Lore Accurate Humans: Ernest Hemingway

In all likelihood, when I say the phrase “For Whom the Bell Tolls,” you probably think of Metallica and their hit song. However, if you’re an English major or know your famous novels, you might instead think of one of the most popular published works of Ernest Hemingway. While Hemingway wrote many profound novels, he also had a life outside of his writing that was full of adventure, dysentery and divorce.

Born on July 21. 1899, Ernest Miller Hemingway was the second-oldest of six siblings. His mother was a local musician who taught him to play the cello while his father brought him out to the family’s cottage in the woods often, which would contribute to his love for the outdoors throughout his life. 

In high school Hemingway was an athlete, performed in the orchestra and most importantly found his true passion for writing. He edited his high school’s yearbook and newspaper while also writing under a pseudonym and emulating the writing style of popular sportswriters of the time.

Following high school, he would briefly work at The Kansas City Star, where he would find a motto in their style guide that would shape the way he wrote throughout his life. It dictated, “Use short first sentences. Use short first paragraphs. Use vigorous English. Be positive, not negative.” 

At the outset of the United States’ involvement in World War I, Hemingway was unable to enlist due to his poor eyesight, so he settled for joining the Red Cross. He traveled to Italy in May 1918 where he would serve until Jul. 8, 1918, when he was wounded by a mortar shell while bringing chocolate and cigarettes to the frontline.

During his recovery from the injury he would fall in love with a Red Cross nurse who took care of him, believing that he had found his future spouse. After returning to America in January 1919, he was under the impression she would be following close behind.

Instead, she would write him a letter the following March to inform him she was marrying an Italian officer. This could have been the beginning of Hemingway’s lifelong crusade to abandon his future wives before they had the chance to abandon him. 

He readjusted to life in America despite this setback, going on a trip into the Michigan backcountry that would inspire his short story “Big Two-Hearted River.” He would then move to Canada to get a job as a writer for the Toronto Star Weekly, eventually moving back to Chicago in September 1920 to work as an associate editor for the Cooperative Commonwealth journal. 

Through his roommate’s sister he would meet his first wife Hadley Richardson who he would marry on Sept 3. 1921. The two decided to move to Paris in large part to help further Hemingway’s writing career. He had the opportunity to meet influential writers like Gertrude Stein, James Joyce and Ezra Pound as well as meeting many artists including Pablo Picasso. 

While his relationship with Stein would fall apart due to creative differences, Pound and Joyce would both be friends with Hemingway for years. In particular, Joyce and Hemingway maintained their friendship through what was described as “frequent alcoholic sprees the two would embark on.”

Despite working to write short stories during his time in Paris, he was also still writing for the Toronto Star. After a couple years of balancing both, he grew tired of journalism and dropped his job at the Star to focus solely on his fiction writing.

His first collection of short stories “In Our Time” was very positively received, especially in America. However, due to meeting F. Scott Fitzgerald prior to this collection being published and reading “The Great Gatsby,” Hemingway made the decision that he needed to write a novel to match it.

He would begin to write “The Sun Also Rises” on his birthday in 1925, completing it a few weeks later and deciding to spend the winter in Austria to give himself space to revise the manuscript. At this time, Hemingway was approached by Pauline Pfeiffer who urged him to sign with Scribner’s to publish the book — he would also start an affair with her around this time. 

“The Sun Also Rises” would be viewed by many as Hemingway’s greatest work, but it also marked the end of his marriage with Hadley in January 1927. He followed this first divorce by marrying Pfeiffer, contracting anthrax and writing his next collection of short stories entitled “Men Without Women” — a very ironic title.

Pfeiffer became pregnant and wanted to move back to America in 1928, but they wouldn’t leave before Hemingway pulled a skylight down on his head thinking he was pulling a toilet chain, scarring him for the rest of his life. 

Hemingway wrote a short story about his new wife’s difficult delivery entitled “A Farewell to Arms,” then traveled to visit his first son who he had with Hadley. It was at this time he would find out his father had taken his life, with Hemingway being quoted as feeling that he would “go the same way.” 

Throughout the early 1930s, Hemingway lived on his new property in Key West during the winter but sought out adventure by spending his summers in Wyoming. He was clearly restless in his settled life in Key West, so following the birth of his third child he went on a trip with his wife to Kenya.

This trip would be guided by Philip Percival who had also guided Theodore Roosevelt on his trip to Kenya in 1909. Not only would the trip provide material for him to write multiple short stories, it would also be where he contracted amoebic dysentery causing a prolapsed intestine and the need for an evacuation via plane to get him into surgery.

After the surgery, Hemingway would purchase a boat he named the Pilar to sail throughout the Caribbean and find inspiration for more short stories.

During the leadup to the Spanish Civil War, Hemingway determined he wanted to cover it, but quickly found himself frustrated by a growing rift between him and his wife along with poor reviews of his more recently published works.

The rift would be exacerbated by Hemingway’s move to Cuba and his timely meeting of Martha Gellhorn — his soon to be third wife. After visiting Pauline and his kids for the summer in Wyoming, she would take the kids and divorce him, leading Hemingway to marry Martha and move to Cuba. 

Between living in Cuba and at the Sun Valley resort in Idaho, Hemingway would complete his manuscript of “For Whom the Bell Tolls,” publishing it in October 1940 and receiving a Pulitzer Prize nomination for his work.  He would then follow his wife to China as she was sent there on assignment in January 1941 where he would witness firsthand the Sino-Japanese War.

After Pearl Harbor thrust the United States into World War II, Hemingway would modify the Pilar with a Thompson submachine gun and grenades to patrol for German U-boats. He would also begin surveillance for possible Nazi sympathizers in his guest house, which led to the FBI watching him and compiling a file on his activities.

Hemingway began to drink more heavily as the war progressed and became outwardly abusive toward his wife due to his depression and disposition toward yet another war in Europe. He would travel to Europe to become a front-line correspondent in May 1944 after his wife continued to encourage him to cover the war as a journalist.

Upon arriving in London he became infatuated with Mary Welsh, a correspondent for Time magazine. When Martha was able to visit him, she found Hemingway concussed in a hospital after getting in a car accident. She would eventually divorce him in 1945, giving  Hemingway the opportunity to marry Mary Welsh in the future.

Despite the concussion — which required 57 stitches — Hemingway would accompany troops to the Normandy landings, and while he did not land on the shores he did see firsthand the waves of bodies that were strewn out along the beach.

Hemingway would then attach himself to the 22nd Infantry Regiment in their advance to Paris where he would become a leader of a band of village militia. This would result in him being brought up on formal charges for violating the Geneva Convention, although he would not be convicted due to his claiming that he only offered advice to the militia.

While Hemingway was present at the liberation of Paris on Aug. 25 1944, he was not the first into the city or the one who liberated the Ritz. However, upon a stay with Sylvia Beach, he forgave Gertrude Stein after their decades of animosity.

His attempt to fight through pneumonia to cover The Battle of the Bulge would be in vain, as he would be hospitalized once he arrived at the frontlines. However, this attempt would lead to him being awarded a Bronze Star for bravery due to his attempt to weather his own illness as well as coming under fire to obtain accurate documentation of the conditions of the war.

Depression would begin to rule Hemingway’s life throughout the 1940s as many of his lifelong literary compatriots died around him, including F. Scott Fitzgerald, James Joyce and Gertrude Stein not long after the two reconciled. It was also at this time that Hemingway’s son was diagnosed with schizophrenia and received 18 sessions of electroconvulsive therapy. Hemingway would also get into another car accident, sustaining yet another head injury in the process.

He would attempt to start writing projects following his time at war but would ultimately see all of them stall. He visited Europe in 1948, where he fell in love with a 19-year-old, but — for the first time in a while — this would not lead to an affair or a divorce.

In 1954, Hemingway was on a sightseeing flight over the Belgian Congo with Mary when the plane crashed after striking a utility pole. Hemingway sustained back and shoulder injuries while Mary broke her ribs. They chartered a boat the next day and were met by a pilot who claimed he could fly them out to safety. Instead, the plane would explode into flames on the rough landing strip, with Mary escaping through a broken window and Hemingway smashing his way out of the plane with his head.

Yet another head injury — this time accompanied by cerebrospinal fluid leaking — did Hemingway’s long term mental health no favors. This was accompanied by two cracked disks, a ruptured kidney and liver, a dislocated shoulder and a broken skull, leading to Hemingway drinking even more heavily to mask the pain.

He would win the Nobel Prize for Literature in October of 1954 which he reluctantly accepted but felt the win was largely due to his brush with death. 

Heavy drinking and lots of writing characterized the late 1950s for Hemingway, who continued to slide into a deeper depression. Following Castro’s takeover of Cuba and threat to nationalize property owned by foreign nationals in Cuba, Hemingway would return to his home in Idaho, leaving many manuscripts behind in a vault. 

In a constant state of paranoia that the FBI was watching him and discontent with his life in Idaho, Mary was unable to care for Hemingway in his current state. This lead to Hemingway being flown to the Mayo Clinic in December 1960 under a different name to maintain anonymity, where he would be committed to receive electroconvulsive therapy.

Upon returning home in January 1961, he was unable to write a tribute to President John F. Kennedy, managing to only produce a few sentences of writing despite his efforts. On April 21, 1961, Mary found him with a shotgun in the kitchen, leading to his sedation and another round of electroconvulsive therapy at the Mayo Clinic.

Returning home on June 30 1961, he would make it two days until on July 2 1961, he grabbed his favorite shotgun from where it was stored in the basement and took his own life in the front entryway. 

Alcoholism, head trauma and electroconvulsive therapy definitely played a role in his suicide, but it also may have been inevitable. His father and two of his siblings suffered from hereditary hemochromatosis, which causes mental and physical deterioration.  Hemingway was also diagnosed with the condition in early 1961 — and all four of them died by suicide.

Ultimately, Hemingway’s life was full of exploits, from successfully beating charges of Geneva Convention violations to actually managing to stay married to his last wife Mary. There was never a time in his life when he wasn’t leaving his mark on the world, whether in writing or through his shenanigans, and that’s why his life has become the stuff of legends.