Hemingway's Venetian MuseAdriana Ivancich

Abstract

The essay centers on the strange relationship between Ernest Hemingway and Adriana Ivancich. When the writer met the eighteen year old girl in Venice in 1948 he was nearly 50 years old, depressed and in a creative crisis. Since 1940 he had not published anything serious. The platonic love story renewed his spirits. He was again able to write. The relationship inspired the novel “Across the River and into the Trees” and to a lesser extent “The Old Man and the Sea”. For five years the affair dominated Hemingway’s emotional life, culminating in Adriana’s several months long visit to Cuba. The essay follows the influence Adriana had on his writings and on his personal life. Both Ernest and Adriana were left with a lasting mark. Adriana could never free herself of the father-figure that overshadowed her life, finally ending in her suicide.