Biblical Archetypes Of War Images In Hemingway’s Novels

As the representative of “the lost generation”, Ernest Hemingway(1899-1961) wascelebrated in the world literary history. His three war-theme novels: The Sun Also Rises, AFarewell to Arms and For Whom the Bell Tolls are still with eternal charm for their profoundconnotation. On the basis of archetypal criticism, the author tries to analyze the war images inthe three novels in order to find the profound connotation beyond the words.This thesis tries to explore the biblical archetypes in the three novels from threeperspectives:In the first chapter, the author examines the biblical archetypes of the themes about wars.They are the conflicts between good and evil and the salvation by death. The theme ofconflicts between good and evil can be subdivided into the betrayal of fellowship and thesurvival of the good. They find their biblical archetypes in the conflicts between God andSatan, and the survival of Jesus and Noah. The theme of the salvation by death isdemonstrated by Robert Jordan, who dedicated himself to the peace and the unification ofSpain, and Catherine, who purified Henry’s spirit by her own death. They both can find theirbiblical archetype in the salvation by Jesus.The second chapter examines the biblical archetypes of the typical warrior images. JakeBarnes in The Sun Also Rises and Robert Jordan in For Whom the Bell Tolls both reflect thequalities of the suffering Christ. Jake Barnes is connected with Jesus by the “scapegoat”image; while Robert Jordan is connected with Jesus by the “Prince of Peace” image. Thecommon quality of them is to sacrifice themselves to save others.The third chapter examines the biblical archetypes of the warfare images in the naturalenvironment. The warfare images in the natural environment mainly are scattered in the detaildescription as metaphors. The author tries to explore their biblical archetypes from threeperspectives: the water images, the animal images and the color images. Through theexploration of their biblical archetypes, the author intends to find the relations between thewarfare images in the natural environment and the characters’ fates, faith, and their Psychological Emotion.Through the analysis above, the author finds that although Hemingway is seemingly nota loyal Christian(Catholic afterwards), he still believed in his inner world that only the beliefin God could save humankind from the sin of wars.