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The Old Man and the Sea Or: Man can be destroyed but not defeated
Ernest Hemingway is by far one of the greatest American writers and a classic in universal literature. His writings were a huge success during his life and are still enjoyed by a large number of readers. May the incredibly simple style which treats difficult themes be the recipe of his success, or was it his God-given art of writing? Born in Oak Park, near Chicago, the second child of his father, who was a medic and his mother, an opera singer, the future novelist grew up in a wealthy family with ample opportunity to read and experience cultural events. Ernest probably inherited the sensibility of a musician from his mother and the power of treating peoples soul from his authoritative father. When he was two years old, in the summer, his father took him at fishing for the first time. Little Ernest caught the biggest fish and since then, fishing would remain the passion of his life. He had a very tumultuous life. He was married four times, was a passionate fisherman and hunter. He travelled a lot and was also a heavy drinker. As a result of such a restless life, tortured by big health problems and loneliness, he committed suicide in his home in Idaho, on 2 July 1961, by shooting himself. It seemed that he was also suffering of paranoid attacks in his last years of living, worried about money and safety. During World War I, when he was still 18, he offered himself to be an ambulance driver in Italy. Despite being wounded by mortar fire, he helped an Italian soldier, carrying him to safety. Hemingway received the Italian Silver Medal of Bravery, but he explained his deed more as a result of lack of experience, natural for his youth: "When you go to war as a boy you have a great illusion of immortality. Other people get killed; not you ... Then when you are badly wounded the first time you lose that illusion and you know it can happen to you. He also took part in World War II and the Spanish Civil War, as a journalist. In 1951, he wrote the novel The Old Man and the Sea, a book about which he said that it was "the best I can write ever for all of my life". It was, indeed and was going to remain his best writing, as many critics believe. A year later, Ernest Hemingway won the Pulitzer Prize and in 1954 received the Nobel Prize for Literature. The writing style used in most of his writings is original. The unique Hemingway style, Hemingway-esque, as it is called by critics is famous for the short, factual sentences, the declarative nature of the words. Hemingway called his style the iceberg theory: The facts float above water; the supporting structure and symbolism operate out of sight. His style sounds so modern due to persistent use of this tone of understatement also influenced probably by his experience as a journalist who had to be concise and objective.
Bibliography
1. 2. Hemingway, Ernest The old man and the sea, Scribner Paperback Fiction Baker, Carlos - Ernest Hemingway: A Life Story, Charles Scribner's Sons