Ernest
Hemingway
Life: born in Chicago 1899 he loved sports (fishing/hunting
trips with father). Struggle against nature: if a man hts skilfully he will
be rewarded. After graduating he worked as a reporter for a local newspaper.
During 1°Ww he drove ambulance and was sent in Italy where he was wounded and fell
in love with a nurse. Returned home as an hero and was
decorated for his bravery. In the 20iest he lived in Paris and was part of the intellectual circle
of the "Poets of the lost Generation". In 1928 moved to Florida where he wrote A Farewell to Arms. His novels paint a vivid picture of what he
himself lived through. In 30ies he went
to cover the Spanish Civil War as a correspondent for an American news agency.
In 1946 he
settled down in Cuba
and won the Pulitzer price. In 1954 the Nobel prize for literature.
A Farewell to Arms
-Structure: 5books (1-2 war and
violence, 3 retreat of Italians, 45 love) 1° pers narrator Frederic Henry. It's
set on the Italian front during the 1°Ww and in Switzerland. War reveals manly
virtues: bravery, friendship, endurance. Hero: simple character with primitive
emotion, the only chance to escape to death=> the pursuit of manly
qualities.
-Themes: classic anti war novel,
portray of cruelty of war and the wound caused by it, explore the relation
between love/death, desertion=cowardice or bravery?
-Style: short, simple sentences,
use of common vocabulary, more description of actions than emotions. Use of
stream of consciousness and symbolism (rain=death).
-Story: Lieutenant Frederic Henry
(ambulance driver with Italian army) falls in love with an English nurse
Catherine; they meet up again in Milan
where he is wounded. C gets pregnant and F, executed by Carabinieri for
abandoning the battlefront, he decides to deserts and to go to Switzerland but
few months later, C and her child die during childbirth.
