It seems Ernest Hemmingway had a pretty eventful life, and a
pretty difficult one at that. I feel that his experiences in war and his
upbringing took a toll on him from early on in life. In my opinion, from watching the documentary
he seems sort of corrupt. I understand that he suffered from some mental
issues, it just seemed he could have handled things differently. In the
documentary, when his children spoke, I felt bad for them; they didn’t get the
father figure they deserved. Hemmingway’s elusive relationships with women had
something to do with it. He managed to have four different wives over the
course of his lifetime, not to mention the women on the side. It seems he
wasn’t able to put what mattered most first. His writing was always put above
everything else, including his family. I wish that he could have had other ways
of dealing with his problems, besides drinking or finding other women. He could
have tried harder to make things work out with his relationships. Something
that could have spawned this way of life could be the influence of super
masculinity from when he was younger. It seems that he was insecure about his
masculinity from early on because of his upbringing. This influenced his way of
writing and possibly relations with others. It was said that he might not have
been the best father because he set his standards to high and always expected
the most from people. He felt he had a certain reputation to always uphold;
this led to him not living the most moral life.
