n the war ended he proposed to her. His offer was rejected and he moved to Paris where he again became a reporter. While in Paris he made friends with such writers as F. Scott Fitzgerald and Gertrude Stein. They tried to persuade him to start writing not as a journalist but as a novelist. He took their advice and began work on his first book, a collection of short stories, In Our Time. The book was not a great success but it was successful enough to spur him on to write more.
             Hemingway once stated, "All modern literature comes from one book by Mark Twain called Huckleberry Finn" (Bartlett's book of quotations). He had a deep respect for Twain's work. By comparing his books with Twain's a reader can see a definite similarity in character development and in a love of reality. One representative part of his writing was his tendency to put common men in situations that test their character. He showed the central male characters in his novels in their true colors. He also said, "I know only that what is moral is what I feel good after and what is immoral I feel bad after" (Bartlett's Book of quotations). Living as a common man himself he wanted to overcome the tests in his own life and feel good when he looked back on them. That is not a very complex life style to live. Hemingway realized the more complicated one allows his life to get the farther he is from true human compassion, morality, and ultimately love; love for one's environment, friends, family, and self.
             Hemingway expresses a feeling evident in his writing when he said, "A man can be destroyed but not defeated" (The Old Man and the Sea). He was destroyed; but through the success of his works such as A Farewell to Arms, The Sun Also Rises, and The Old Man and the Sea he has not been defeated. Defeat lies only within man's mind. In Hemingway's novels he places men in countless situations where they could b...