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Contents contributed and discussions participated by Sarah Creely

Sarah Creely

Ernest Hemingway A Farewell to Arms Criticism - 0 views

  • Hemingway uses his characteristic unadorned prose, clipped dialogue, and understatement to convey an essentially cynical view of the world.
  • a powerful statement about the effects of the horrors of war on ordinary people.
  • commiserating
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  • despondent
  • Caporetto
  • Frederic walks away alone in the rain, chastened by his experiences and feeling alone in the universe.
  • Hemingway suggests that the only true values people can cling to are in individual human relationships, not in abstract ideas of patriotism or service
  • His own wound, however, teaches him to value life and prepares him to enter into a love relationship with Catherine.
  • By the end of the novel, with love and hope seemingly dead, he has come to an understanding that one must be engaged in life, despite the vicissitudes of an indifferent universe.
Sarah Creely

A Farewell to Arms (Criticism): Information from Answers.com - 4 views

  • The simple style and plain language contribute to the realistic nature of Frederic's voice and his thoughts; at times it even seems as if the reader has been given access to the inner workings of Frederic's mind, as in the excerpt included in the plot summary. The fact that all of the events are seen through Frederic's eyes
  • and in revealing how Frederic relates to them, and what each character experiences in the way of feelings, concerns, and motivations.
  • The war has become darker and more threatening, and when Frederic is caught up in the chaotic retreat of the Italians from Caporetto, he is confronted with the grimmest realities of war for the first time; he watches as a companion is downed by a sniper, and he himself has a narrow brush with death when he approaches the carbinieri, or military police, as they are executing Italian officers at the bridge over the Tagliamento.
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  • Frederic may have escaped the brutality and cruelty of war, but ultimately there is no way to escape pain, and solitude, and the difficult aspects of life. There is only entrapment, wherever one turns.
  • Hemingway makes use of some very important symbolism in this novel. Even as early as the first paragraph, he sets up two major symbols — the plains and the mountains — which will be in conflict throughout the story. Hemingway represents the plains as dangerous, miserable, dry, and barren. The mountains, on the other hand, represent safety, happiness, and good health. The military action that Frederic Henry witnesses takes place on the plains, and his escape, through the cleansing, baptismal ritual of jumping into the river, reaches its end in the secluded mountain chalet with Catherine. But when Frederic must take Catherine out of the mountains and back down to the city below to the hospital where she is to give birth, disaster strikes again. Rain is another important symbol throughout the novel. Often the rain suggests impending doom; there is a storm the night that Frederic learns he must leave Italy at once to avoid being arrested, Catherine dreams that she is dead in the rain, and indeed at the conclusion of the novel, it is raining when Frederic returns to his hotel.
  • Book III provides a climactic turning point: Frederic's desertion of his post in the army and his decision to return to Catherine. In Book IV it looks as if Frederic and Catherine have successfully escaped the threats of the past, only to meet a tragic end to their love in the final book, which brings the drama to a close like the last act of a tragedy.
  • Frederic is left alone in a world in which nothing is permanent, all is subject to chance, and the best one can do, ultimately, is to face that world with acceptance.
  • Hemingway worked hard to write in such a way as to give his readers highly descriptive passages without distracting them with "big words," and he hoped that his writing would leave his readers with distinct visual impressions, without their being able to recall anything unusual or memorable about the language itself.
  • Ernest Hemingway is known for his distinctive writing style, an unusually bare, straightforward prose in which he characteristically uses plain words, few adjectives, simple sentences, and frequent repetition
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