls’ he wrote about the Spanish War. His other books
include ‘In our times’, ‘Men without Women’, ‘A Farewell to Arms’,
‘The Old Man and the Sea’, ‘Death in the Afternoon’ and ‘Green
Hills of Africa’.
He
lived a lavish life and kept a number of homes in various countries, where he
entertained a great deal. He began drinking heavily and was in a perpetual
state of drunkenness. He had a close brush with death many times and escaped
narrowly only to finally commit suicide by shooting himself with a shotgun. Even
today his short stories and novels are enjoyed and read by many people and he has a large following of admirers.
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