Analyzing a Photograph of Ernest Hemingway

This activity can be used to learn and practice photograph analysis skills in the middle school grades, or as an introduction to the life and works of Ernest Hemingway. It is appropriate for students in grades 5-10. Approximate time needed is 20 minutes.

Ask students to look closely at the photograph. Guide them through the analysis questions to learn more about the photograph. (Or ask them to work in pairs on their own to answer the questions.)

As with any primary source analysis, students will go through the following progression, as outlined in the activity:

• Meet the photo.
• Observe its parts.
• Try to make sense of it.
• Use it as historical evidence.

When students answer all of the analysis questions, click on “When You’re Done” and ask the final questions:

• Based on your observations, what job do you think this person does?
• What clues from the photo help support your idea?

After discussing students’ observations, inform them about the following details:

This is a photograph of a teenage Ernest Hemingway, author of The Sun Also Rises, For Whom the Bell Tolls, and The Old Man and the Sea. Based on his uniform, you may assume that he was a member of the military, but he actually served as an ambulance driver for the Red Cross during World War I.

 

He was injured two months into his service and recovered in Milan, Italy, for several months. His time there, and his relationship with a Red Cross nurse named Agnes Hannah von Kurowsky, became the basis for his novel A Farewell to Arms.