In 1937, Ernest Hemingway and Langston Hughes spent a brief period of time together in Madrid, Spain during the Spanish Civil War. Hughes reports on this interaction, but Hemingway never wrote about it. In this thesis, I use a cultural geographical lens to provide an explanation for this interaction and for Hemingway's silencing of Hughes. Through an exploration of vernacular landscapes, I argue that Hemingway performed a persona that appeased an American hegemonic public and that Hemingway was able to subvert his persona and hegemonic ideals when travelling abroad. This subversion, I believe, allowed for his interaction with Hughes, but his persona restricted his ability to write about Hughes to an American audience. In the first chapter, I demonstrate how Hemingway's persona developed in an American vernacular landscape focused on the strenuous life. I discuss the significance of mobility for the construction and maintenance of Hemingway's persona and literature in the second chapter. The third and final chapter serves as an exploration of Europe as a space that Hemingway perceived differently than America, which allowed for his ability to subvert American ideals when abroad.