A Farewell to Arms
Sadhana Changoer
Mrs. B. Struik
English
10-01-2013
How Hemingway uses style and language to reflect the ideas and themes in A Farewell to Arms.
There are plenty of novels about World War I, most of them are about the cruel life in the trenches, the physical stress and the awful numbers of deaths during the battle. As a reader you think that you have seen it all, but then this book comes along. A Farewell to Arms is a novel written by Ernest Hemingway, which presents the love story between Lieutenant Fredrick Henry and Catherine Barkle during the cruel events of World War I. There are many things that differentiate this novel from others. The point that attracted my attention the most was the writing style. When the reader starts reading the novel, he first has to get used to the writing style before he can focus on the storyline. The writing style used in A Farewell to Arms helps the reader to understand the ideas of the main character and the emotions and moods the main character is experiencing. Hemingway’s style contains vivid descriptions and sensory details, different sentence structures that portray different emotions and the novel also represents the world view of Hemingway, and reflects what kind of man he was.
One writing style, is the use of vivid descriptions and sensory details. He combines these two to give a general impression of the scene he is describing. This helps the reader to understand the points Hemingway is trying to make. In the book there are different themes, such as love, hate, war and pain. The writing style Hemingway uses is different for each theme. He matches a certain theme with a certain writing style. For example when writing about war, he uses long and flowing sentences and vivid descriptions of the scene. He builds up tension preparing the reader for the unfortunate things that are about to happen. He also uses foreshadowing; giving the reader small hints about events that are going to happen in the future. An
Mrs. B. Struik
English
10-01-2013
How Hemingway uses style and language to reflect the ideas and themes in A Farewell to Arms.
There are plenty of novels about World War I, most of them are about the cruel life in the trenches, the physical stress and the awful numbers of deaths during the battle. As a reader you think that you have seen it all, but then this book comes along. A Farewell to Arms is a novel written by Ernest Hemingway, which presents the love story between Lieutenant Fredrick Henry and Catherine Barkle during the cruel events of World War I. There are many things that differentiate this novel from others. The point that attracted my attention the most was the writing style. When the reader starts reading the novel, he first has to get used to the writing style before he can focus on the storyline. The writing style used in A Farewell to Arms helps the reader to understand the ideas of the main character and the emotions and moods the main character is experiencing. Hemingway’s style contains vivid descriptions and sensory details, different sentence structures that portray different emotions and the novel also represents the world view of Hemingway, and reflects what kind of man he was.
One writing style, is the use of vivid descriptions and sensory details. He combines these two to give a general impression of the scene he is describing. This helps the reader to understand the points Hemingway is trying to make. In the book there are different themes, such as love, hate, war and pain. The writing style Hemingway uses is different for each theme. He matches a certain theme with a certain writing style. For example when writing about war, he uses long and flowing sentences and vivid descriptions of the scene. He builds up tension preparing the reader for the unfortunate things that are about to happen. He also uses foreshadowing; giving the reader small hints about events that are going to happen in the future. An
Cited: * “At the start of the winter came the permanent rain and with the rain came the cholera. But it was checked and in the end only seven thousand died of it in the army.” (Hemingway, 4) * “God please make her not die. I’ll do anything you say if you don’t let her die. You took the baby but don’t let her die. That was all right but don’t let her die. Please, please, dear God, don’t let her die. God please make her not die.” (hemingway, 291)