Biography of Ernest Miller Hemingway

For Whom the Bell Tolls

By Ernest Hemingway

Biography of Ernest Miller Hemingway

Ernest Hemingway was born in July 21, 1899, in Oak Park, Illinois. His father was a doctor, and his mother was musically trained. Ernest was the second of six children. His mother hoped Ernest would be influenced by her musical interests but he preferred fishing and hunting trips with his father, this love of adventure trips would later be reflected in many Hemingway’s stories. But from his mother he acquired a quick eye and a sensitive mind. Hemingway’s aptitude for physical challenge remained through high school, where he played football and boxed. Because of an eye damage caused from numerous boxing matches, Hemingway was rejected from service in World War One. Hemingway also edited his high school newspaper and reported for the Kansas City Star. Later Hemingway participated in World War One as an ambulance driver for the American Red Cross. He was wounded on July 8, 1918. War itself is a major theme in Hemingway’s works. He would witness first hand the cruelty required of soldiers he described in his writing as he wrote about the Greco-Turkish War in 1920. In 1937 he was a war correspondent in Spain; the events of the Spanish Civil War inspired For Whom the Bell Tolls. Upon returning to the United States after the World War he lived for a short time in Chicago. There, he met Sherwood Andersen and married Hadley Richardson in 1921. On Andersen’s advice, the couple moved to Paris, where he served as foreign correspondent for the Star. As Hemingway covered events on all of Europe, the young reporter interviewed important leaders such as Mussolini. They lived in Paris from 1921-1926; this time is important because of Hemingway’s stylistic development. This time in Paris inspired the novel A Moveable Feast, published posthumously in 1964. The late 1920's were a time of much publication for Hemingway. In 1926 The Torrents of Spring and The Sun Also Rises were published. In 1927 Hemingway published a short story collection, Men Without Women. In that year he got divorced and married Pauline Pfieffer,a write for Vogue. They had two sons Patrick and Gregory. 1928 was a year of both, success and sorrow for Hemingway, in this year, A Farewell to arms was published and his father committed suicide. This painful experience is reflected in the pondering of Robert Jordan in For Whom the Bell Tolls. In addition to personal experiences with war and death, Hemingway’s travels also provided a lot of material for his novels. Bullfighting inspired Death in the Afternoon. Hemingway went on safari in Africa, which gave him new themes on which to base The Snows of Kilimanjaro. After his divorce from Pauline in 1940, he married Martha Gelhorn, a writer, the couple toured China before settling down in Cuba. For Whom the Bell Tolls was published this year. During World War Two Hemingway volunteered his fishing boat and served with the U.S. Navy in the Caribbean. In 1944, he travelled through Europe with the Allies as a war correspondent and participated in the liberation of Paris. Hemingway divorced again in 1945, and married Mary Welsh, a correspondent for Time magazine, in 1946. They lived in Venice before returning to Cuba. In 1953. The Old Man and the Sea won the Pulitzer Prize. In 1954 he won the Nobel Prize for Literature. After Hemingway moved to Idaho he was hospitalized for uncontrolled high blood pressure, liver disease, diabetes and depression. On July 2, 1961, he died of self-inflicted gunshot wounds and was buried in Ketchum. Hemingway was both, a legendary celebrity and a sensitive writer, and his influence, as well as unseen writings, survived his passing.

Short Summary ”For whom the bell tolls” shows three days in the life of Robert Jordan, an American expert in explosives who is in Spain fighting for the Civil War. Jordan is ordered by General Golz to bomb a bridge as part of their offensive against the Fascists. This task is very dangerous. Golz is only interested in the offensive as a means of practicing his military tactics and he is cynical about its success in the hands of the Spanish farmers. Anselmo, an old guide, brings Jordan through the woods to the hiding-place, an abandoned cave, of the men who will help him complete his mission. The guerrillas that Jordan meets obviously do not want to be involved in the war any longer. They meet Agustin in the woods, visibly relieved to see them because he has forgotten the password to their cave. The gypsy Rafael, despite being the guard, is only interested in joking. He tells Jordan about Kashkin, the previous foreign dynamite expert who, ironically, killed himself after being wounded during their last mission, the explosion of a train. The most cynical and discouraged guerrilla, however, is Pablo, their leader.