I don't know what it is about Hemingway that draws me in. Maybe the fact that he hunted lions in Africa in his spare time or that he had a house in Cuba. Perhaps it's his outward masculinity that could be hiding an inward homosexuality or the caricature of him in Woody Allen's Midnight in Paris. I guess it could be his short, staccato-like sentences or literary accessibility. Most likely it's a combination, which, when taken together, paint him as one of the greatest writers in American history.
He was concise and didn't mince his words. He had emotions and put them down on the paper. He didn't hide (or purportedly tried not to hide...but oh those whispers of homosexuality...) behind a facade of words. He wrote about the way he felt. He loved nature and adventure and manliness. He wanted to share tales from his youthful home in Michigan and his grown-up experiences around the globe. He talked about racism and sexism, hunting and fishing, and war. He was one of America's most celebrated writers, the winner of both the Pulitzer Prize and the Nobel Prize for Literature.
For some, he epitomized a generation, setting the stage for many to come after him. For others, he's just a man who wrote stories. For my students, I'd say he fits into the latter. Hopefully I can change that. I want my students to embrace the nature and the mystery that he weaves into his stories. I want them to get a thrill out of his understatement and question his motives. Maybe I can reach one student and he/she will go on to explore and question and scuba dive. If this happens, I will be a success.
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