Summing up Ernest Hemingway’s life in a few words, as was his preferred literary style, is difficult. The author passed through various stages of fame and used his fortune to travel the world, never staying inactive for very long. His whole life could provide the material for a book as interesting as the ones he wrote, and it is clear these works were influenced by his extensive personal experiences. Hemingway’s enlistment in World War I was the inspiration behind A Farewell to Arms, and he later recounted his service in the Spanish War in For Whom the Bell Tolls. Current events also played a significant role in Hemingway’s writings, as is evidenced by To Have or Have Not, in which a man struggles to support his family amidst the Great Depression.