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Pauline Hemingway

Pauline Hemingway

Pauline Hemingway was an American journalist and the second wife of Ernest Hemingway. Born on July 22nd 1895, Pauline moved to Paris after studying for her masters in Journalism at The University of Missouri School of Journalism, where she first met Ernest Hemingway and his first wife.


Pauline and Ernest in Paris, 1927

We meet Pauline in Chapter 12 where Morley and Loretta visit with the Hemingway’s in their Parisian home at 6 rue Ferou. After running a search with Voyant tools, we can see that Pauline’s name occurs throughout the text 25 times in total. What is interesting is that Pauline herself does not feature in a lot of the text’s events, but rather is referred to a lot as an extension of her husband’s reputation and name in Paris. Morley’s assessment of Pauline during that initial meeting projects a commanding presence which, somewhat romantically, parallels the dominant persona of her male counterpart. Her impetuous nature, coupled with her vehement sharp tongue creates a tough character to warm to, especially for Loretta as she discovers when Pauline offers her the details of a local Milliners, before quickly and earnestly retracting the information until confirmation of Loretta’s honest intention to pursue.

“[Pauline] said abruptly, “Are you sure you really want to use this milliner? I won’t bother giving you the name unless you really intend to go there.” It was a blunt and startling challenge.”

From this, we are able to draw conclusions of Pauline’s confident and confrontational personality, a trait which is similarly expressed through the character of Zelda Fitzgerald. Pauline is further alluded to as being slightly pretentious, as in Chapter 14 Callaghan recalls how:

“Pauline had conveyed to us her belief that cafe sitting was a little beneath her”

This idea of Pauline’s elevated self-perception can be traced through Voyant’s Word Pattern tool, which clearly demonstrates below the crossover between ‘Pauline’ within the text and ‘Snobbery’. While it is not fair to draw conclusions over one’s nature merely through an individual’s interpretation of text and data, it can be deduced that Pauline did perhaps have a fairly conceited manner. Leading us to believe this was perhaps a common idiosyncrasy amongst the iconic women of the 1920’s Parisian scene.






Hawkins, R A. Unbelievable Happiness and Final Sorrow: The Hemingway-Pfeiffer Marriage. The University of Arkansas Press, USA.

Morley Callaghan, That summer in Paris: Memories of tangled friendships with Ernest Hemingway and Scott Fitzgerald. London: MacGibbon & Kee..http://fitzgerald.narod.ru/bio/callaghan-thatsum.html