A Lover Of Life Obsessed With Death

Essay, Research Paper

A Lover of Life, Obsessed with Death “Never confuse movement with action,” one of Ernest Hemingway’s most profound thoughts, was quoted once by Marlene Dietrich. She went on to say, “In those five words, he gave me a whole philosophy” (Bookshelf ‘98 NP). As one of the most brilliant and influential writers of his time, Ernest Hemingway touched the lives of many, including Ms. Dietrich, through his writing, logic, and disposition. Throughout his life he turned what was experience, and sometimes pain to him, into beautiful, life changing prose. Perhaps the most celebrated of the World War I “Lost Generation”, whether as the young “Champ,” or the middle-aged “Papa,” Ernest Hemingway became a legend in his own lifetime.Born in quiet Oak Park, Illinois, a suburb of Chicago, on July 21, 1899, Ernest Miller Hemingway’s life began. His parents were Dr. and Mrs. Clarence E. Hemingway, whom were high school sweethearts that never outgrew their love for one another. Dr. Hemingway, a God-fearing man was stern at times, but loved his children and was a kind and generous father (Buckley 99). On the other hand, Ernest’s mother, Grace Hall Hemingway, was an entirely different story. She hated anything that interrupted her beautiful dream world including changing diapers, doing housework, and the like. Dr. Hemingway did much of the “wife’s” jobs himself. Additionally, Grace Hall had the habit of dressing Ernest as a girl. “Raising them as twins, Grace imposed both boyish and girlish costumes and hairstyles on Ernest and his older sister, Marcelline. At the family cottage on Walloon Lake, Michigan, in the summer of 1901, they were dressed as ‘lads’ or ‘chaps’ as she called them” (Buckley NP). A practice that most would find odd, dressing Ernest as a girl fit perfectly into Grace’s world. She wrote “summer girl” in her scrapbook alongside a photograph of her son Ernest, in a dress, a month before his second birthday (Lynn NP). “Grace Hall called her baby her ‘Dutch Dollie’ and; just as little girls love to dress up their dolls, Grace Hall loved to dress up Ernest, ‘in pink gingham dresses and white battenburg lace hoods.’ It was soon apparent, however, that Ernest wanted to be Ernest rather than a doll. ‘He grows indignant when I call him Dutch Dollie.’ Grace Hall describes a boy who stamps his foot and says he does ‘not’ want to be a ‘Dutch Dollie’ because he is Pawnee Bill and ‘Bang’ he shoots his mother” (Buckley 103). From there on out, Ernest began to withdraw from his strange mother and she never forgave him for it. Quite possibly, Hemingway’s obsession with being as manly as conceivable resulted directly from the odd and mentally damaging relationship with his mother.The years passed on and soon Ernest was in high school. “Ernest was immensely involved in high school, playing football, decorating for the latest dance, or writing for the weekly school paper. He loved action and always kept himself busy” (Buckley 104). However, his interests were elsewhere, which would soon be apparent to Hemingway as well as his family. “Hemingway once remarked that the best training for a writer is an unhappy boyhood. He himself, however, appears to have been reasonably happy a good part of the time. But, he seems to have been on occasion deeply dissatisfied with his home life and with Oak Park, and no sooner did he graduate from high school than he was off for Kansas City, never really to return home” (Boyhood 259). He acquired a job from the Kansas City Star as a reporter and remained happy for a time, only to gain a desire to join the war effort. Eager to join, and declined by the infantry due to a bum eye (resulting from a boxing match), Hemingway volunteered for the American Red Cross and was struck by mortar fire while passing out chocolates to Italian soldiers on the front lines (Lynn NP). He was sent to a Red Cross hospital in Milan, Italy in 1918. There he met what he thought at the time was to be the love of his life, Agnes von Kurowsky. “A callow 19-year old wounded by shrapnel and machine gun fire, after six days in a field canteen, he was ripe for adventure and romance, his American nurse, vivacious at 26, made the perfect crush. ‘She was tall and slender, with chestnut colored hair, blue-gray eyes and a very cheerful disposition,’ remembers Henry Villard, ‘Everybody fell for Agnes, but Hemingway fell the hardest’” (Ernie and Aggie 123). “Red Cross nurses were not supposed to date patients, but Aggie and the kid (as she so fondly called him) managed love notes, dinners, and possibly more, though Hemingway scholars still debate the extent of their physical involvement. ‘He was talking last night of what might be if he was 26-28,’ Agnes wrote in her diary. ‘In some ways….I wish that he was. He is adorable, and we are congenial in every way.’ To his parents back in Oak Park, Hemingway wrote, ‘I am in love again’” (Ernie and Aggie 123). They continued on that way for months, but the kid’s wounds soon healed and he soon found out that the whole affair would be over in the blink of an eye. “At war’s end, Hemingway went home to the States, where he hoped she would join him and marry him. The pair exchanged love letters for several months, but in March 1919, Agnes, who was finishing up a series of Red Cross postings in Italy and had taken up with an Italian nobleman, dashed her young soldiers hopes. ‘I am still very fond of you,’ she wrote Hemingway, ‘but it is more as a mother than a