The Friendship We Never Got

The poetry foundation website classifies Wilfred Owen as a Francophile, someone who falls in love with France. A lot of great writers as well fell in love with France after World War one, like Hemingway, Fitzgerald, and Stein. The only difference is that Wilfred fell in love with the country before the war. It is an interesting idea to speculate if Owen moved back to France after the war and would have been part of an inner circle of some of the greatest modern writers during the 1920s in France. What if Ernst Hemingway and Wilfred Owen in another were best friends?

First, it must go on record that Owen was a poet and Hemingway and they were novelists. Two different types of writing but both carry a story that needs to be told. Hemingway also had trouble keeping friends. Thinking of Hemingway and how he considered himself a “man’s man” it is hard to picture him and Owen being friends. Not that that Owen’s masculinity was questionable, he just came off more of a humble person. Both of them fought in World War One, but Hemingway was an ambulance driver, still a brave job during the war, its just Owen was actually part of the infantry. Hemingway would also be boastful with his war effort and Owen having PTSD, might have shied away from the topic.  Hemingway might have had it too but it would be from his other misfortunes. That being said Hemingway was also pretty profound and also a deep thinker. He was also was prone to depression, so there could have been a possibility of the two finding a similar connection. The only big issue would be that Hemingway liked the idea of war, it was considered “manly”. It is safe to say Owen most likely hated war, being mentally destroyed by it. That being said Hemingway's novel, Farewell to Arms, about the Great War, share similar ideas with Owen.

The ideas are boundless and the “what ifs” never end, still it is interesting to think about from time to time. In a brighter world maybe Owen never dies and becomes true friend with Hemingway, maybe he even saves Hemingway’s life.