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Conclusion 14
Works Cited 15
An Analysis of the Heroine’s Characters in A Farewell to Arms
Introduction
No American writer of his generation has been more talked about than Earnest Hemingway (Adams 87). Hemingway is an American novelist, short-story writer, and journalist. He joined the Red Cross and became an ambulance driver during World War I. This experience provided background for A Farewell to Arms. While serving on the Italian front, Hemingway was seriously wounded. The war experiences form a major part of Hemingway’s writing. After the war, Hemingway soon became a spokesman for the Lost Generation writers.
A Farewell to Arms is considered not only as a novel of war but also as a novel of love. Even though some scenes of this story take place in the hospital which is far away from the war, we are aware that Henry and Catherine are still trapped by the war. This love story ends with Catherine’s death. Catherine is a person who arouses controversy. Some think that she is a hero while some think that she is a woman who can never live without love and men (Zhuang, Wang 162). In my opinion, she is a wise woman and her characters can be analyzed from several aspects.
Critics home and abroad did a lot of study on this novel from different perspectives. Domestic scholars analyze this novel mostly through the following three angles. The first angle is the theme of this novel. They think that the theme is anti-war or love. Chang Wenmei thinks that this novel reflects the effects of war on people. (80)The second angle is about the writing skill—symbolism and iceberg technique. Some of them think that the snow, the plain, the rain and other natural scenery symbolize the fate of the main characters and their experiences. And some scholars analyze the novel through his most famous writing technique—iceberg. The principle is well presented in A Farewell to Arms, where much of the content has been omitted, leaving the readers to explore it through their logical thinking and imagination (Ma, Zhang 80). They think that the words and sentences Hemingway writes are all worth analyzing deeply and most of the words have further meanings. The third angle is about the heroine, Catherine. However, most of the scholars see Catherine as a traditional female figure. Few people see her as a tough woman. And some analyze Catherine from her love tragedy and her fate.
In western countries, the angles from which critics analyze the novel can also be pided into three groups. The first angle is about the form of this novel—tragedy. So many scholars analyze this novel from this angle. As Merrill says, “A Farewell to Arms shows Hemingway’s contribution to the history of tragic form” (571). So they choose this angle and they analyze why it is a tragedy and what shows that it is a tragedy. The second angle is writing skills—symbolism and irony. Foreign scholars do more research on the writing styles or skills instead of the content of the novel itself. One scholars holds that, “ Hemingway demonstrated successful fusion of symbolism and other elements in A Farewell to Arms” (Carson 518). The third angle is about gender or sex identity. For example, Elliott says: “Catherine renounces any claim to self-identity at first” (291).