Hemingway-s Sensibility - Heroes în his War Novels

Introduction

I have always considered American literature captivating, although it is one of the world’s youngest literatures. This literature has achieved its own independence and vigor, even though many saw it over part of its evolution, as an extension of English literature. Especially in the years since World War II, both in the United States and in other countries, the interest in American writers seems to have increased greatly. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries the United States produced only a small number of writers the world has heard of. In the nineteenth century the number increased greatly, and in the twentieth it seems to have experienced a boom.

The author I have decided to discuss in this paper is one who has won, or seems to deserve a place among the world’s most important and profound writers. Personally, I have admired him ever since my childhood, when I had the chance to read one of his masterpieces, the same that brought him a Pulitzer Prize and later, even the Nobel Prize, The Old Man and the Sea.

Perhaps one of the most influential writers of the twentieth century, Ernest Hemingway’s story is one of mixed success and failure. His story, at crucial points, is not unlike the story of his hero. I decided to focus all my attention on Hemingway’s war novels because I wanted to explore new dimensions of his writing. Given the complexity and implications of the paper, I must confess I had to sail on rough waters, but I managed in the end to attain my purpose.

In the following chapters I will try to present, as accurately as possible, every important aspect of Hemingway’s life, of his appropriate writing style, and his success or failure as one of the major writers of the twentieth century. I will discuss matters such as Hemingway the man and his colorful life in the first chapter.

The second chapter deals with, what I think is one of the most interesting aspects of his work: his code hero, that is the protagonists of many of his works, who so resemble each other that we have come to speak about them in the singular. I will also try to talk about the characteristics of Hemingway’s code hero by analyzing two of his novels, A Farewell to Arms and For Whom the Bell Tolls. Hemingway’s hero is an important ingredient of his work, for this man will die a thousand times before his death, and although he will learn how to live with some of his troubles, and how to overcome others, he will never completely recover from his wounds as long as Hemingway lives and records his adventures. An important detail about Hemingway’s novels, A Farewell to Arms and For Whom the Bell Tolls, is that the writer exploits a seminal mixture two of his most often encountered themes, love and war.

Hemingway’s sensibility between success and failure is presented in the final chapter of my diploma paper. I will try to explain not only that he skillfully managed to create profound novels of a rare sensibility given by their themes, love and war, and by succeeding this he gained fame, but also that in a certain period of his life he was severely criticized mainly because of the lack of development in his characters.

Chapter 1. Hemingway’s Prose—An Overview

The twentieth century was a time of great struggles; it was a time of great battles; it was a time of great authors. One of the most influential and profound authors of that time period is a war veteran named Ernest Hemingway. Hemingway gains fame by his unique method and style of writing; he exploits his themes and symbols with precise syntax and diction. He aims to eliminate everything in his novels that is unnecessary such as adverbs and adjectives.

Ernest Hemingway constantly uses symbols to demonstrate his themes as well as conflicts throughout his novels and he is also one of the authors named The Lost Generation. He could not cope with post-war America; therefore, he introduced a new type of character in writing called the code hero. The writer often creates a theme on a code hero, a Hemingway hero, who must display grace under pressure in order to become a man; he often produced a directionless generation that disregards all conventional values as a result of war.

As an author, Ernest Hemingway is recognizable, but his novels are unmistakable due to the distinguishable context of his books. Hemingway the man is of considerable interest, and his life has been colourful. His story, at crucial points, is not unlike the story of his hero. From other standpoints, Hemingway’s story has been one of mixed success and failure. (Young 21)

He was born Ernest Miller Hemingway in an intensely middle class suburb of Chicago called Oak Park, Illinois, on July 21, 1899. His father was a doctor, devoted to hunting and fishing; his mother was a religious and musical woman and a struggle over which direction the boy should take appears to have been won by former.