Ernest Hemingway's Influence On American Literature

Ernest Hemingway was one of the best known writers of the 20th century. His short stories were very interesting to read because they are narratives of real life problems of ordinary relatable people, they are set in unusual exotic places, and Hemingway would use intriguing dialog. Hemingway’s story stories had multiple meanings and one persons’ interpretation is neither right nor wrong. Hemingway had a way of writing that would draw the reader in and making them think, he wants the reader to use their own imagination, and see the characters and relate them to the readers’ situation. Hemingway had a fascinating life therefore his writing reflected his life. Hemingway loved to surround himself with famous writers, and he loved the attention from

the press. It is possible that if he never traveled or had been married four times his writing would be completely different. Hemingway won awards for his writing, including the Pulitzer Prize and the Nobel Prize of Literature. Even though Hemingway was a successful writer he faced many hardships with his inner self during his life. Sandison noted in Hemingway’s biography “Ernest Hemingway leaving of this world was every bit as fascinating and crammed with subtexts…weather working as a reporter, novelist, essayist or short story writer, Ernest Hemingway had the ability to imply far more than he ever spelled out in his carefully and characteristically terse sentences, so leaving millions of readers the pleasure of adding their own details” (15).
Biographical Information- 784
Ernest Miller Hemingway was born on July 21, 1899 in Oak Park, Illinois, the oldest son of Clarence and Grace Hemingway. He grew up in a strict Protestant home. The New World Encyclopedia notes that Hemingway learned to love nature by frequently visiting the cabin, “Windemere,” his parents owned on Michigan’s Walloon Lake, and “adopted his father’s outdoor interests- hunting and fishing in the woods and lakes” (Ernest Hemingway). David Sandison, Hemingway’s biographer, notes that while at the cabin Hemingway suffered multiple injuries, including like running with a stick in his mouth which resulted in damaging his tonsils, and getting a fishhook stuck in this back. While this was typical of a young boy, he would go on to be involved in many accidents in his lifetime (25).
In high school Hemingway learned to express himself through his writing “thanks in no small part to the encouragement and inspiration he received from two English teachers, Margaret Dixon and Fannie Biggs” (27). Even though he did well in school, both academically and athletically, competing in football, swimming, water polo, and boxing as well as playing in the orchestra, playing a lead role in the senior play and competing on the debate team, he chose not go to college, instead at 17 he took an a job as a reporter for the Kansas City Star (27-28).
The New World Encyclopedia notes During WWI Hemingway wanted to join the army against his father’s wishes, but he was unable to pass the medical examination, instead he decided to join the American Field Service Ambulance Corps to be an ambulance driver, and he was awarded the Italian Silver Medal of Bravery. Hemingway returned to the United States and wrote for the Toronto Star, then married his first wife Hadley Richardson, later they moved to Paris and he became a foreign correspondent for the Star. Hemingway’s experience writing for newspapers was a foundation of his future writings; he is quoted saying “use short sentences. Use short first paragraphs. Use vigorous English. Be positive, not negative” (Ernest Hemingway).
While living in Paris, Hemingway’s writing was influenced by many different writers, but the writers that influenced him the most were Ezra Pound, Sherwood Anderson, Gertrude Stein and Ring Lardner. Stein was his mentor and the group would “form the foundation of the American expatriate circle that later became known as the Lost Generation” (Ernest Hemingway). The Poetry Foundation states Hemingway became the spokesman for the lost generation. From Stein, Hemingway took “a colloquial-in-appearance- American style, full of repeated words, prepositional phrases, and present participles.” This is the style he used his earlier stories. One thing Hemingway took from Pound “was the doctrine of the accurate image,” and he also learned to “bluepencil most of this adjectives” (Ernest M. Hemingway).
Hemingway along with Gertrude Stein, Ezra Pound, are a few writers that helped create the style and language we know of today in American literature (Ernest M. Hemingway). The New World Encyclopedia reports “Throughout Hemingway’s works he sought to reconcile the ruination of his time with an enduring belief in conquest, triumph, and “grace under pressure” (Ernest Hemingway). Unlike writers before him, Hemingway was able to present the human condition in a simple and more relatable style. Certainly, Hemingway’s travel experiences around the world and his personal relationships with multiple women influenced his writings (Ernest Hemingway).
According to Sandison, “The Hemingway rule was that while a writer should know as much as he needed to write with authority, he should never actually use it” (60).

The New World Encyclopedia summaries Hemingway influence on American literature as far-reaching and long lasting. “Hemingway affected writers within his modernist literary circle.” Writers influenced by Hemingway’s style include Bret Easton Ellis, Chuck Palahniuk, Douglas Coupland and many Generation X writers, as well as Jack Kerouac and J.D. Salinger. “Echoes of his style can still be heard in the telegraphic prose of many contemporary novelist and screenwriters, as well as in the modern figure the disillusioned anti-hero” (Ernest

Hemingway).
Hemingway’s works were published starting in 1925 and continually even after his death, most recently in 2005. Some of Hemingway’s major works include: The Sun Also Rises (1926), A Farewell to Arms (1929), Death in the Afternoon (1932), For Whom the Bell Trolls (1940), The Old Man and the Sea (1952), The Snows of Kilimanjaro (1932). Hemingway had many other novels, short stories, poems, and nonfiction published throughout his life and after his death. Hemingway received the Pulitzer Prize in 1953 for the Old Man in the Sea. Also the follow year Hemingway won the Nobel Prize in Literature for Old Man in the Sea (Ernest Hemingway).
On July 2, 1961, Hemingway committed suicide in his home in Idaho.
Nobel Prize-533
“This year’s Nobel Prize in Literature has therefore been awarded to one of the greatest authors of our time, one of those who, honestly and undauntedly, reproduces genuine features in the hard countenance of the age” (Presentation Speech).
Ernest Hemingway was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1954 at age 56 and was the fifth American to receive the Nobel Prize in Literature. Hemingway was awarded the Nobel Prize for “his mastery of the art of narrative, most recently demonstrated in The Old Man in the Sea, and for the influence that he has exerted on contemporary style” (Nobel Prize). Hemingway excitedly shared the news of the award with his friends and family and modestly suggested the award should have gone to Bernhard Berenson, Lsak Dinesen or Carl Sandburg. Sandison wrote in Hemingway’s biography that Hemingway was upset with the press release done by the Nobel Committee, “which described him as having come through an early ‘brutal, cynical and callous’ phase to emerge with a ‘powerful, style-making mastery of the art of modern narration’” (142). Hemingway was not able to attend the ceremony because he was recovering from severe injuries he sustained in two plane crashes. The award was accepted on his behalf by the United States Ambassador to Sweden, John C. Cabot.
In his presentation speech, Anders Osterling, Permanent Secretary of the Swedish Academy, noted that Ernest Hemingway “makes us feel we are confronted by a still young nation which seeks and finds its exact form of expression.” Osterling noted Hemingway’s concise style when he referred to Hemingway’s “unique combination of simplicity and precision.” Osterling was praising Hemingway’s style when he said “With masterly skill he reproduces all the nuances of the spoken word, as well as those pauses in which thought stands stills and the nervous mechanism is thrown out of gear” (Nobel Prize).
Hemingway’s banquet speech reflected his writing style and how he which simple and straight to the point. It was possible that Hemingway’s speech may have been longer and in more detail if he was able to attend. In his acceptance speech Hemingway stated that “Writing, at its best, is a lonely life,” (Ernest Hemingway- Banquet Speech) “For a true writer each book should be a new beginning where he tries for something that is beyond attainment. He should always try for something that has never been done or that others have tried and failed. Then sometimes, with great luck, he will succeed” (Ernest Hemingway- Banquet Speech), Hemingway explained how he believed a writer should approach writing.
The public’s reaction to Hemingway being awarded the Nobel Prize for Old Man in the Sea was very positive. However, some believed that his earlier works were better, Maxwell Geismar who wrote Hemingway and the Nobel Prize said “we should celebrate; yet at a moment when the recent work of the surviving members of this gifted generation has been so disappointing perhaps we should also mediate… Hemingway, too, has received his prize for the wrong book, and for the wrong period of his work” (Hemingway and the Nobel Prize). Geismar said this because he believed that Hemingway’s earlier works were better, and that he should not have received the Nobel Prize for Old Man in the Sea (Hemingway and the Nobel Prize).
Analysis- 1251
Hemingway’s style is very easy to read and straight to the point, however, not always easy to interpret. Hemingway wrote about nature and exotic places in numerous of his short stories. Most of Hemingway’s characters represented normal people trying to deal life’s situations Reading Hemingway’s stories invokes feelings of sadness because most, include undertones of death or some type of loss. Some of Hemingway’s short stories can be grouped together by theme. One of Hemingway’s repeated themes is about failing relationships. Another theme is having courage and people overcoming their fears even if it means they end up dying in process. An additional theme Hemingway liked to use was disappointment and how people give up on life when they have nothing left.
The short stories Mr. and Mrs. Eliot, Cat in the Rain, The Sea Change and The Faithful Bull, all have the common theme of troubled relationships. In each story the couples are trying to find happiness, and resolve their problems. In some way one of the characters in each of the stories resolve their problem by finding someone or something else that makes them happy.
In Mr. and Mrs. Eliot, a couple who is incompatible is trying to have a baby but are unable to conceive. Not being able to have a baby made the relationship crumble. Thought the story Hemingway implies that Mr. Eliot is not very masculine, he was a virgin, he disappointed his wife the first time they slept together, he could not get his wife pregnant, and at the end of the story they were sleeping in separate rooms. Mrs. Eliot found comfort and happiness with her friend, and Mr. Eliot was happy not being in a traditional relationship.
In Cat in the Rain the wife feels ignored by the husband and seems to be a in an uncaring relationship. She feels if she is able to get the cat, which symbolizes affection to her, she will be happy. Hemingway uses the setting of the only two Americans in a hotel on a cold rainy day, the lonely cat out in the rain and a husband who doesn’t care what his wife does, to bring out the feeling of loneliness. The wife feels her loneliness will go away if she could have a cat, so he says to her husband “I want a cat, I want a cat now. If I can’t have long hair or any fun, I can have a cat” (131).
In The Sea Change, Hemingway uses vague dialog and leaves it up to the reader to have their own interpretation. Some readers may interpret that the women is leaving the man for another women.
In The Faithful Bull Hemingway used personification as the bull is shown to have human characteristics in his relationships. It seemed ironic that the bull sent to the ring to be killed for being faithful, but that is why the matador highly admired him and his faithfulness saying “‘Perhaps we should all be faithful’” (486).
The short stories The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber, The Killers, and A Day’s Wait, are about the characters having courage to overcome something they never thought was possible. All of the characters had to overcome multiple obstacles. When facing the obstacles, the characters had to search find solutions that would make them happy in the long run. Some of the character had better outcomes than others.
The short story of The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber is about a couple who go to Africa to hunt wild animals. Hemingway set the story in the wilds of Africa because it is a dangerous place and most people would have some fears of the wild animals. In the story, Francis Macomber goes from being fearful to being very courageous. While his wife is very arrogant at the beginning of the story, she then becomes very fearful her will husband leave her. Hemingway shows Macomber and his wife switching places in the story when he writes “‘You’ve gotten awfully brave, awfully suddenly,’ his wife said contemptuously, but her contempt was not secure. She was very afraid of something. Macomber laughed a very natural hearty laugh ‘You know I have’ he said ‘I really have’” (26). At the very end of the story before the bullet his wife shot went into his head, Francis Macomber finally is able to feel happy and free.
The Killers is another short story that shows bravery. Nick starts out at as an innocent bystander, who gets threated and tied up by two men who are looking for another man that they want to kill. Nick is very courageous because he could have gotten killed when he warned his friend Ole that people were out to kill him, which George and Sam were too afraid to do. By the end of this story Nick is disgusted with the situation and says “I can’t stand to think about him waiting in the room and knowing he’s going to get it. It’s too damned awful” (222).
A Day’s Wait is an endearing short story about a little boy who is certain that he is going to die. He is very resigned and concerned about his father and doesn’t want his father to get sick or to see him die. Hemingway used a child to show that children can also have fears and can be courageous, and the story would not have been as believable if the main character was an adult. He was so strong like an adult, and once he realized he wasn’t going to die “…he cried very easily at little things that were of no importance” (334) like a child.
Hemingway wrote about disappointment and disillusionment in the short stories A Clean, Well-Lighted Place, In Another Country, and Old Man at the Bridge.

In Each story at least one of the characters has given up on life and is just going through the motions of daily life.
In A Clean, Well-Lighted Place Hemingway wanted to show a contrast between hope and despair. The young waiter is looking forward to the future and is very confident about himself, he says “I have confidence. I am all confidence” (290) but the older men are not in a rush because they think life does not offer them anything anymore. Hemingway wrote this line “it was all a nothing and a man was a nothing too” (291) to show the reader the level of disappointment of the old waiter.
Hemingway portrays loneliness in the short story In Another Country. He uses the situations of the characters the Narrator and the Major to emphasis their loneliness. The Narrator feels isolated because he is the only American being treated at the hospital, he doesn’t feel close to the other soldiers, “I was a friend, but I was never really one of them…” (208). The Major lost his wife so to him he was lost everything and he is just going through the motions of everyday

life.
In The Old Man at the Bridge Hemingway describes how it feels to lose everything you worked so hard for in life. The bridge represents the barrier to move on, but the old man is unable to leave everything behind. The Narrator’s advice was not to give up, and this was an opportunity to continue with his life.
All of Hemingway’s stories portray real life situations and the reality that life is not always fair, and is full of complicated relationship, screeching for courage and life’s disappointment.
Critical Review - 513
Lionel Trilling wrote in his essay Hemingway and His Critics that “Hemingway writes as Hemingway the man or Hemingway the artist” (7). Trilling further explains when he writes “the ‘artist’ has a perfect medium and tells the truth even if it be only his truth, but the ‘man’ fumbles at communication and falsifies” (7). In Trilling’s opinion Hemingway’s short stories are written by Hemingway the artist. Also Trilling believed that “Hemingway is a writer who, when he writes as an ‘artist,’ is passionately and aggressively concerned with truth and even social truth” (10).
Robert Penn Warren wrote an essay called Ernest Hemingway and explained that Hemingway’s characters “are usually tough men, experience in the hard worlds they inhabit, and not obviously given to emotional display or sensitive shrinking” (39). Examples would be the older waiter and old man in A Clean, Well-Lighted Place, and the two criminals in The Killers. Characters that do not fit this description would usually be “a very young man, or boy, first entering the violent world and learning his first adjustment to it” says Warren (39). Examples would include the young boy in A Day’s wait and Nick in The Killers. Warren further expands on Hemingway’s characters when he notes that “his heroes are not squealers, welchers, compromisers, or cowards, and when they confront defeat they realize that the stance they take, the stoic endurance, the stiff upper lip mean a kind of victory” (39). In Another Country the Major tolerates his life as it turned out. Warren thinks Francis Macomber in The Short, Happy Life of Francis Macomber represents a man who follows “…some motion of a code, some notion of honor, that makes a man a man, and that distinguishes him from people who merely follow their random impulses…” (40). Francis Macomber follows this code because he get the courage to live the life he wants to live before he dies.
In Observations on the Style of Ernest Hemingway by Harry Levin it appears that Levin is more critical of Hemingway’s style when he notes “… Hemingway’s diction is thin; that, in the technical sense, his syntax is weak… his adjectives are not colorful and his verbs are not particularly energetic” (77). Specifically, Levin points out in A Clean, Well-Lighted Place, that the use of the word “nada” is an example of “his verbal skepticism which leads towards what some critics have called his moral nihilism” (71).
Steven K. Hoffman further expands the implication of “nada” in his essay “Nada” and The Clean, Well-Lighted Place: The Unity of Hemingway’s Short Fiction. Hoffman notes that the story “is not about “nada” but the various available human responses” (174). Hoffman compares Francis, from A Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber, with the old waiter. Hoffman does this by relating Macomber’s despair of being a coward to the old waiter’s feelings of despair with life and the feeling that man is nothing. When Macomber is faced with the lion and later with the buffalo he learns that “man is a nothing unless and until he makes himself ‘something’” (187).
Conclusion 114
Ernest Hemingway’s poems, short stories and novels have influenced other writers of his time, and aspiring contemporary writers. Even after Hemingway died his works continued to be published. His works are considered to be classic and have been and will continue to be studied and analyzed for many more generations. Hemingway has influenced me and has given me a new perspective on the lives of others, and how we all are different but at the same time we are alike. Sandison noted that Ernest Hemingway, “…had lived his life- on his own terms, in his own style, and always in his own distinctive manner… And it really had been a very remarkable life” (15).