1、1Literature Review on A Farewell to Arms【Abstract】A Farewell to Arms made Hemingway a famous author. It violates conventional standards and arouses the objection of one group or another and attracts lots of critics debate upon it in many different ways, which are listed in this literature review. 【K
2、ey words】A Farewell to Arms; Ernest Hemingway; Literature Review 1. Introduction One of Ernest Hemingways masterpieces, A Farewell to Arms, offers powerful descriptions of life during and immediately following World War I and brilliantly maps the psychological complexities of its characters using a
3、revolutionary style, it brought him the kind of public and critical acclaim he had been seeking. 2. Literature Review 2.1 Themes Robert Penn Warren brought the themes of the novel into focus for the first time. He said the characters in the novel 2had lost their bearings and felt themselves bereft,
4、homeless, adrift, yet in an apparently God-abandoned world, they were seeking a code by which to live. The love of Frederic and Catherine begun on the(下转第 284 页) level of appetite develops into what Count Greffi calls “a religious feeling.” Though concerned with secular and not divine love, it shoul
5、d be regarded as a religious book. Philip Young was noteworthy for pointing out the themes of love and war are paralleled. Reviewing over several decades of literary history, it is difficult to understand the outrage expressed some readers. The book should be classified as “venereal fiction”, Lieute
6、nant Henry seemed an “utterly immoral man who took the woman of his desire as lightly as he deserted from his command in the Italian army.” The issue of desertion troubled a number of reviewers. Altogether Hemingway was far too concerned with realistic detail and not nearly enough with those higher
7、purposes and larger relations that constituted the proper province of fiction. The most troublesome of these attacks came from the well-known Chicago novelist and critic Robert Herrick. On the basis of his reading of the first two sections, he was confident this novel could only be regarded as dirt
8、or garbage. He 3concentrated on two scenes that demonstrated his contention. One occurs on the train from the field hospital to Milan when Fredric and another traveler get drunk a grappa and throw up. The other offending scene was the reunion of Fredric and Catherine in the Milan hospital when he pe
9、rsuades her to make love. 2.2 Language Styles Hemingways handing of Frederic Henrys narration has consistently been considered one of the novels strengths. The first two sections of the book were singled out for applause. The description of the Italian retreat from Caporetto was “perhaps the finest
10、single passage that Hemingway has written.” The other section reviewers selected for commendation was the novels ending. They found the final paragraph particularly effective because its muted tone so well suited the emotional loss that Frederic had suffered. Ford described what it was that qualifie
11、d Hemingway as an “impeccable writer of English prose,” he made the language seem new and alive. Walker Gibson was also interested in illustrating how Hemingways unusual prose style works in the context of the novel. With the aid of a “Style Machine” that measures the structure and length of sentenc
12、es, the use of 4adjectives and adverbs, the proportion of verbs in the passive voice, and so on through sixteen criteria. Yet among the general chorus of acclaim, a few dissonant voices could be heard bemoaning the novels explicit language and unconventional love affair. Among the most strident was
13、the writer for the Netwark News who in a review acknowledged the characters “somewhat closer to normal, in that they are merely frankly sensual.” 2.3 Symbols Eager to establish Hemingways artistry, Carlos Bakers Hemingway: The Writer as Artist argued that the novel was constructed around the twin po
14、les of Home and not-Home, with the cool crisp mountains symbolizing the good place, and the hot and sweaty plains the opposite. Rain serves in the novel as a potent symbol of the inevitable disintegration of happiness in life. Catherine infuses the weather with meaning as she and Henry lie in bed li
15、stening to the storm outside. As the rain falls on the roof, Catherine admits that the rain scares her and says that it has a tendency to ruin things for lovers. No meteorological phenomenon has such power; symbolically Catherines fear proves to be prophetic, for doom does eventually come to them. A
16、fter Catherines death, Henry leaves 5the hospital and walks home in the rain. The falling rain validates Catherines anxiety and confirms one of the novels main contentions: great love cannot last. 2.4 Feminism With the rise of the womens movement in the 1960s and of feminist criticism in department
17、of literature, Hemingway became one of the enemies for many critics, who accused him of perpetuating sexist stereotypes in his writing. Some critics have attacked Catherine as an disturbing example of Hemingways one dimensional, submissive, simpering and self-effacing female; others regard her as an
18、 independent, self-contained individual who chooses to love Frederic and is loved by him in return. Herrick wondered why it is that the emotional charge of this novel and others on the same theme so often depends on the death of the woman but so rarely on the death of a man. Behind the idealization
19、of Catherine in the novel she believes if we weep at the end, it is not for Catherine but for Frederic because in the novel it is male life that matters. 3. Conclusion Critics have long debated on this novel from different perspectives. Most of them focus on the language of the troops, an love affai
20、r in basically sympathetic terms, Catherines 6deathbed anguish in excruciating detail and Frederics desertion from the Italian army. All of them presented a disturbingly vivid account of the Italian armys collapse in 1917. References 1Baker, Carlos. Hemingway: The Writer as Artist. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1952 2Herrick, Robert. “What is Dirt?” bookman 70:258-62 3Young, Philip. Ernest Hemingway: A Reconsideration. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1966. 作者简介: 李翠翠(1983-),女,吉林省长春人,空军航空大学外语教研室助教,东北师范大学外国语学院英语语言文学专业硕士生
