Hemingway's venetian muse Adriana Ivancich

Abstract

The essay centers on the relationship between Ernest Hemingway and Adriana Ivancich. When the writer met the then 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 overcame his writers block. The relationsship inspired the novel "Across the River and into the Trees" and to a lesser degree "The Old Man and the Sea". For five years the affair dominated Hemingway's emotional life, culminating in Adriana's several months long stay on his finca in Cuba. The essay follows the influence Adriana had on his writings and 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. Both the author and his muse ended in suicide.