Hemingway and Paris
To many people Paris is a city of unlimited inspiration. In many ways this is why Ernest Hemingway spent a lot of his life there. He was in love with the people, the feeling, and the actual city of Paris. Hemingway claimed that the city was home to “the most interesting people in the world.”i The people of Paris greatly supported the artists of the time. This includes supporting Hemingway in his first quests for literature. Most people would agree that without Paris, Hemingway would have never come close to reaching his full potential as a writer. There are many qualities of Paris that attracted young Hemingway. Most directly; Paris had an extremely favorable exchange rate for Americans. This this way Paris was an inexpensive place to live. This was necessary due to the inconsistent salary of a writer. Still the people of Paris even further supported Hemingway economically. In Paris Everest meet fellow writers including Gertrude Stein, James Joyce and Ezra Pound. These writers, “could help a young writer up the rungs of a career"ii. In this way there was less pressure on money, which allowed Hemingway to use his time writing. Overall; Paris was economically kind to its writers. Still the economy was probably one of the lesser reasons Hemingway went to Paris. Hemingway truly believed that Paris’s people were a different breed. He felt more connected to the people of Paris than to the people of this home country.iii Hemingway even had an affair with a Paris fashion writer named Pauline Pfeiffer (later his wife). This affair caused a divorce with his current wife Hadley Richardson. This love for the people of Paris included Gertrude Stein. Gertrude introduced Hemingway to the “Paris lifestyle”iv and the up and coming artists of its time. Gertrude called these people “the Lost Generation”. She is well known for shaping young Hemingway into a full-fledged author. Her pursuit of writing was very influential for Hemingway. Also at the same time, he became friends