A Farewell To Arms And Hemingway's Existentialist Thoughts

A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway (1899-1961), the Nobel Prize winner for Literature in 1954, is a novel based on the First World War and aims to call on people to act against the capitalist war. It is a work with autobiographical origins. The word"Arms"can be interpreted not only as war but also a symbol of lover's arms, namely, love. The title reveals the protagonist's awakening to escape from the evil war and reflects his sadness to lose love due to his lover's death at childbirth. By depicting Henry's war view from enthusiasm to disgust, his love view from flirtation to sincerity and responsibility as well as his life view from bitter struggle to aimlessness, this book unfolds some part of Hemingway's war experiences and love affairs on the Italian front in 1918. Through Henry's tragic fate, Hemingway exhibits people's unfortunate fate ruined by the devilish war, accuses the war's brutality and absurdity, condemns the war's destructive consequences brought to the entire human being and also investigates causes of the formation of"the lost generation". Since its publication, this novel has been attracting readers at home and abroad and receiving enormous acclaims from the literary critics. This thesis attempts to analyze man's dilemma and his cognition of the outside world from the perspective of existentialism, revealing Hemingway's unique understanding of man's living condition and existential meaning in the world.The whole dissertation consists of introduction, body (three chapters) and conclusion.Introduction makes a brief survey of Hemingway's literary achievements, the present condition of Hemingway studies, main plot of the novel, the writing purpose of this paper and thesis statement.Chapter one is the introduction of the background of the novel, its significance and relevant critical reviews. This autobiographical work was written in the 1920s and Henry is the"shadow"of Hemingway. World War I Hemingway had joined in for sacrifice and glory turned out to be a"trap"and"dirty trick", hurting him seriously spiritually, emotionally as well as physically. Bloody war sceneries, horrible scars in body, lover's betrayal, absurdity of the war and bursting of ideals all set this novel in a pessimistic tone. It was these war experiences and love affairs that Hemingway put into the creation of A Farewell to Arms, to reveal his view on war and life philosophy.Chapter two discusses the relation between Hemingway and existentialism. This chapter first surveys the social context of existentialism, main theory and then explains the close relation between Hemingway and existentialism. Existentialism appeared in the twenties of the 20th century and became widespread in the sixties. The representatives of this school are German philosopher Heidegger and French Sean-Paul Sartre and Camus. The existentialists invariably pay their attention to man's living condition and show their ultimate concern about man's existential value. They hold that man's living experiences in the world are absurd and alienated, advocating man's free will, choice and individual responsibility.It is from 1920s to 1950s that Hemingway made his chief literary achievements. Hemingway's thoughts had a deep influence on the existentialism popular during the Second World War. Hemingway's code heroes set a very good example in the application of existentialism to literary creation. That is why"It is not accidental that the French existentialists have shown a strong feeling for Hemingway's work"(Weeks 54).Chapter three analyzes the detailed existentialist thoughts in A Farewell to Arms. This chapter will be presented in four sections. The first section reveals the absurd world Henry is confronted with. In Henry's vision, the world is irrational, disordered and unexplainable, in which there are no reasons for anything's existence and also no solution can be found to help people to come out of the predicament. Aware of the true nature of the war, he realizes that he is simply the victim of the imperial war and decides to flee to Catherine's arms. The second section exposes the alienation from the world felt by the characters. All existentialists including Sartre and Camus view alienation as one of their basic conceptions. It retains the ideas of estrangement, of madness, and in legal contexts, of transference of property (Seigneure 31). Almost Henry, Catherine, Rinaldi, the surgeon in army and the pious priest are alienated by the world without God. The third section analyzes the characters'cognition of nothingness in the existential plight. Faced with an absurd, indifferent and unexplainable world, finding the collapsed traditional values and the loss of their rosy hopes, Henry and other characters feel empty, aimless and hopeless, indulging themselves in drinking,sexual satisfaction to seek temporary joy. Meanwhile, they are haunted by consciousness of death and thus always feel afraid,lonely,pessimistic and anxious. All their efforts end in vain and failure; Henry's only pursuit for love comes to a misery ending with his lover Catherine's death. The last section concentrates on the spirit embodied by"Hemingway code heroes"who accept challenge from the outside world to show man's grace and dignity. The positive aspect of existentialism lies in its advocate of"free choice"raised by Sartre. He thinks that by exercising his power of choice, man can give meaning to existence and the universe. To Hemingway, the essence of existence is freedom and choice. To make a choice means that man doesn't perform cowardly and timidly when encountering the dangerous and evil world and in this way, man can maintain his courage and dignity. Henry always behaves gracefully and displays a gently temperament to defend man's dignity in dealing with life's misfortunes; Catherine is no exception in many plots of this story.Conclusion makes a summery of the whole dissertation and restates the thesis statement.