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摘 要

总所周知，海明威是迷惘的一代最著名的代表人物之一。当时只有19岁的海明威参加了第一次世界大战，他在前线受伤且亲眼目睹了战争的残酷无情，从那之后他就强烈地反对战争。深知战争的糟糕、愚蠢和无奈，海明威急切的希望通过他的战争题材的小说向读者传达战争的可怕和战争给人们带来的无法弥补的创伤。而《永别了，武器》这部小说是海明威明显的表现出他的战争观的作品。这为篇小说在第一次世界大战的背景下，以战争和爱情为主线，阐述了作者对战争以及人生的看法及态度。因此，我以《永别了，武器》为例，根据海明威的个人经历和小说主人公亨利的性格特征以及冰山理论来详细分析海明威的战争观。

关键字： 反战，迷惘，爱情

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements i

Abstract(English) ii

Abstract(Chinese) iii

1. Introduction 1

1.1 The lost generation 1

1.2 Hemingway and his works 2

1.3 Brief Introduction to A Farewell to Arms 2

2. Literature Review 4

3. An analysis of Henry the Character 5

3.1 Henry’s views towards war 5

3.2 Henry’s views towards love 6

3.3 A comparison between Henry and Hemingway 7

3.3.1 Iceberg Theory in the Novel 7

3.3.2 Henry and Hemingway 8

4. Conclusion 10

References 11

1. Introduction

1.1 The Lost Generation

The lost generation was originally referred to a generation of confused and disappointed young people in the beginning of the 20^th century after the First World War. However, it later became the name of a group of American writers after the world war. The name came from an American female writer, for she said that Hemingway was a lost generation. As a female writer in the early 20^th century, Hemingway rewarded her as a spiritual leader for the reason that she had a strong sense of anti-tradition and rebellious. In the 1920s, impelled by so-called patriotism and incited by some politicians, a lot of young Americans with typical American adventure spirits were drafted into the army and participated in the bloody war of imperialism. However, war was far beyond their imagination which they used to think it was very wonderful and exciting. These young people experienced and witnessed the cruelty of the war. There was no peace and security, but danger and death. The essence of war was no longer in face of the enemy, but in face of the killing machines. Bombing, shelling and mines often killed the whole team in a second. They strongly believed that their values of being a soldier have been deprived, so they couldn’t prove their courage and wined honors in the battle. They were disappointed and had a strong anti-war mood. Their high will to fight was soon replaced by sadness and pain. Therefore, they tried to evaded reality and engaged in all kinds of exciting activities with pathological recalcitrant. They challenged to the traditional moral and attacked the society. They seemed to have absorbed in pessimism and desperation.

It was in this historical background that the lost generation as a literary genre emerged as the times required. At the beginning of 20^th century, a group of young writers who had experienced the war came out. They virtually formed a new literary genre because they speak sincerely for the post-war generation. Hemingway used the words ‘the lost generation’ as the inscription of his first long novel The Sun Also Rises, so the lost generation became the name of the literary genre. As a product of the First World War, the backbones of this genre were mostly young writers. They hated and feared the war, but they lost and couldn’t find their ways of thinking. Moreover, they didn’t believe the spirit of bourgeois and acted on their own instincts and impressions. In America, people called writers with this kind of thoughts and emotions ‘the lost generation’, such as Hemingway, Faulkner and F. Scott Fitzgerald.

1.2 Hemingway and his works

Ernest Miller Hemingway was an American writer and journalist. He attended in the 1920s expatriate community in Paris. Besides, he also knew as one of the veterans of the World War I later known as ‘the lost generation’. He received the Pulitzer Prize in 1953 for The Old Man and the Sea and the Nobel Prize in literature in 1954. Hemingway married four women through his turbulent and painful emotional life. This led to his diametric attitude towards female and his works of female characters often unreality. Hemingway’s personal life was very uninhibited and love affairs continuously. The man who had fourth marriages had been spread the gossip with many females. Several girlfriends of his criticized “he was a man had perverse intercourse at the beginning and desert them at the end.” Hemingway was a Christian and suicide in Christianity is a great iniquity. However, Hemingway finally chose to suicide himself. The root cause of suicide to Ernest Hemingway was the despair that he could not create new woks any more. Only the physical indispositions never enough to beat the tough man. The day before Hemingway’s death, he wrote a letter to his old friend fisherman:” the greatest satisfaction in one’s life is not the income, love, marriage and family life satisfaction, but the satisfaction to his own. ” Couldn’t satisfy with himself and couldn’t meet himself finally resulted in Hemingway shooting to himself. He wrote many novels and short stories. His works is mainly concerned about war and courage, including For Whom the Bell Tolls, The Sun Also Rises, Men Without Women.

1.3 Brief Introduction to A Farewell to Arms

Hemingway wrote many novels and short stories. His works is mainly concerned about war and courage. Throughout his life, A Farewell to Arms is one of his early works. Actually, A Farewell to Arms is a book about his own experience in the World War I.

The book tells a story about the war experience and the love affairs of an American youth called Fredrik Henry in Italy during World War I. Henry serves in the Italian army as an ambulance driver. Then He falls in love with a charming British nurse named Catherine Barkley. After he wounded at the front by a trench mortar shell, she has a tendency to him in the hospital during his recuperation, and their relationship develops in that period of time. His recuperation and happy time with the pregnant. Catherine ends up unexpectedly when Henry receives the news that he must return to the front. Henry escapes death reluctantly at the hands of crazy Italian soldiers and they are putting officers separated from their troops to death during the Italians' disastrous retreat following the Battle of Caporetto. He finds Catherine and after a short stay in an Italian resort, the couple escapes to Switzerland on the eve of Henry's arrest for deserting. In Switzerland, their child is born dead and Catherine dies shortly because of hemorrhages, leaving Henry despairing and alone in an alien land. Henry from an enthusiastic young people into a disappointment, emptiness, pain, confusion typical of that caused by the war. A Farewell to Arms is an anti-war novel which explores that war is an iniquity, in which the cruelty and inhumanity can be found everywhere.

1. Literature Review

A Farewell to Arms has been analyzed by many critics from many different angles. However, most of them focus on the theme of anti-war.

According to Guan Mingfu(2004), Hemingway developed his anti-war idea within three stages: the first stage was being lost, the next was being against war, and the last was calling on resuscitation of humanity. And A Farewell to Arms was a representative works of the second stage. Hemingway set the background of this novel under the World War I, denounced that the war destroys the happiness of people through characters in the novel. He wanted to make people realize that as long as there is a war, there is no happiness. The death of Catherine and their son gave Henry a fatal hit. He lost his affections and all the hope and courage of living.

However, Huang Fang (2012) thought that in this novel Hemingway not only showed his attitude towards war, but also revealed the hypocrisy of the bourgeoisie. In the first chapter of the novel, Hemingway described two distinct classes, one was soldiers fighting hardly after long journey, and the other was the king sitting safely and comfortable in the car. This kind of strong contrast exposed the hypocrisy of the capitalist class. This novel showed the frustration, confusion, decadent, pain and suffering of the lost generation. Hemingway clearly illustrated his views of war, which was, war was evil and cruel, and it made no sense to human beings in addition to brought death and destruction. And war not only destroyed human’s life, but also caused an irreparable injury to ones spirit.

Sun Yongjie(2013) held the opinion that Hemingway clearly showed his views of war towards A Farewell to Arms. This novel was written with his own personal experience under the background of the first war. So he witnessed the cruel and heartless of the war. Sun started his research from three aspects, and the three angles were the disillusionment of the young soldiers in the war, the destruction of their body as well as their mind and the shatter of the love. He explored the death theme of Hemingway’s novel and condemned the relentless destruction of physical and mental, as well as spiritual torture. Therefore, Sun concluded that the anti-war thought of Hemingway was very profound.

3. An analysis of Henry the Character

3.1 Henry’s views towards war

Henry was a typical American officer in the initial. He was volunteered to join the Italy army under the affection of so-called patriotism and democracy. He became a lieutenant of an ambulance crew. At that time, Henry was pure and kind. He didn’t understand the cruelty and meaningless of the war. All he had was his passion towards the war. He tried to realize his value. From his point of view, war was holiness and he attended the war for the sake of people’s freedom and happiness. He was confident of war and in his first conversation with Catherine, he said: ‘here is not down’. At the same time, Henry was earnest with his work. He checked the vehicle carefully after his vacation. At that time, Henry was empty-minded and lost, his ideal is blurry and he seemed has forgotten the original intention to join the army. He used to have drinks and played with girls with other officers. During this period, many people expressed their disappointed and disgust of the war. Although Henry didn’t agree with these people, he had certain suspicions towards the war in his mind.

Afterwards, Henry was injured and transferred to Milan for better medical treatment. It seemed that Henry was far away from the war. However, he still can get messages of the war from the newspapers, injured patients and even strangers. He fell in love with Catherine and began to yearn for the happy life of them. But he was a soldier and he must perform his duty. The ease and comfort in recuperate had some influences on his enthusiasm of the war. When Henry came back to the battlefield, there were some changes. Henry learned a lot from the conversation with the major that they had a bad summer and fall, it is a false decision to comeback. Renaldo was busy in doing surgeries and he was tired of the war. The pastor was also not optimistic. The soldiers couldn’t see any hope in the war and they had suffered a lot from the meaningless and painful war. When Henry came back to the location where he got injured, he had a strange feeling. He began to reconsidered whether war bring us freedom or misfortune. Although Henry returned to his position and did his work, but he had lost the faith towards the war, all he did is completed his mission mechanically.

They got the order to retreat. In the withdrawal of team, soldiers’ anti-war sentiments are very strong. They were eager to set the war to the end as soon as possible, so they could go home early. When the army withdrew at the Thalia Bridge, Henry was arrested as a suspect by an Italian police because of his foreign accent and he possibly would be killed. He had nowhere to go and jumped into the river. This event completely awakened Henry’s mind. He finally realized that these kinds of honors and glories were pointless. He had no relationship with this war and he was the helper of war makers. Therefore, Henry bid farewell to the war and has gone to Switzerland with his lover.

3.2 Henry’s views towards love

The officers and soldiers became hollowness and confused because of the boring war. They were wandering between alcohol and woman during their spare time and so did Henry. So when Henry met Catherine for the first time, Henry was not looking for love. It was more likely to find a little bit of fun in this emptiness and boring life. He was more attracted by Catherine’s beautiful appearance instead of her pure inner world when he talked to Catherine for the first time. Then he drove by emptiness and desire and visited Catherine for several times. When he met her at the second time, he made some offensive behaviors to Catherine. To his surprise, Catherine refused him and slapped his face. Most of the woman he contacted was submissive and Henry just eyed Catherine as the object of flirt. When Catherine asked him whether he would be good to her, the voice of his inner heart was: ’oh,’ shit. So we can conclude that Henry don’t want to make a promise to Catherine. And when Catherine asked him if he loved her, Henry told a lie. However, some details of the novel also revealed Henry’s desire for warm and love. For example, when he finished the drink with his friends and passed by the hospital, he felt lonely and emptiness because he didn’t see Catherine. Henry met Catherine again when he given medical treatment in Milan. He was so exited and gratified. He was looking forward to see Catherine every time. He slowly found Catherine’s kind and warm-hearted and became more and more relied on her. Later he talked with Ferguson and mentioned that he would marry Catherine. Ferguson was shocked and couldn’t believe that. The change in Henry was too huge. When he knew that Catherine was pregnant, he was excited but also worried about Catherine’s health. He was ready to have a warm family.

The time in Switzerland was so peace and sweet. Henry was not a soldier any more. He was a reliable and romantic husband. He didn’t abandon for the reason of pregnant and body became bloated. He thought Catherine was beautiful and cute and he would like to give Catherine a warm home and bright future. The winter was quite and beautiful, just like Henry and Catherine’s love. However, something unexpected may happened any time. When they are intoxicated with happy life and sincere love, because of Catherine’s narrow pelvis, she suffered severely from a difficult labour. Henry seemed to felt the misfortune was coming. When Henry heard that Catherine was also in danger, everything was gone inside of him. He didn’t think and couldn’t think. If Catherine died, he would have nothing in the world. But he couldn’t do anything to save her. Under the circumstance of having no other way out, he had to ask god for help though he has not believed in god before. Unfortunately, Catherine had not escaped from the clutches of death, she was dead. Death took away not only Catherine’s life but also Henry’s soul. His spiritual pillar had broken down. All the happiness had vanished like soap bubbles. Looking at the dead body of Catherine, he realized that she was like a statue and she would never come back to him. Henry went out and left the hospital and walked back to the hotel in the rain.

3.3 A comparison between Henry and Hemingway

3.3.1 Iceberg Theory in the Novel

The theme of A Farewell to Arms is expressed by Hemingway’s own writing style. With his simple diction, his terse sentences, and his vivid colloquialisms he cleansed and invigorated the American language. After reading the novel, we can find there are few new words or odd phrases and Hemingway used are very simple and plain words and expressions, which makes it very easily to understand. The characters in dialogues speak very simple words and easy sentences, but the meaning of the lucid and terse words and sentences conveys much more than what they are said. Such a writing style was generalized by him to be the iceberg theory, ‘the dignity of movement of an iceberg is due to only one-eighth of it being above water’. Hemingway is not a literary theorist and iceberg theory is not an abstract writing theory. It is a conclusion of his experiences of writing. He once said: ‘a writer can omit many things if he is clearly known about what he wants to do. And the readers can completely understand what the writer is talking about.’ Nevertheless, we still can find out some relationships between Henry and Hemingway through the iceberg theory.

3.3.2 Henry and Hemingway

Like Henry, Hemingway took part in the first would war with the ideal of defending world peace and democracy and he was immediately involved in the terribly war. A military store exploded when he arrived at Milan and he had to moved corpses and stumps to a temporary morgue. A couple of weeks later, a mortar projectile of Austrian army fell on a few feet away from Hemingway. He was blast to lost consciousness and an Italian soldier was killed. Afterwards, the doctor removed more than 200 pieces of shrapnel from Hemingway’s legs. A peer ambulance driver mentioned in the letter to Hemingway’s father: ‘although Hemingway was badly wounded, he still endured the pain and risked his life to send an Italian soldier to the first-aid station’. Hemingway tried his best to save others life regardless of his own personal danger made him won the Italy’s silver medal. However, war brought him in addition to honor, more is psychological trauma.

Hemingway fell in love with a nurse named Agnes who took care of him at a hospital in Milan. Agnes was a beautiful American girl. She is clever, kind and earnest to work. She later became A Farewell to Arms of Catherine's prototype. Hemingway became better under the care of Agnes. During this period, Hemingway has been crazily in love with her and she also made the corresponding responses. But unfortunately, Agnes finally abandoned him and fell in love with an Italian officer.

However, there are some differences between Hemingway and Henry. Henry met Catherine before the injury and their sincere love is after he was injured in the hospital. War and peace, blood and tenderness gave Henry a great shock. It is the first time that he discovered the value of love. He and Catherine had a great time in the hospital. As Henry said: ‘we have a happy summer.’ Catherine got pregnant during this time. However, happy time always went fast. Henry need be back to the front. As soon as Henry arrived at the front, he got the order to retreat. In the withdrawal of team, soldiers’ anti-war sentiments are very strong. They were eager to set the war to the end as soon as possible, so they could go home early. When the army withdrew at the Thalia Bridge, Henry was arrested as a suspect by an Italian police because of his foreign accent and he possibly would be killed. He had nowhere to go and jumped into the river. This thing completely awakened Henry’s mind. He finally realized that these kinds of honors and glories were pointless. He had no relationship with this war and he was the helper of war makers. Therefore, Henry bid farewell to the war and has gone to Switzerland with his lover.

Agnes was Hemingway’s first love. After he was rejected by Agnes, he was heart-broke and at a loss. Overwhelmed, his parents didn’t understand him and he was extremely depressed. He began to hate the war and he said: ‘I have experienced many wars and I deeply hated it. ’ in fact, it was the first time for Hemingway to realized that war only brought people cruel killing and death instead of peace and democracy.

In June 1928, Hemingway’s second wife Pauline gave birth to their second son Patrick. She nearly died in childbirth due to his poor health in pregnancy. His father chose to suicide by a gun because he couldn’t stand the pain of the disease. At the same time, Hemingway was busy in writing the long novel A Farewell to Arms. These two things were big stimulus for him. He became sensitive and he thought life is unpredictable and death could strike us at any time. Therefore, the fate of the main character Catherine was sealed and died at the hospital because of dystocia.

Henry and Catherine lived happily at Switzerland. They didn’t talk about the war and they tried to forget the war. But they failed. Although Henry left the battlefield and army, he couldn’t have the real inner peace and his heart was very tight and nervous. Henry didn’t escape the fate of the punishment and fate took away his beloved Catherine and their child. He took leave of stone-liked Catherine and left the hospital. It was only his body walking in the street. His soul had gone with Catherine. He couldn’t find a way out and he became a person without the past, the present and the future. He lost his aims in life again. So Henry, who had come from the perplexed life, still went back to the perplexed world.

4. Conclusion

A Farewell to Arms is the most successful work written by Hemingway in a sense. In the war, Henry experiences horror of life and death many times and discovers the insanity of the universe in which he lives. He gradually loses his passion on war and changes his attitudes towards war. War is nothing scared and glorious. People die with the gun shooting; the innocent are killed in the rain at night; Henry suffers serious wounds in the fierce and monstrous war; all of these horrors leave him a great depression that he at last escapes from the war for his own life.

Hemingway ever said that none of the novels written by him can really be on behalf of his all points and thoughts, because the war is too complex. His understanding of war mainly comes from his personal experience in the war. Therefore, his points are with strong personal ideas and pertinence. Hemingway’s anti-war thoughts become substantial and plentiful in the process of creating new literature. The complexity of Hemingway’s cultural psychology determines the complexity of his anti-war thoughts. The behavior and way of thinking of Henry in this novel can illustrate this point. Hemingway impresses readers to remember and think more about the war, the wrongs of the society, the nature of the human beings and the meaning of the life and death in our real life.

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