Sthasy Guerrero

On Thursday, March 23rd, Dr. Linda Miller, was a special speaker in the “Hemingway & Medicine: Diagnosing texts both physically and emotionally” event that was hosted by the Health Humanities club.

Miller talked about Ernest Hemingway as a distinguished American author and the complexity that not only followed his stories but also his life. Miller states that Hemingway “Focused on the emotional reality of the story” and while he tended to leave some details out from the story, it was then up to the reader to interpret. Miller mentioned that Hemingway wanted the reader to get a feel of what was going on in the story; that Hemingway’s stories focused on complex, tragic, but real emotions and that he wrote flawed characters because Hemingway himself was flawed and went through turmoil.

As someone who partook in the First World War and who was injured in it, Hemingway wrote a lot of stories that focused on the war and which focused on his own experience in them and how being in the war led to PTSD and other mental health issues, as he was never the same after participating. One of the Hemingway stories that Miller mentioned is “In Another Country.”

Hemingway also had a hard time dealing with his father’s suicide and through his stories, he reflected on the meaning of death and the relationships between a child and his father, as seen in his stories of “Indian Camp” and “Fathers and Sons.”

In Indian Camp, Hemingway writes: “Do many men kill themselves, Daddy?” “Not very many, Nick.” “Do many women?” “Hardly ever.” “Don’t they ever?” “Oh, yes. They do sometimes.”

Miller stated that Hemingway was a troubled writer who had a rocky relationship with his parents, and it was shown through his stories as his father’s suicide left an impact. Eventually, Hemingway took his own life. Many of Hemingway’s stories also focused on the war and how the war further derailed his mental state. Hemingway was an unfortunate soul but Miller referred him in being a great writer and mentioned what he chose to leave out of the story is up for the reader to decipher.