A Representation of the Lost Generation
—the Psychoanalysis of Frederic Henry in A Farewell to Arms
迷失一代的代表—对《永别了武器》的
主人公弗雷德里克·亨利的心理分析
Literature Review
2007级4班 袁兴国
Abstract: A Farewell to Arms is one of the American novelist Ernest Hemmingway’s representative novels. He and his works have become the hot topic of literary criticism for a long time. So far, the research on A Farewell to Arms mainly focuses on three aspects: the themes, the characterization and the writing style of this novel. So this paper makes a survey of these researches done to this masterpiece.
摘要：《永别了武器》是美国小说家厄内斯特.海明威的代表作之一。他和他的作品一直是文学评论的热点。迄今，对《永别了武器》的研究主要集中在三个方面：小说的主题、人物性格塑造、以及写作风格的研究。因此，本文对这个著作已做过的研究进行一个综合论述。
A Farewell to Arms is one of Hemingway's remarkable novels and occupies a
prominent place in the history of the novel of the United States in the 20th century. It focuses on shaping a typical \"anti-hero\" protagonist Lieutenant Frederic Henry. He is a pure American youth, voluntarily participating in the Italian army which is wounded in
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battle. This irrational world disappoints him. Later, the love between him and Catherine makes his innermost feelings of favor clear. He loathes war and loves peaceful life. They escape from the war successfully, but they cannot escape the tragic fate. At last, Catherine and the kid both die. Henry’ tragedy coagulates with much more different reasons of the society and it has its own necessity. The war destroys these people and makes them the lost generation.
Many literature researchers have made much study about it. At present, the relative researches include the following three aspects: the themes, the characterization and the writing style of this novel.
First of all, many researchers have focused on the themes of this novel. This is the most popular topic about A Farewell to Arms. The first theme will be the antiwar theme. A study led by Liu Bin (2006) claimed that the author wishes world’s peace by describing Henry and Catharine’s tragic fate. The author shows the antiwar spirit through some descriptions of unique scene. Shi Caixia (2001) claimed that the two paragraphs in the very beginning of the novel show the soldier’s melancholy antiwar sentiment. Although these two paragraphs are regarded as a background description, they reveal the author’s emotional foundation and those characters tragic fate. Wei Chunhong (2008) claimed that the author displays the antiwar topic through the description of some main character’s tragic fate. Some descriptions including language and action in this novel clearly show the anti-war spirit, such as the famous ant paragraph and some other descriptions. Just like Liu Donglin (2003) said, “individuals on the battlefield lives like those ants. They unconsciously run here and there, but at last they will die.”
Furthermore, Guan Mingfu (2004) claimed that Hemingway’s antiwar spirit is
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divided into three periods: lost, antiwar and the call of recovering humanity. The masterpiece of each period would be The Sun Also Rises, A Farewell to Arms and For Whom the Bell Rings. And he admitted that even today in a peaceful world
Hemingway’s antiwar spirit weights a lot. Jiao Binkai (2005) claimed that even though in
A Farewell to Arms Hemingway shows his hatreds to war, he just saw slaughtering, homes
ruined by war and melancholy and disappointing soldiers. His understanding about war did not reach a certain height of humanity.
The second theme will be the Lost Generation. There are a large number of researches focused on the Lost Generation of this novel. “Lost” is the most important character of Hemingway’s works. Yang Yang (2002) claimed that A Farewell to Arms stressfully describes the disillusionment, the rebellion emotion against traditional moral concept and fierce antiwar spirit of the youth generation. It’s true that Hemingway is regarded as the pioneer and the most important representative of the Lost Generation. Zhang Dalei’s (2005) attitude is very representative. He claimed that for Hemingway’s whole creation career, the orientation of the lost emotion can be traced back to the very beginning of his writing career.
Hemingway’s creations elevated the lost generation to a notable height which mainly due to his way of describing things and telling stories. Yuan Jianhua (1995) claimed that the most notable feature of writers in Hemingway’s generation is that they are lost in the pursuit of life. Also he claimed that they refuse to accept traditional values and they attempt to create a new and never involved writing style. Zhang Chenhong (2005) claimed that the Lost Generation writers strive to describe the real thing, no matter how simple this thing is. Hemingway is really good at describing things that happened around him. Looking for a specific word for the real thing that happened is the salient
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feature of this period’s literature. Xiao Sixin (2002) claimed that the reason why the Lost Generation writers achieve such a prominent position in literary history is that their stories and novels successfully involved their own personal experience during the war. The lost generation entered the mainstream of Western literature, and their status and value of literary works have been widely recognized around the world.
Yuan Jianhua (1995) also claimed that A Farewell to Arms, on the surface, describes the war and love and shows anti-war sentiments of young Americans. But the underlying theme is where the lost generation can go and what the lost generation can do. It reveals the spiritual features of the \"lost generation\" from a deeper level; finally it deepened the social significance of this novel.
The third theme will be the tragedy of this novel. Peng Yaying (2005) claimed that tragic sense of Hemingway's work has profound social, historical, cultural and background and personal life experiences cause. The particular social context of war makes a special world view of the writer and philosopher of that time, and they analyze the theme of death and form their own thought system. There is another reason that causes the formation Hemingway’s tragic sense that is his father’s death.
Furthermore, Jiao Junkai (2005) points out that the social roots of Hemingway's tragic view of life is the inherent contradictions that can not overcome in the capitalist world, the ideological roots are the common historical pessimism of the \"lost generation\" . Critic Sean also believes that the theme of Ernest Hemingway's works is the eternal tragic of human nature.
In addition, Hemingway wrote in the preface of the illustrated edition of A Farewell to 4
Arms in 1948 that, “this book is a human tragedy, but it does not makes me feel sad
because I believe that life is a tragedy, and I also know that life can only end this way.”
Secondly, the writing style of Hemingway’s works is widely imitating by the writers all over the world. Liu Bin (2006) said that the works of Ernest Hemingway emphasize symbolism. The symbol of A Farewell to Arms caused by a kind of subtle and repeated suggestions. More specifically, the descriptions about sky, land and people are the perfect show of Hemingway’s symbolism.
Chen Yanping (2007) emphasized that another excellence of this novel that lies in Hemingway's language, style and skills are acclaimed by the public. Hemingway uses a telegraphic language, both concise and subtle. Every sentence, every word must be the expression of multiple meaning. Wang Songqiang (2008) claimed that Hemingway took inhibition narrative technique in describing the character. He rarely traced back to the characters’ life experience, he just wrote something straight in front of him, make the point and focus.
Ma Lin (2006) claimed that Hemingway’s writing style is not just related to the writing skills. Instead his writing style always meets the needs of the theme and characterization. In Hemingway’s works, style and theme are combined very tight to each other. Hemingway fiercely denounced the war by severe realism and poetic language as long as he narrated a tragic love story.
The last but not at least, the characterization in Hemingway’s work is greatly appreciated. Ni Fang (2008) claimed that in Hemingway's works, the most fascinating and deeply moving characters are those code heroes who fight against melancholy. With their
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perseverance and amazing energy, they jump into deadly confrontation fight with a hostile world. They have shown some common characteristics: strong and resolute, courageous and just, and with no fear to face suffering and death. No matter how serious the situation will be they are showing the grace under pressure.
Zhu Xiaogang (2008) claimed that Catherine is the most gentle, romantic and brave woman in Hemingway's works. She is a symbol of love that can transcend death. After she realizes the essence of the war, Catherine chooses to bravely fight against fate and traditional moral. Wang Di (2010) claimed that Catherine is a idealistic symbol of love and family in Hemingway’s early works. Her life experience is richer than Henry and she is more mature than Henry in character.
All in all, these literary comments on A Farewell to Arms are very valuable and helpful for my study. From their views, I learn how to appreciate literature. As a mature reader, one can observe some phenomena in the society from the literature. What is more important is that one can analyze the causes and results, finally know more about the background of the works.
In my paper, I will analyze the psychological features of Henry in A Farewell to Arms. It begins with an introduction of the author and the story which is employed to get the readers familiar with the general background. And then I will focus on analyzing the psychological features of Henry in the following aspects: confusion about the war, tragic love, escape from the war, helplessness about the reality and negative and cynical view of life. This paper will discuss two aspects: the “lost generation\" and psychoanalysis of Henry. By this paper, people will better understand the features of the “lost generation” and the protagonist Frederic Henry.
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