A Study Of Human Body In A Farewell To Arms

With the development of body theory, criticism on body images in literary works becomes a controversial topic among literary critics. This thesis, by analyzing the bodies with body criticism, intends to explain the embedded meanings. Body critics focus on the bodily experience with the purpose of revealing the truth of the body. As center of body criticism, sexuality, physical wounds and medical cure suffered by Frederic and sexuality, birth and death of Catherine are significant images in A Farewell to Arms. Those images express the theme that human body is a means for people to rebel the oppression and to gain freedom.This thesis consists of five parts. The Introduction part briefly examines the book reviews and criticisms of A Farewell to Arms. Chapter One stresses the origin and development of body criticism from ancient philosophy that the body and the spirit are independent matters. Chapter Two represents the bodily sensations mentioned by Hemingway. Chapter Three, which is the center of this paper, analyzes the individualism, oppression and rebellion embedded in the bodies. Physical wounds and medical cure are invasion to individualism. Wounds and death signify the oppression. Sexual desire, birth and death in the end address the rebellion. The last part concludes that the body should be more vital than many other objects in narration.