Hemingway's Marriage to Mary Welsh. His last days.

Hemingway did not stay in Europe for Armistice Day but returned to Paris with Mary Welsh.

He then went on to Finca Vigia in March 1945.

Guilty again about his failed marriage to Martha he fell into a state of alcohol and indulgence.

After drinking too many daiquiris he had another serious car crash.

On March 14 1946 with his divorce finalised from Martha he married Mary Welsh.

He also started work on two projects 'The Garden of Eden ' and the first part of his proposed World War Two trilogy which was published after his death as 'Islands in the Stream'. His health was deteriorating and his drinking had increased. His writing had almost come to a grinding stop and with the death of many of his close friends including his second wife Pauline Pfieffer, his mother and his publisher, Charles Scribner, Hemingway often found himself contemplating his life and what he felt was his immediate death.

Hemingway and Mary went to Northern Italy so he could relive his ambulance driving days.

He met a woman called Adriana Ivancich and fell in love with her. This meeting inspired 'Across the River and Into the Trees'.

The novel was panned by critics but Hemingway quickly followed that novel with 'The Old Man and the Sea' which won him critical acclaim again and he won the Pulitzer Prize in May 1953.

In June 1953 Hemingway and Mary went to Europe, Hemingway was planning an appendix to 'Death in the Afternoon'.

He travelled on to Mombassa and here he conducted a ritual courtship with a young Wakambu girl.

His accidents continued in 1954 and he had two plane crashes, the second so serious that once again news of his death was published. He returned to Cuba only partly recovered from his serious injuries and saw Adriana for the last time.

On 28 October 1954 Hemingway was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. He was too ill to receive the award in Stockholm but held a party at Finca Vigia.

Filming of the 'Old Man and the Sea' started in in the mid 50's and he became involved in that.

He was in Europe from September 1956 to January 1957 and he set sail for Spain in May 1959, a month after Fidel Castro's troops entered Havana.

When he returned to Havana in early November he publicly declared his support for the revolutionaries.

In the Spring of 1960 he completed his memoirs of life in Paris in the early twenties called a 'Moveable Feast'.

Hemingway left Cuba for the last time in July 1960.

He was already showing signs of mental illness, his health had collapsed and he was forced more and more to rely on alcohol.

In August he went to Spain alone but was forced to cut short his trip and return to Idaho.

On 30th November he was admitted to the Mayo Clinic for the first time. He stayed about a month.

He was readmitted three months later and stayed another two months.

He'd found his memory had gone and he couldn't write any more.

Hemingway killed himself on a log cabin in Ketcham, Idaho on Sunday 2 July 1961. He tripped the trigger of his double barelled shotgun and was instantly killed.

Nowhere does Hemingway appear truer to his nature than in the photographs that show him hunting or fishing or on the battlefield.

Whether he holds the Tycoon rod he used to catch spearfish or his Austrian Mannlicher Schoenaur.256 which he used on elephant hunts, these images seem to encapsulate the truth.

They show the Hemignway we remember, a bearded giant of a man in bermuda shorts and worn out loafers, an instantly recognisable larger than life hero of our times.

We remember him as an 'action man'. A man filled with confidence and authority. But in reality he was shy and bitterly frustrated.

He was a man with exceptional intelligence and an educated upbringing, so diverse it must have been confusing to a young man.

His mother on one side was teaching him culture and took him to operas, concerts and art galleries and his father, on the other, was rugged and taught him outdoor life, how to use an axe, a gun, and to be afraid of nothing.

Both parents were strong and each had a total conviction and enthusiasm to teach Ernest their own ideals. And of course he and his five brothers and sisters were brought up in an intensely religious atmosphere.

Hemingway's childhood and adolescence gave him an insight into all aspects of life and being such an inquisitive, person with a determination for detail he wanted to try everything and be exceptional at everything he did.

He found it very frustrating when his health or poor eye sight kept him from fulfilling his goals. Right from adolescence when he wanted to join the forces he was unable to. His poor eye sight meant he could only join the ambulance corps. Enough for some people, but not Hemingway. He wanted to excel, to be thought of as the best.

He must also have felt himself 'cursed'. His numerous accidents, starting with his wounding in the First World War, when of course, he felt he was invincible, was his first and serious setback.

Prevented from achieving his first goal of being a war 'hero' - fulfilling his father's teachings of being a strong, dominant, fighting man, afraid of nothing, he turned to his mother's loves - culture and began to write.

He had of course been a newspaper reporter after leaving school, but his first choice was to follow his father's examples, to become a rugged, outdoor, independent man. Ironically it was his father who refused to let him join up for the First World War.

He quickly got married after recovering from his injuries in the First World War and he married a woman eight years older than him, although it was said she was naieve, unworldy and inexperienced.

It was said that perhaps he married Hadley for her money - she had private income from a trust fund and Hemingway who was not earning much as a newspaper reporter was determined to travel. He knew he needed some financial support for his plans.

However his marriage to Hadley had produced a son, John Hadley.

He was, it was said, having a number of affairs during his marriage to Hadley but it was only when she found out about his affair with Pauline Pfeiffer that Hadley wanted to divorce him.

Why did he find it necessary to have affairs, why did he need everyone to 'love' him? The pattern of marriages and affairs stayed with him all his life and yet when he finally married a woman he considered his equal - Martha Gelhorn, he threw that away too, discovering he could not cope with a woman who had a career of her own.

Hemingway did not know what he wanted. He wanted everything and nothing.

His writing was his way of coping with life - to exorcise his ghosts, to achieve fame and glory and yet he also had a natural talent. What came first, his writing or his adventures? What was most important to him? To fulfill his mother's wishes or his father's?

Maybe he felt unfulfilled at his attempts of being an adventurous, outdoor man? He certainly had more than his fair share of illness. Anthrax, digestive problems, pneumonia. Each illness seemed to occur after a long period of activity. Fishing, hunting, shooting. Maybe he was frustrated at his poor health, his proneness to sickness everytime he made some exertion on his body.

He eventually fell into a period of mental illness, overwhelmed by the demands put on him by others and himself.

His father had committed suicide, did he feel then it was perfectly ok for him to do the same?

But his medical treatment to overcome his mental problems did not work and he found his memory had gone and he could not even write to appease himself.

His physical state was also too poor for him to carry on with his pursuits of fishing, shooting and hunting. There was no other choice than to end his life.

Дата добавления: 2015-11-14