For Whom The Bell Tolls

The novel For Whom the Bell Tolls, written by Ernest Hemingway, is a story of passionate love throughout the brutality of the Spanish Civil War. Hemingway uses his personal experiences to portray the true meaning and feeling of this book. Ernest Miller Hemingway was born on July 21, 1899 in Oak Park, a suburb of Chicago, Illinois. The neighborhood he grew up in was straight-laced and rigidly Protestant. Hemingway started his literary career publishing his work in his school magazine. Later on in life, he signed up to join the military in World War II, but was rejected due to his defective left eye from birth. Instead, he enlisted in the Missouri National Guard and remained on the lookout for opportunities to progress to the front. In 1918, he sailed to Europe to become an ambulance driver in Northern Italy. There, Hemingway was seriously injured and while in the hospital fell in love with his nurse, Agnes Hannah Von Kurowsky. She was the model that Hemingway used as Catherine Barkley in A Farewell To Arms. In 1919, he returned to Oak Park and earned a medal for his valor in Italy. He and his wife had their first son, John, in October 1923. Three years later, in 1926, Hemingway published his first novel, The Sun Also Rises. Sadly, on December 6, 1928, he learned that his father had committed suicide. Years later, during his divorce with his second wife, he wrote For Whom the Bell Tolls and it was published in October of 1940. The next month, Hemingway married his third wife, Martha Gellhorn. In 1944, he traveled to London and not only fell in love with Mary Welsh, but was involved in a serious car accident and was thought to be dead. In 1945, his third marriage failed and later that year was in yet another severe c...

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... brutality of the Spanish Civil War. Hemingway’s simplistic language style, war imagery, mountainous setting, and theme of a heroic protagonist all contribute to his personal experiences in life and at war. Much of his style resembles the personal experiences he had in life with family, love, and war. The imagery that is applied in this piece of literature mirrors what Hemingway had seen and imagined during his service in Italy and his experiences during the relationships which he partook. The setting represents the area in which Hemingway had seen and envisioned Spain. The various themes of this story describe Hemingway’s political views on war and outlook on the morals of life. In conclusion, the qualities that Ernest Hemingway possesses in his writing skills are truly remarkable and they are evidently depicted in this amazing piece of classic literature.