Ernest Hemingway and A Farewell to Arms

Hemingway: life and writing

　　　 Hemingway was a myth in his own time and his life was colorful.

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Ernest Hemingway

American

1899

1961

one of the great American writers of the 20th century

novelist and short-story writer

He was born in Oak Park, Illinois. Hemingway loved sports and often went hunting and fishing with his father, which provided him with writing materials. After high school, he worked as a reporter. During World War I he served as an honorable junior officer in the American Red Cross Ambulance Corps and in 1918 was severely wounded in both legs.

After the war, he went to Paris as a foreign reporter. Influenced and guided by Sherwood Anderson, Stephen Crane and Gertrude Stein he became a writer and began to attract attention.

Sherwood AndersonGertrude Stein

Hemingway was married four times. Hemingway spent time in Key West, Florida,

Spain, and Africa after 1927. He was a war correspondent from 1936-1939

during the Spanish Civil War. After the war, Hemingway moved to Havana,

Cuba, and in 1958 moved to Idaho. In 1961, Hemingway shot himself with gun in his

home. Hemingway believed that to write well, you should

experience first hand the subject about which you write.

Literary Awards Hemingway’s novel The Old Man and the Sea,

published in 1952 won him a Pulitzer and Nobel Prize.

Hemingway receiving the Hemingway receiving the Nobel Prize for LiteratureNobel Prize for Literature

His major works

The Sun Also Rises (l926), Hemingway's first true novel, casts light on "The Lost Generation." The young expatriates in this novel are a group of wandering, amusing, but aimless people, who are caught in the war and removed from the path of ordinary life.

His major works

Hemingway's second big success A Farewell to Arms (1929) wrote the epitaph to a decade and to the whole generation in the 1920s. It tells us about the tragic love story about a wounded American soldier with a British nurse. Frederick Henry represents the experience of a whole nation, who is wounded in war and disillusioned with the insanity and futility of the universe.

His major works

For Whom the Bell Tolls concerns a volunteer American guerrilla Robert Jordan fighting in the Spanish Civil War. Although fully aware of the doomed failure of his struggle, he keeps on striving because it is a cause of freedom and democracy. In the end, the manner of his dying convinces people that life is worth living and there are causes worth dying for.

His major works

The Old Man and the Sea, capping his career and leading to his receipt of the Nobel Prize, is about an old Cuban fisherman Santiago and his losing battle with a giant marlin. In a tragic sense, it is a representation of life as a struggle against unconquerable natural forces in which only a partial victory is possible. Nevertheless, there is a feeling of great respect for the struggle and mankind.

His major works

Hemingway's other important works include Men Without Women (1927), Death in the Afternoon (l932), The Green Hills of Africa (1935), The Snows Of Kilimanjaro (1936) To Have and Have Not (1937).

A spokesman for the Lost GenerationThe term “lost generation” was coined by Gertrude Stein, a lost generation writer herself, after World War I. It was between the first and second World Wars. Speaking to Ernest Hemingway, she said, "you are all a lost generation."

The Lost Generation is a term used to describe a group of American writers who were rebelling against what America had become by the 1900’s.

Seeking the bohemian lifestyle and rejecting the values of American materialism, a number of intellectuals, poets, artists and writers fled to France in the post World War I years.

Paris was the center of it all. Full of youthful idealism, these individuals sought the meaning of life, drank excessively, had love affairs and created some of the finest American literature to date.

Hemingway’s Heroes Hemingway’s fiction usually focuses on

people living essential, dangerous lives—soldiers, fishermen, athletes, bullfighters—who meet the pain and difficulty of their existence with stoic courage.

The phrase, Hemingway code hero originated with scholar Philip Young. He uses it to describe a Hemingway character who lives correctly, following certain principles of honor, courage, and endurance which in a life of tension and pain make a man a man.

The Hemingway Code Hero 硬汉子

The Hemingway Code Hero 硬汉子

Throughout many of Hemingway’s novels the code hero acts in a manner which allowed the critic to formulate a particular code.

     -   he does not talk about what he believes in.      -   He does not talk too much.  He expresses

himself not in words, but in actions.  The Hemingway man is not a thinker, he is a man

of action.  But his actions are based upon a concept of life.

The Hemingway Code Hero 硬汉子

The Hemingway code heroes are best remembered for their indestructible spirit.

A man can be destroyed but not defeated.

----From The Old Man and the Sea

Hemingway’s Style

direct, terse, and often monotonous The use of short, simple and

conventional words and sentences has an effect of clearness, terseness and great care.

“Grace under pressure” is their motto Whatever is the result is, they are ready to

live with grace under pressure. No matter how tragic the ending is, they will

never be defeated. Finally, they will prevail because of their

indestructible spirit and courage.

They hide a sensitive heart under a tough exterior

the iceberg theory, sometime referred to as "theory of omission."

Hemingway believed that a good writer did not need to reveal every detail of a character or action.

“The dignity of movement of an ice-berg is due to only one-eighth of it being above water.”

In his writing the facts float above water; the supporting structure and symbolism operate out-of-sight.

1932 年，海明威在他的纪实性作品《午后之死》中，第一次把文学创作比做漂浮在大洋上的冰山，他说：“冰山运动之雄伟壮观，是因为他只有八分之一在水面上。”

简洁的文字、鲜明的形象、丰富的情感和深刻的思想是构成”冰山原则”的四个基本要素。具体地说，文字和形象是所谓的“八分之一”，而情感和思想是所谓的“八分之七”。

If a writer of prose knows enough of what he is writing about he may omit things that he knows and the reader, if the writer is writing truly enough, will have a feeling of those things as strongly as though the writer had stated them.

“如果一位作家对于他想写的东西心里很有数，那么他可能省略他所知道的东西，读者呢，只要作家写得真实，会强烈的感觉到他所省略的地方，好象作者写出来似的。”显而易见，作家在这里强调的是省略，主张水面下的的“八分之七”应该留给读者去感受。

A Farewell to Arms

The novel is about Hemingway's World War I experiences and his relationship with Agnes von Kurowsky in Milan.

On the surface, a tragic romance

Below the surface, about the war

Individual tragedy within the larger picture of greater tragedy

The novel is divided into five books. In the first book, Henry meets and attempts to seduce Catherine Barkley and their relationship begins. While on the Italian front, Henry is wounded in the knee by a mortar shell and sent to a hospital in Milan.

The second book shows the growth of Henry and Catherine's relationship as they spend time together in Milan over the summer. Henry falls in love with Catherine and by the time he is healed, Catherine is three months pregnant.

Summary of A Farewell to Arms

In the third book, Henry returns to his unit, but not long after, the Austro-Germans break through the Italian lines in the Battle of Caporetto, and the Italians retreat. Henry kills an engineering sergeant for insubordination. After falling behind and catching up again, Henry is taken to a place by the "battle police" where officers are being interrogated and executed for the "treachery" that supposedly led to the Italian defeat. However, after hearing the execution of a Lt.Colonel, Henry escapes by jumping into a river.

Summary of A Farewell to Arms

In the fourth book, Catherine and Henry reunite and flee to Switzerland in a rowing boat. In the final book, Henry and Catherine live a quiet life in the mountains until she goes into labour. After a long and painful labour, their son is stillborn. Catherine begins to haemorrhage and soon dies, leaving Henry to return to their hotel in the rain.

Summary of A Farewell to Arms

Major Themes

Love as a response to the horrors of war and the world

Hemingway repeatedly emphasizes the horrific devastation war has wrought on everyone involved. From the opening account of cholera that kills "only" 7,000 men to the graphic description of the artillery bombardment to the corrupt violence during the Italian retreat, A Farewell to Arms is among the most frank anti-war novels.

Love is a pleasurable diversion that distracts lovers from the outside world; the two often tell each other not to think about anything else, as it is too painful. Hidden within the shelter of Catherine's beautiful hair, Henry and Catherine feel protected from the cruel outside world.

美国作家海明威的小说名 A Farewell to Arms 中的 “ arms” 一语双关，第一层意思为 “武器”，代表帝国主义战争，第二层意思为 “手臂”，代表拥抱与爱情，该词点出了他这部作品的双重主题。此书有两个汉译本，一本把书名译为《永别了，武器》，另一本处理成《战地春梦》，在体现书名里的双关语这一点上，后一种译法更为恰切：“战”与 “春”分别译出原文 arms 的两层意思。

Lieutenant Frederic Henrythe Hemingway code hero a man of action who coolly exhibits "grace under

pressure" while confronting death. Henry's narration is certainly detached and action-

oriented - only rarely does he let us into his most private thoughts - and he displays remarkable cool when shooting the engineering sergeant.

The Hemingway hero also eschews glory for a more personal code of honor.

Henry is not greedy for accolades, nor is he stupidly sacrificial. He judiciously determines what is worth the sacrifice, and decides that the war is no longer worthwhile.