Hemingway’s A Farewell to Arms
Hemingway’s Writing Style
1. “We had a lovely time that summer. When I could go out we rode in a carriage in the park. I remember the carriage, the horse going slowly, and up ahead the back of the driver with his varnished high hat, and Catherine Barkley sitting beside me. If we let our hands touch, just the side of my hand touching hers, we were excited.” (Hemingway 112)
Here, Henry is discussing a nice time that he had with Catherine. His words are simple and his sentences are short and to the point, which are two points of Hemingway’s writing style. Hemingway is trying to convey the care free aspect the Henry has when he is with her. The declarative sentences simply give the atmosphere of their carriage ride with no fluff to be weeded out. His use of the limited vocabulary makes sure that the reader is not distracted with extraneous words that would take away from the complete experience of Hemmingway’s description. At the end, Hemingway uses the word “exciting” to describe their feeling for each other which is not what you would expect to be used to describe a man and a woman feeling for each other. Hemingway obviously knew more exuberant words that could have been
In Farewell to Arms, Rain is a symbol for death that reappears through the novel. An example of this was a statement by Aymo is which he said “‘We drink it now. To-morrow maybe we drink rainwater”’ (Hemingway 191). Little does he know that he is foretelling his own death in which he was shot crossing the bridge. Henry describes Aymo when he is laying on the ground as “look[ing] very dead [while i]t was raining.” (Hemingway 214). Also the night when the barman came to tell Henry that he would be arrested “there was a storm” with “rain lashing the window-pains” (Hemingway 264) that implied that danger was lurking around the corner, just like when Henry “walked through the rain up to the hospital” (Hemingway 329), he was headed straight into the death of
Hemingway presents takes the several literary styles to present this short story. Hemingway’s use of Foreshadowing, Pathos, Imagery and Personification allows the reader to enter the true context of the frustration and struggle that the couples face. Although written in the 1920’s it the presents a modern day conflict of communication that millions of couples face. At first glance the beautiful landscape of the Barcelonian hillside in which Jig refers to frequently throughout the text appears to have taken the form of White Elephants. The Americans’ response to Jigs’ observation was less than enthusiastic as he provides a brief comment and continues on with his cerveza. This was but the first of the many verbal jousts to come between Jig and the American. The metaphorical inferences in those verbal confrontations slowly uncover the couple’s dilemma and why they may be on the waiting for the train to Madrid.
There is a never ending list of what makes some people amazing story tellers. Some writers have vast imaginations, other writers use the lives of others in their stories and other writers use their lived experiences in order to write moving works of art. Most books, works of poetry and short stories that revolve around lived experiences share a common theme of love, hate or both. As these are emotions that all humans share, However, there are some stories that have far more unique. Stories like “The Things They Carried” by Tim O’Brien and “Hills Like White Elephants” by Ernest Hemingway. Both O’Brien and Hemingway come from two completely separate walks of life but were both able to write stories using the same theme of emotional and physical
Earnest Hemingway is one of Americas foremost authors. His many works, their style, themes and parallels to his actual life have been the focus of millions of people as his writing style set him apart from all other authors. Many conclusions and parallels can be derived from Earnest Hemingway's works. In the three stories I review, ?Hills Like White Elephants?, ?Indian Camp? and ?A Clean, Well-lighted Place? we will be covering how Hemingway uses foreigners, the service industry and females as the backbones of these stories. These techniques play such a critical role in the following stories that Hemingway would be unable to move the plot or character development forward without them.
Throughout the Nick Adams and other stories featuring dominant male figures, Ernest Hemingway teases the reader by drawing biographical parallels to his own life. That is, he uses characters such as Nick Adams throughout many of his literary works in order to play off of his own strengths as well as weaknesses: Nick, like Hemingway, is perceptive and bright but also insecure. Nick Adams as well as other significant male characters, such as Frederick Henry in A Farewell to Arms and Jake Barnes in The Sun Also Rises personifies Hemingway in a sequential manner. Initially, the Hemingway character appears to be impressionable, but he evolves into an isolated individual. Hemingway, due to an unusual childhood and possible post traumatic injuries received from battle invariably caused a necessary evolution in his writing shown through his characterization. The author once said, “Don’t look at me. Look at my words” (154).
“Sometimes when I was starting a new story and I could not get it going, I would stand and look out over the roofs of Paris and think, ‘Do not worry. You have always written before and you will write now. All you have to do is write on true sentence. Write the truest sentence you know” (shmoop.com). Ernest Hemingway was an honest and noble man. His life was highlighted by his successful writing career that brought him fame, fortune, but ultimately loneliness. Ernest Hemingway fell into a hole of drinking and depression (lib.utexas.edu). It was odd for Hemingway to become so emotionally unstable after having a happy childhood, quality experiences, and a successful writing career.
other writers. He adds that the later novels seem more “mannered” and have less “impact” (p. 3). Comley and Scholes (1998) suggest that literary critics agreed that Hemingway’s style has undergone several changes. Cowley (1962, p. 46) argues that “by the early 1930’s Hemingway’s technique, apparently simple in the beginning, was becoming more elaborate”. Epstein (1982, p. 557) agrees that Hemingway was reduced to having produced only one good novel The Sun also Rises, some good short stories, and “the originator of once elegantly simple prose style that over the years dried up and flaked off in self-parody”. While Assadnassab (2005, p. 19) maintains that Hemingway uses “long plain words”, other critics such as Young (1966, p. 203) claim that Hemingway prefers to use short words.
From the time Ernest Hemingway became a renowned author, his works, as well as his life, have been analyzed by many. Under such scrutiny, many aspects of Hemingway’s works and life experiences have been in question to the realities and fallacies, which he laid forth. Much of Hemingway’s life, especially his time volunteering as an ambulance driver in Europe, has been in question to the true validity of his myth as a true adventurer and hero. However, as I have found, much of the mythology surrounding Hemingway is very true indeed, which leads me to believe that he did not embellish his life but rather used his experiences to create some of the greatest works of literature to be written throughout the twentieth century.
Brought together by their mutual friend, Rinaldi, Henry seems to fall dangerously hard for a girl he only lays eyes on once. This instant is the start to an interesting relationship. Henry’s spontaneous love for Catherine has him returning everyday to see her. The reader soon discovers that Barkley feels the same way towards Henry. They are quick to proclaim their true love to each other leaving Henry in a state of insurmountable happiness. Hemingway does not leave the couple to have a happy ending - for when love is involved, pain closely follows. The war separates the two lovers as Henry has to tend to all those who are going to be wounded on the offensive. The separation causes not only emotional but physical pain. Henry is injured and is dealing with an enormous amount of pain. This pain is sy...
The constant appearance of rain allows for sadness to be foreshadowed; the opposite can be inferred where there is more of a relief than sadness. The book says in the weather “…came the permanent rain and with the rain came the cholera” (Hemingway, 4). When the rain pours in the beginning of the book, it started to describe the scenery. The rain was signifies rain as death and as a tragedy for thousands of death soldiers follow along the cholera that comes with the rain. Usually when it rains in a novel or in a movie, the plot turns negative. Rain serves as a potent symbol of inevitable disintegration of happiness in life. Before Hemingway describes the rain, he says that “the leaves” on the trees “fell early that year” and this is not an example of rain, but it shows that not only does rain foreshadow sadness, but nature itself does. The nature aspect of this was that the leaves symbolize the soldiers and since they are falling early that year that means that they are dying as a young man. The death of them are sometimes forgotten with the permanent rain that falls o...
Evidence of professionalism on the part of the two killers, Al and Max, is that they both wear a uniform? They wear overcoats. that are too tight for them, gloves to prevent finger prints, and Derby hats. This might be for intimidation, to suggest they are. gangsters or something similar, or it could be that they are not so.
Hemingway uses a unique style of writing to communicate his ideas to the reader. Like most of his works, Hemmingway uses very simple language to build suspense, but he does not explicitly resolve the conflict. The words not said by the characters play a crucial role in describing their conflict. Jig's smiles, or the times Hemingway tells us "The girl did not say anything" suggest that there is a much deeper story in the background. Critics like Hilary Justice have written many in-depth analyses of the meanings of Jig's smiles throughout the story (3). David Wyche devotes half a pa...
In his novel A Farewell to Arms, Ernest Hemingway transfers his own emotional burdens of World War I to his characters. Although considered to be fiction, the plot and characters of Hemingway’s novel directly resembled his own life and experience, creating a parallel between the characters in the novel and his experiences. Hemingway used his characters to not only to express the dangers of war, but to cope and release tension from his traumatic experiences and express the contradictions within the human mind. Hemingway’s use of personal experiences in his novel represents Freud’s Psychoanalytic theory regarding Hemingway’s anxieties and the strength and dependency that his consciousness has over his unconsciousness.
Ernest Hemingway uses water as a metaphor that foreshadows events in A Farewell to Arms. He distributes water through the entire story. Escape, or a cleansing effect, of Frederic Henry takes place in a river. Rain predicts unfortunate events, such as the death of Catherine, which causes Frederic to sadly begin a new life. However, this time he does not have a companion - he must learn to survive alone. Hemingway uses a lot of water to show many symbols and affect the story.
Ernest Hemingway’s notorious short story The Killers follows two contracted killers who enter an establishment looking for a Swedish aging boxer and in their endeavor patronize the workers of the establishment as well as the only patron. After hearing of their plans to kill the boxer, the patron, Nick Adams, is sent out to warn the boxer once the killers leave the establishment, but alas Ole Andreson would rather accept his fate and stay to face the killers. Adams then runs away from the town because he cannot stand the thought of what is about to occur. The use of heavily external focalization allows readers to sympathize with the characters as well as rationalize Adams’ reasonings for leaving the town without having the characters thoughts
Lindsay Houston Robert Womack ENG-113-110 18 March 2014 Ernest Hemingway Research Paper The birth of American writer Ernest Miller Hemingway on July 21st, 1899 in Oak Park, Illinois occurred during the progressive era and mere months before the Philippine-American war. Raised in the conservative suburbs and vacationing in northern Michigan, the young Hemingway enjoyed the outdoors at his family’s cabin and his experiences there led him to become a sportsman partaking in fishing, hunting, and thrill-seeking. His initial writing skills were divulged when he began writing for his high school newspaper “Trapeze and Tabula” where he took interest in the sports section which would later play a large role in his professional writings as his focus on masculinity and social theories. Born to Dr. Clarence Hemingway and music teacher Grace Hall Hemingway, Ernest Hemingway had abundant mental stimulus for growth throughout his juvenile advances.