1. Describe the mood and atmosphere of this fragment.
2. What can you say about the style of narration and its language?
3. Find sentences showing Bayards tension and depression
4. How does Faulkner show the relationship between the white men and the Negroes?
Ernest Hemingway
(1898-1961)
Ernest Miller Hemingway was born in Illinois, in a small town near Chicago. His father, a doctor and a keen ethnographer influenced him greatly. He acquainted him with the real beauty of nature (the description of nature plays an important role in Hemingways works). After high school Ernest worked as a newspaper reporter and in 1918, when the United States entered World War I Hemingway was rejected for service because of a bad eye. He volunteered as an ambulance driver for the American Red Cross and was badly wounded on the Italian front. He was two times awarded by the Italian Government for his military service. After the war he spent some time in Paris where he joined a group of Americans which belong to the so-called lost generation. This generation felt alienated from their country. Being befooled by the official propaganda these young people were greatly disappointed with the cruel and useless War. Hemingway devoted many years to journalism and being a reporter traveled a lot and covered a lot of political events abroad. His first anti military novels (novels of lost generation) were The Torrents of Spring (1926) and The Sun Also Rises ( Fiesta ) (1926). (The term the lost generation was introduced into literature after Hemingways Fiesta. The epigraph of this work carried the words lost generation). In 1929 Hemingway published his prominent novel A Farewell to Arms .
Till the end of his life Ernest Hemingway tried to show in his military and non-military works the tragedy of the 20th century, struggle for existence, where can survive only courageous and strong willed persons. Among his other famous works are To Whom the Bell Tolls (1940), Islands in the Stream (1970), Garden of Eden (1986), collected short stories (the best known story is The Old Man and the Sea (1952; Pulitzer Prize).
Hemingways aim to write the absolute truth made him create a new style. He was the inventor of the so-called theory of iceberg: ... if a writers prose knows enough about 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 has stated them. The dignity of moment of an iceberg is due to only one-eighth of it being above water [1:195] Hemingway used short sentences, simple words, colloquial phrases but at the same time full of emotions which convey a striking effect.
A Farewell to Arms is a complex novel dealing with the problems of a war-torn young man called Frederic Henry. A few details from Hemingways personal life coincide with the events of the novel. Lieutenant Henry is with an ambulance unit, serving in the Italian Army, just as Hemingway did. He falls in love with Agnes, an English nurse, when he is recuperating in a hospital. (When Hemingway returned to America, his relationship with this lady came to an end). Apart from these factual details, others in the novel are different from those in Hemingways life. The novel deals with these two major Themes, love and war, which are connected with each other. The title itself implies these two themes, with a pun on the word arms. The main character, Henry, bids farewell to Arms as in weapons and besides, when his beloved lady, Catherine dies, to the loving arms of a human being.
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The novel is divided into five books, each part describes the adventures of an American lieutenant, Frederic Henry during World War. The novel is primarily set in Gorizia, a small town near the Italian-Austrian border. The protagonist, Frederic Henry, an ambulance driver in the Italian Army when the novel opens, is stationed here.
In Book II, Henry is wounded and is sent to a Milan hospital. Therefore, the action now moves to Milan. Here, the parallel theme of love between the protagonist and the heroine, Catherine Barkley, develops. Henrys love affair begins as a game of wartime-seduction but soon it turns into the real feeling and the only genuine and wonderful thing, which the characters can find in the front. Catherine is a volunteer nurse from Great Britain, she has come to front with her fiancé and he has been killed. She is also like Henry deeply disappointed and finds fulfillment in love. She comes from Scotland, has independent critical mind and is not more befooled by official ideology or illusions about honor, glory, patriotism.
In Book III, Henry is sent back to the front, in Gorizia. Though at some places the Italian troops resist the German-Austrian army, the battle near the town Caporetto (the historically famous small town) is lost and the Italian forces must withdraw. Henry finds himself part of a disorganized retreat. He deserts during it. Henry is shown as a duty-conscious officer but, on the one hand, the military police push him into it. On the other hand, his desertion of the army is the natural and logical consequence of his disillusion.
In Book IV and in Book V, the action moves back again to Milan and neutral Switzerland, where Henry and Catherine flee and stay till her death. The final is tragic. Catherine gives birth to a dead child and dies following the Caesarian operation.
The mood of the novel is pessimistic. Men and women, caught in the war, despair and move to bitterness and cynicism. Throughout the novel, a mood of continuous boredom, disappointment, and apathy dominates. Henry, a former student of architecture, has dropped his study and volunteered as an ambulance driver. Very soon he sees no patriotism in World War I. Henry tells that he was always embarrassed by the words sacred, glorious, sacrifice, etc. and abstract words such as glory, honor, or courage were obscene beside the concrete names of villages, the numbers of roads, the names of rivers, the numbers of regiments, and the dates. He becomes aware of the gap between words and reality. Everything is not glory and honourable in the war. His military spirits droop. Hemingway shows very vividly that the war depresses not only Henry. The soldiers fight battles because they are afraid of their officers. The soldiers morale is very low, as they do not know what they are fighting for. The people want to escape the depressing thoughts and get drunk. Rations meant for soldiers are sold on the black market. Wounded soldiers are left behind to face a slow agonizing death. The soldiers who retreat are accused by the army police of being deserts are short. Rain brings cholera.
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There are three main symbols: mountains, plains, and rain. The mountains are associated with home love, dignity, health, happiness, natural beauty; on the contrary, the plains symbolize indignity, suffering, disease. During any war plains are covered with dead bodies. Henry and Catherine escaping from the war reach a small village in the mountains. Rain is the symbol of destruction, death and an omen of misfortunate. Rain accompanies all crucial tragic events in the novel. In retreating it is raining. Catherine is afraid of the rain because she sees herself dead in it and indeed it is raining then.
A Farewell to Arm" expresses the view of lost generation that war is an awful, senseless destruction.
