Biendarra 1 Seneida Biendarra Mrs.

Byberg-Kautzer College Prep English 6 Author and adventurer, Ernest Hemingway was a modern writer that gave a powerful view of the twentieth century, its politics, its society, its heroics. Born just before the turn of the century, Hemingway grew up with a love for the woods, and also for poetry. Hemingways novels prove to be gems of Modernist literature, through his use of personal experience as an inspiration, as well as individualism, symbolism, and disillusionment. Each of these traits can be readily found throughout Hemingways novels and stories, such as Farewell to Arms, Soldiers Home, and The Old Man and the Sea. Hemingway was indeed a fit to the era in which he lived and wrote, providing an incisive look into twentieth-century post-WWI culture through his unique writing style. One common trait of Modernist literature is the use of personal experiences as inspiration. Farewell to Arms is largely based upon Hemingways experiences in World War I as an ambulance driver. Within the novel, many characters are based upon persons that Hemingway met during the war, such as Agnes von Kurowsky. Agnes strongly resembles Hemingways character, Catherine Barkley, with whom the protagonist, Lieutenant Henry, falls in love with. In the book, Hemingway pens, And in the town we have beautiful English girls. I am now in love with Miss Barkley. I will take you to call. I will probably marry Miss Barkley. (17) During his own time at war, Hemingway is believed to have fallen in love with von Kurowsky, who, like Miss Barkley, was an army nurse. Another story drawn from personal experience is Hemingways short story Soldiers Home. As the reader delves into the life of Krebs, it would not be so different to be reading a biography of Hemingways life. Krebs returned home late

Biendarra 2 from the war and moved back in with his parents. Since he came home later than most of the other soldiers, he did not get a heros welcome like those returning before him. No one cared to talk to him about the war, for they had already heard the dramatic tales of those earlier, so Krebs exaggerates his own. Krebs, like Hemingway had a hard time readjusting to life at home. In the story, Hemingway notes, He would go to Kansas City and get a job and she would feel all right about it. There should be one more scene maybe before he got away. He would not go down to his fathers office. He would miss that one. He wanted his life to go smoothly. It had just gotten going that way. Well, that was all over now, anyway. (659) Here Krebs decides to leave his hometown and find life in Kansas City, in search for a life uncomplicated. Hemingways return was not so different from the one he created for Krebs, not long after his homecoming he spent several weeks alone in the Upper Peninsula, trying to find solitude. A third example of Hemingways spinning of his life into story can be found in the pages of his most successful novel, The Old Man and the Sea. In it, he writes, The old man had seen many great fish. He had seen many that weighed more than a thousand pounds and he had caught two of that size in his life, but never alone. Now alone, and out of sight of land, he was fast to the biggest fish that he had ever seen and bigger than he had ever heard of, and his left hand was still as tight as the gripped claws of an eagle. (70) In the months before he wrote The Old Man and the Sea, Hemingway spent much time fishing in the Gulf Stream off the shores of Cuba. It is believed that the events that transpire in The Old Man and the Sea originated from a story Hemingway was told by his fishing boats captain, Gregorio Fuentes. Hemingway and Fuentes spent long hours on the sea, fishing, and many

Biendarra 3 aspects of the man worked their way into Hemingways story. In each, the use of people and events from his life indicates that Hemingway wrote in the style of the Modernist movement. Modernists often focused on moral worth, creating characters that had independence and self-reliance, who thought for themselves, separate from the masses. Hemingway was no different, in A Farewell to Arms, his character Frederick ponders, I was always been embarrassed by the words sacred, glorious, and sacrifice and the expression in vain. We had heard them, sometimes standing in the rain almost out of earshot, so that only the shouted words came through, and had read them, on proclamations that were slapped up by billboards over other proclamations, now for a long time, and I had seen nothing sacred and the things that were glorious had no glory and the sacrifices were like the stockyards at Chicago if nothing was done with meat except to bury itAbstract words such as glory, honor, courage, or hallow were obscene beside the concrete names of villages, the numbers of roads, the names of rivers, the numbers of regiments, and the dates. (169) Here, Frederick rejects the very idea of patriotism, which he believes creates the divide between nations, and chooses rather to honor individual names, places, and times. This turning away from the masses who sing to the tune of nationalism, is an example of individualism in which Henry thinks for himself before allegiance to his country. Another illustration of this can be found in Soldiers Home, in which Krebs struggles to integrate back into civilian life. Krebs mother tells him, He thinks you have lost your ambition, that you havent got a definite aim in life. Charley Simmons, who is just your age, has a good job and is going to be married. The boys are

Biendarra 4 all settling down; theyre determined to get somewhere; you can see that boys like Charley Simmons are on their way to being really a credit to the community. (658) This passage in which she highlights Krebs difficulty to rejoin society, shows the reader just how misunderstood Krebs is after he returns. This misinterpretation of him throughout the story forces him to think for himself, in the end leaving his home for Kansas City, where he hopes to make a simpler life. His break from the others, with whom he cannot connect, is a sample of individualism within the text, as is Santiagos isolation in The Old Man and the Sea. Santiago, who had not caught a fish in eighty-four days, is mocked by the local fisherman, and forced to fish alone. As a fish begins to pull him out to sea, Santiago wishes he has Manolin, You havent got the boy... You only have yourself and you had better work back to the last line now, in the dark or not in the dark, and cut it away and hook up the two reserve coils. (57) Santiago trusted himself; he knew he could catch the fish if he kept at it, and he was able to motivate himself to do so. Regardless of how tired he got, he refused to give up. In each case, the selfreliance and independence of the protagonist carried them through their hardship, whether it was the depths of war, posttraumatic stress disorder, or the catching of a monstrous marlin, and fit with individualism found in other Modernist works. Symbolism was a popular literary device of the era, and Hemingway included the device in his writing, as did many other authors. The use of objects or animals to represent a larger idea is expressed through Catherines hair in A Farewell to Arms. As Hemingway writes, She had wonderfully beautiful hair and I would lie sometimes and watch her twisting it up in the light that came in the open door and it shone even in the night as water shines sometimes just before it is really daylight. (107) Catherines long hair comes to represent an insulator from the world, and Frederick sees it like a tent, the way it surrounds him, and it blinds him to the worry and war

Biendarra 5 around him. Oppositely, Krebs book in Soldiers Home is the only one that interests him because it returns him to the war. Here Hemingway tells the reader, He sat there on the porch reading a book on the war. It was a history and he was reading about all the engagements he had been in. It was the most interesting reading he had ever done. The book is symbolic in that it represents how Krebs cannot return to normal life, and is permanently attached to what he experienced in war. He dwells with inability to leave the war behind and continue his life as it used to be. He cannot fully grasp the experience that he underwent and now he is desperately trying to understand it from the outside, through the book. While Soldiers Home is largely lacking in symbolism, The Old Man and the Sea is rich with it. Hemingways Santiago thinks, His choice had been to stay in the deep dark water far out beyond all people. My choice was to go there to find him beyond all people. Beyond all people in the world. Now we are joined together and have been since noon. And no one can help either of us. (55) Here Santiago thinks of how each him and the marlin separated themselves from the rest, and here the great marlin comes to symbolize Santiagos great worthy opponent. Santiago, from the beginning is seen as someone who refuses to be beaten, and here the marlin is the same in his fight for life, dragging Santiago a great distance out to sea. In each case, the symbol, be it hair, a book, or a fish, are used to create a bigger idea within the story, and establish each work as a Modern piece. A fourth characteristic of Modernist fiction found throughout Hemingways work is disillusion. In the years following World War I, America experienced its painful coming of age, and though the U.S. was only involved in the war for two years and suffered far fewer casualties than its European counterparts, the war still had a devastating effect. This frustration translated into the literature, and disillusion became a major theme of Modernist fiction. This is most readily found within the pages of A Farewell to Arms. A priest tells Frederick, It has been a

Biendarra 6 terrible summerYou cannot believe how it has been. Except that you have been there and you know how it can be. Many people have realized the war this summer. Officers whom I thought could never realize it realize it now.(163) This is an expression of the developing disillusionment and discontent with the continuation of the war. Frederick, who had recently returned after serious injury to his knee, shares the feeling with the priest, observing how the morale of the soldiers has decreased drastically in the time he was gone. Krebs in Soldiers Home shares a similar disillusionment after his return home, though in the aspect of romance. After the war, he does not want to deal with the complicated, and finds himself indifferent to women. Here Krebs states, Vaguely he wanted a girl but he did not want to have to work to get her. He would have liked to have a girl but he did not want to have to spend a long time getting her. He did not want to get into the intrigue and politics. He did not want to tell any more lies. It wasnt worth it. (654) This disinterest stems from his dissatisfaction with the war, as well as his boredom and indirection finding purpose in civilian life. While Frederick and Krebs are crushed by their disillusionment, Santiago endures, through his physical torment, and the loss of hope. After the shovel-headed sharks attack the marlin, Santiago thinks, Now they have beaten me I am too old to club the sharks to death. But I will try it as long as I have the oars and the short club and the tiller. Here, Santiago is shattered by the attacks upon his beautiful marlin, feeling hopeless in defense against them, yet he fights his own disillusion and vows to continue his vigil as long as he can. This example is seen as a variant from Hemingways other disillusioned characters, who all are shrouded by their disillusions, much like the characters of other Modernist writers. These four characteristics, personal experience, individualism, symbolism, and disillusion, are what associates Ernest Hemingways works with those of other Modern writers,

Biendarra 7 such as Fitzgerald and Eliot. In each of his works, Hemingway utilizes his plain style to bring these components to the page, creating classic literature in the process, be it through the story of two lovers running from the depravity of war, a soldier whose mind cannot escape combat, or an old man determined to catch a fish.

Works Cited Hemingway, Ernest. A Farewell to Arms. 1957. New York: Charles Scribners Sons, 1997. Print.

Biendarra 8 Hemingway, Ernest. The Old Man and the Sea. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons , 1952. Print. Elements of Literature. Fifth Course. Ed. Kathleen Daniel, et al. Austin: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 2000. 653-659