What Leads To Suicide

Have you ever felt lonely? Like no one in the world cares about you. The old man in Ernest Hemingway’s short story might have been a reflection of himself, rather than a fictional character. Both men experience loneliness, which ultimately leads them to thoughts of suicide.
The old man did not always appear to live a lonely life. He had married, but his wife died at some point. We know the old man is deaf, but we don’t know when he became deaf. I don’t know what it is like to be deaf. I think the difficulty communicating with others could make you feel lonely. For some reason the old man had difficulty sleeping. Each night he would go to a café, yet he doesn’t interact with those around him. The café is very nice, and the old man can afford it.
Hemingway also had a lot of money, yet he was not a happy person. As he wrote the story, I think he changed some characteristics about himself for the story. Hemingway had married and divorced at least 5 times. He could not find the one person who made him happy. Like the old man, he had a lot of money. For both men, money did not buy happiness. The old man tried to commit suicide by hanging himself. Hemingway took his own life by shooting himself with his favorite shotgun.
I believe Hemingway thought about suicide long before he really did it. Could he have been thinking about his suicide at the time he wrote this story, 29 years before he actually did it? In the end loneliness can affect the decisions you make in your life