ABSTRACT: This paper makes a thematic study on A Farewell to Arms based on the analysis of the war and the love. The war strongly shows us the cruelty and indifference of the universe, while the love shows us the human’s struggle against the indifferent universe. The exploration of this subject is made in three steps with war and love as its two constant clues. The first part of the paper elaborates on the indifference of the universe. The indifference and meaninglessness of the universe is first and foremost demonstrated in the indifference of the war, and the tragic end of their love intensifies the feeling of indifference, since love is their weapon to fight the indifference with and the refuge to escape the indifference. The second part dwells on their struggle against this indifference and meaninglessness. Although Henry felt deeply sick of the war, yet he didn’t give up his search for meaning, and in his love with Catherine, he finally found the true meaning of life: he, himself is a crucial source of meaning, and life is a struggle against that meaninglessness. Thus, in the struggle against the indifference of the war, they found love; in the struggle against the cruel war, they found love; in the struggle to preserve that love, but finally lost it, they found the indifference of the universe. The paper ends with the conclusion that both Henry and Catherine are true Hemingway Code Heroes: hold this meaninglessness in mind while simultaneously creating meaning and order through struggle, and that is life.
KEY WORDS: War Love Indifference of the universe Human’s struggle
摘要：本论文旨在对<<永别了，武器>>一文中的战争与爱情的分析做出理论性的学习与研究。战争鲜明的向我们展示了大自然的残酷及冷漠，爱情则向我们展示了人类对无情的大自然所做出的反抗。这个主题的研究由三个步骤构成，并以战争与爱情作为两条不变的线索。论文的第一部分详细描写了大自然的无情。冷漠而又毫无意义的大自然首先也主要的被无情的战争所证明，而主人公间的爱情悲剧的结局也加强了这种冷漠感，虽然爱情是他们反抗冷漠无情的武器和逃避无情的避风港。第二部分则详述了主人公与这种冷漠与无意义间的斗争。尽管亨利对战争深恶痛绝，他却始终没有放弃对意义的追寻。在他与凯瑟琳的爱情中，他最终发现了生命的真正意义：他，他自己本身就是意义的决定性源泉，而生活就是一场与无意义所做的斗争。就这样，在反抗无情的大自然的斗争中，他们找到了爱情；在反抗残酷的战争中，他们找到了爱情；在保卫爱情、乃至最终失去爱情中，他们发现了大自然的冷漠。论文最后得出结论，亨利与凯瑟琳都是真正的“海明威式的英雄”：思想中都持有无意义的态度，但与此同时又在斗争中创造着意义与秩序，那就是生活。
关键词： 战争 爱情 无情的大自然 人类的斗争
BODY:
Chapter 1: A brief introduction to the author and the book.
1). About the author:
Who is the greatest man of fortitude in the literary circles? Who invented the reading method by standing? And who put the double-tube hunting gun into his mouth and pulled the trigger? That is Ernest Hemingway, the outstanding representative of the realistic literature in America. He was a hero in the battlefield, with medals hung all around his chest. He was the hunting expert who fighting with the lion. He was the lucky dog who survived from the two airplane accidents. And he also was a refined and tasteful talent who indulged him into drinking but still had brilliant writing ability. Hemingway is the idol of the American. His life was full of sufferings and defeats. How about his legendary life?
Ernest Hemingway was born at the end of the 19th century at Oak Park, IIIinios, near Chicago. He was the second child of the six children of his parents. At high school, he became very interested in journalism, he wrote many short stories, such as The Doctor and The Doctor’s Wife, Fighter, Killer…most contents were talking about violence, dread, despair, and another theme---loneliness, so his classmates said that his most obvious characters were loneliness and versatility.
After graduation he worked as a reporter for the Kansas City Star in 1917, and he learnt a great deal about exactness and style in reporting at that time. But World War I absorbed this spontaneous boy’s attention, as a youth of 18, Ernest Hemingway was eager to fight in the Great War. Poor vision kept him out of the army, so he joined Italy Red Cross, and became a driver of a volunteer unit in France. During that war, Hemingway experienced two important things that can be never forgotten in his life. One of them was his wound in the leg which made him became the first American wounded in that country. He suffered serious injuries, the doctor gave him as much as thirteen operations, and took out 227 shrapnel and bomb chips from his body. But there were still about ten ones, which could not be taken out, they only had to let them stay in his body until he died. To the doctors’ surprise, this wounded survived magically in the end. While living in a hospital in Milan, Hemingway met with an American nurse who was several years older than he, named Agnes. She is also the archetype of the heroine in A Farewell to Arms. This thing is the second unforgettable thing in his life during the World War I. With Agnes, Hemingway began his first love, but the lady married another man after the war. That made Hemingway felt very angry and had a feeling of being cheated, and this thing also affected the models of women characters in his later novels, and even his first wife was several years older than him.
Later, while working in Paris as a correspondent for the Toronto Star, he became involved with the expatriation and artistic circle surrounding Gertrude Stein. During the Spanish Civil War, Hemingway served as a correspondent on the loyalist side. He fought in World War II and then settled in Cuba in 1945. In1954, Hemingway was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature. After his expulsion from Cuba by the Castro regime, he moved to Idaho. In his life, Hemingway married four times and wrote numerous essays, short stories and novels. The effects of Hemingway’s lifelong depressions, illness and accidents caught up with him. In July 1961, he committed suicide with his dear double-tube hunting gun in Ketchum, Idaho.
Hemingway is a representative writer of the Lost Generation after the World War I. His philosophy on life approximates to the theory of the jungle justice and survival of the fittest. He believes that the life is incomparably cruel, and the peaceable period is just the continuation of the war, it is also cruel and indifferent. But he still believes that there are many beautiful things, which could use to ease the sadness in the world. Even if the bloody massacre of the war, love can also serves as a go-between to get rid of the pain.
Hemingway is a writer of remarkable gift, rigorously confining himself to the matter in hand, refusing the aid of literary artifice; Hemingway extracts an amazing richness from his rare excursions below the surface of the narrative. Hemingway surely knows how to stir the soul; he grabs the attention of all his audiences by writing with matters of the heart. His unique and renowned style of writing provides the reader with essential facts for understanding the novel, while allowing some room for the readers’ imagination. There is total acceptance by both, and the backdrop of the story, World War I, seems to disappear from view as the love between hearts taken over. And Hemingway is not known for either unbridled optimism or happy endings, and a farewell to arms, like his other novels, For Whom the Bell Tolls, The Sun Also Rises, and To Have and Have Not, offers neither. What it dose provide is an unblinking portrayal of men and women behaving with grace under pressure, both physical and psychological, and somehow finding the courage to go on in the face of certain loss.
2) A summary of the novel
Ernest Hemingway combines austere realism and poetic language to present a powerful argument against war and to tell a touching love story at the same time. Possessed of the most remarkable time sense of the period between wars, his disillusioned temperament and technical skill have influenced a whole generation of writers. In spite of its hard-boiled realism of detail and its tragic ending. A Farewell to Arms is nevertheless an idealistic book.
Lieutenant Frederic Henry was a young American attached to an Italian ambulance unit on the Italian front. An offensive soon began, and when Henry returned to the front from leave he learnt from his friend Lieutenant Rinaldi, that a group of British nurses had arrived in his absence to set up a British hospital unit. Rinaldi introduced him to nurse Catherine Barkley. The two soon fell in love with each other. Before Henry left for the front to stand by for an attack, Catherine gave him a St. Anthony medal.
At the front, as Henry and some Italian ambulance drivers were eating in a dugout, an Austrian projectile explored over them. Henry, badly wounded in the legs, was taken to a field hospital. Later he was moved to a hospital in Milan. During he was in hospital, Catherine often came to his word, which helped Henry getting rid of his restless and loneliness. After his operation, Henry convalesced in Milan with Catherine Barkley as his attendant. Together they dined in out of the way restaurants, and together they rode about the countryside in a carriage. Summer passed into Autumn. Henry’s wound had healed and he was due to take convalescent leave in October. He and Catherine planned to spend the leave together, but he came down with jaundice before he could leave the hospital. Before he recovered and ready to leave for the front, Henry and Catherine stayed together in the hotel room, already she had disclosed to him that she was a pregnant. When Henry returned the battlefield, the war was going badly in Italy. The German troops forced a full-scale retreat. Then Henry deserted the war in a daring escape. He left and met Catherine in Stresa. The two went over to Switzerland where they spent an idyllic time waiting for the birth of their baby. Catherine had had a long and difficult labor. Their baby was delivered dead. Catherine died soon after from “one hemorrhage after another ”. After Catherine ‘s death, Henry left and walked back to his hotel.
3). The writing style and structure of the novel:
War and love are obviously two important themes in the book. In the first two parts we are in the war and the war is overwhelming. In the last two parts we are in love. And, just as the two parts are prepared with love in the time of war, the last two parts are tinged with war in the time of love. The third part is the bridge between the two ‘stories’ and it is not surprising that it centers on the escape. It is during the escape that Henry resolves that he is through with the war (a war in which he really has no place) and decides that all he wants is to be with Catherine.
Hemingway’s signature declarative, terse prose serves him well in this novel. It enables our narrator to be initially detached from life, and also serves to paint an uncompromising picture of the war. Additionally, it is used to produce a realistic narrative from Henry’s point of view, shying away from elaborate schemes and descriptions. Because of it, nothing in the novel is romanticized. The love between Henry and Catherine is an elegant one, and in Hemingway’s hands it becomes more of a function of existence rather than the primary focus of the novel.
The reader also will not fail to notice the humor, which Hemingway manages to gleam despite the seriousness of his topic. The author is, indeed, finding something to laugh about in life, much as his characters are discovering meaning in and indifferent existence.
Finally, Hemingway is well known for his use of objective correlatives and this novel is no exception. The vivid details, from crowded train to gaudy hotel rooms, oftentimes serve no purpose other than to paint a mood for the reader.
Chapter 2: The war and the love
1). The war: It displays the cruel and indifference of the universe and because of that, Henry’s attitudes towards it underwent a considerable change.
The indifference of the universe is first and foremost demonstrated in the experience of war. The opening chapter sets up a tired mood, with troops trudging incessantly through the mud. It is also soured by irony: “At the start of the winter came the permanent rain and with the rain came the cholera. But it was checked and in the end only seven thousand died of it in the army.” The description of a “permanent rain” is intended to create a feeling of helplessness. The “only” in the second sentence shows that the war is so cruel that seven thousand dead are only a small number compared with the total tolls in the war period, and this sentence also conveys a sense of irony.
The tiredness of the war is mirrored by the troops themselves. The narrator begins the second chapter with the comment that “the next year there will be many victories”. That is all. It is blunt and detached, as if the victories no longer matter and nobody knows what they are fighting for. Later, a shell explored in front of Henry and instead of reacting emotionally, he simply describes the shell of the explosion: one of “blasted clay and stone and freshly shattered flint.”
The above-mentioned sentences convey such a concept: the war is indifferent to the soldiers and the soldiers are indifferent to the war. From the words Rinaldi said: “It’s all over. I don’t operate now and I feel like hell. This is a terrible war, baby. You believe me when I say it.” “No, I only like two other things; one is bad for my work and the other is over in half an hour or fifteen minutes. Sometimes less.”(From the context we know what he said is alcohol and sex) Rinaldi suffered from the disastrous war mentally so serious that there is nothing left in life except sexual pleasure and drinking. To him, life is completely meaningless and unworthy of thinking.
From above, we can say the war is the typical representative of the indifferent universe, which is just making a job of human beings.
Now, let’s have a look on the changing of Henry’s attitude. From the beginning, when he was asked why he joined into the Italian Army. His answer was so simple. “I was in Italy, and I spoke Italian.” Here, Henry can think of no valid reason for entering the war. He had no idea why he joined the Italian Army. He has a noticeable lack of motivation and is young, inexperienced and unaware of the cruel of the war. He had no idea about love, death, or war, so he acts as a nave tourist visiting the front. Even when he was badly injured it didn’t appear that he was really a part of the war that surrounded him. He kept a distance from it and this distance was not really closed until his own Army killed Aymo, he discovered that Bonello was only staying with him out of respect, and he was almost killed as a spy. After this he resolved to desert the army and be reunited with his love, Catherine. When Henry tried to escape from the Italian Army by jumping off one of the ships that the army was traveling on and running away from the Army. The water that he jumped into was a symbolism of the new, clean life that he was going to live from then on. Although the water was so cold, but his heart was colder than that, he said in heart: “ everything are over, my indignant is washed off in the river, and any responsibility and obligation as well. Goodbye, battlefield! Bye, arms!” This shows that Henry’s attitude towards war is completely changed.
Although Henry at last felt sick of the war, when he had to stay in the army, he also acted as a hero to accept the part of life yet never give up his searching for meaning. This is struggle, struggle against meaninglessness. This is hero.
2). The love: At the very beginning, when Henry first meets Catherine, he is not looking for love, but rather something to pass the time and someone for him to care for. He is a nave young man and had no concept of what he is doing. So he pretends to love Catherine, he does this just because he needs someone to hold on and give him meaning. As Henry’s relationship with Barkley continues to develop throughout the novel, Henry is wounded at the front. He is fortunate enough to be placed in the Red Cross hospital that Catherine is working in. The relationship develops. Then Catherine becomes a pregnant and Henry deserts the army to reunite with her. When Catherine lies in pain in the hospital, Henry sees her as he should have when he met her. He finally begins to see her as a human and realize that she is everything to him. This is when Henry realizes that she is all that he has. He realizes that she is the true meaning in his life.
After they have undergone so many hardships, and overcome enormous adversities, the couple finally takes up quarters at a small Alpine inn near Montreux. As the time for the birth approaching, the lovers move to Lausanne, where they are closer to a fully equipped hospital.
Catherine does suffer a very difficult labor. She is given an anesthetic; but when the baby is delivered, it is still born. A nurse at the hospital orders the distraught Henry to get something to eat. When he returns, Henry is told that Catherine has suffered a severe hemorrhage. With Henry by her side, Catherine says her final goodbye, slips into coma and dies. The story ends with a helpless Henry walking toward a hotel in night rain and thinking that this is the awful price that he and Catherine had to pay for the “good nights” which they had shared. We all know that Hemingway is an expert in using symbols. In chapter 19, when it was rain outside, Catherine told Henry that she was always afraid of rain, when asked why, she confessed that she was afraid because she saw herself and Henry died in the rain. And this omen is realized in the end with Catherine’s death and Henry walking back to the hotel in the rain. Here, the rain may be interpreted as the powerful and indifferent universe. And the love between Henry and Catherine, although was also very powerful, but finally was defeated by it.
Then, next, let’s have a look on the last but not least part of this novel: The serenity and simple happiness, which Henry and Catherine find at the beginning of this section is more or less the eye of the storm. This kind of life is the kind Henry and Catherine both seek-one where there is nothing to worry about, and nothing that needs to be done. The pregnancy, however, promises to ruin this idyllic lifestyle by bringing responsibilities and worries into their lives. “She won’t come between us, will she?” worries Catherine. It also creates a sense of urgency that foreshadows Catherine’s death: “it gave us both a feeling as though something was hurrying us and we could not lose any time together.” Indeed, from the very opening chapter, images of pregnancy have been linked to war and death, as when the soldiers “marched as though they were six months gone with child.”
The end of winter here parallels the end of winter a year ago, when Henry was forced to return from leave. A year ago, it was the time when Henry first had shrapnel blown into his leg. Spring and the arrival of the rain, signal bad tidings to come.
It is important to note Catherine’s progression throughout her stay in the hospital. At first she is excited about the pains and getting the job over with. She bears them bravely, as fits the Hemingway Code Hero, and manages to smile between the waves. However, nature soon gets the better of her and she begins to develop an addiction to the gas---the pains brings are too much. It is at this point that she breaks: “I’m not brave any more, darling. I’m all broken. They’ve broken me.” As the labor draws on and on, she begins to fear death and consequently can no longer accept the indifference of the universe. “I won’t die. I won’t let myself die,” she tells Henry, believing that she has some control over what happens.
Henry, too, finds himself breaking from the strain. At the beginning, when he delivers her to hospital, he does not attempt to deny the universe’s hostility: “this was the price you paid for sleeping together. This was the end of the trap. This was what people got for loving each other.” As labor progress, though, he finds it harder to face the world, and comforts himself by saying. “What reason is there for her to die?” The question parallels his statement in book one that “I know I would not be killed. Not in this war. It did not have anything to do with me.” The world, of course, is indifferent to such reasoning. In the final stages of the operation, Henry begins to cry out to God in desperation---crying out for a reason behind the universe, but of course his cries are unheard.
Catherine’s death is the ultimate realization of Hemingway’s philosophy. The death is a result of her pregnancy, and the pregnancy a result of love. Whether in love or in war, the universe kills indifferently. Henry understands this, and says in the final chapter: “That was what you did. You died. You did not know what it was about. You never had any time to learn.” When Henry leaves the hospital and the end of the novel, he seems accept her death as something out of his control. He just walks away.
Outside, it is raining. Catherine, who feared the rain, is dead, and yet the rain beats on mercilessly.
Chapter 3: Conclusion:
Totally, A Farewell to Arms has two themes, one is war, the other is love, but, Hemingway didn’t divide them into two ways, he combined them. And the novel can be divided into two parts, the first part is fare welling to war, and the second one is fare welling to love. Hemingway combines austere realism and poetic language to present a powerful argument against war and to tell us a touching love story at the same time. And to a lesser extent, A Farewell to Arms is also an anti –war novel, as the vivid descriptions of its brutality and futility attest to.
Acknowledgment
This is the first time for me to write a research paper. It is really a glorious but arduous task. And from the scattered materials to the perfect paper, the process is rather hard.
In this speech, I would like to give my heartful gratitude and respect to those who have devoted to the studies in this field. They supplied me with abundant materials. Here, please allow me to express my thanks for my supervisor---Professor Liu Zhigang’s kindly help. During this period, he helped me straighten out my thought, offered me a lot of useful advice and information and revised my paper with great patience and enthusiasm. Please accept my gratitude.
Reference:
Oxford Advanced Learner’s English-Chinese Dictionary
<<A Farewell to Arms>>-----Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press
<<Selected readings of American Literature>>-----Advancing Education Press
<<世界名人传记-海明威>>---------------------------哈尔滨出版社
<<永别了，武器>> 海明威著 林疑今译---------上海译文出版社