Ernest Hemingway: Imitations and Departures Essay

Hills tells the story of a young American man and his pregnant lover waiting for the train that will take them to an abortionist. In addition to the directness of speech characteristic of Hemingway's writing, Hills explores several themes characteristic of Hemingway, to include boredom, dissatisfaction, and self-destruction as a moving paralysis. "And we could have all this," she said. 'And we could have everything and every day we make it more impossible'" (Machete).

Themes of paralysis and dissatisfaction are apparent in several Hemingway novels and stories, to include a Soldier's Home (1926). Soldier's tells the story of Krebs, a war hero who returns from war only to find that no one recognizes him as a hero and no one is interested in listening to his stories about the war. While Krebs' disappointment at the denial of recognition as a war hero mirrors Heminway's own disappointment at being unable to serve a soldier due to his poor vision, Krebs' resulting emotional paralysis-"I don't love anybody"-is perhaps the exact opposite of Hemingway's life experience (Lock Haven University). On the contrary, while Krebs found himself unable even to love his own mother after returning from war, Hemingway himself felt far too much love, as exemplified in his four marriages and continual -- and often simultaneous-love affairs.

Hemingway worked to address this excess of love in the Garden of Eden, begun in 1946 during his marriage to Mary Walsh and his affair with Adriana Ivancich. Garden tells the story of the young American writer David Bourne on honeymoon with his wife Catherine in Grand-du-Roi, France. While they have only just begun their lives as a married couple, they meet, become infatuated with, and begin a mutual affair the dark-skinned beauty that finally ruins them. It is in this book, more than any other, that the fatalist, self-and-other-destructive aspect of Hemingway's writing is apparent. In his own words, Hemingway described the book's theme as "the happiness of the Garden that a man must lose" (JFK Presidential Library & Museum). On the morning of July 2nd, 1961-after a decades' long battle with mental illness and a paralyzing alcoholism, Hemingway ended his own life with a double barrel shotgun. At the time, Hemingway was dealing with severe memory and loss the inability to write, which "was his way of coping with life" (Hulse 10). Ernest Hemingway is the author of a dozen novels and seven collections of short stories. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1954, for the Old Man and the Sea, published in 1953. Works Cited "Ernest Hemingway: 'A Soldier's Home' (1925)." 2010. Lock Haven University. 01 January 2011. "Ernest Hemingway: A Storyteller's Legacy." 2010. John F. Kennedy Presidential Library & Museum. 01 January 2011. Hemingway, Ernest. The Garden of Eden. New York: Charles Schribner's Sons, 1986. "Hills Like White Elephants Complete Story." 29 August 2007. Machete: What We're Thinking. 01 January 2011. Hulse, Caroline. "Ernest Hemingway." earnest.hemingway.com. 1999-2009. 01 January 2011. .....