论海明威小说死亡主题.doc

ON THE THEME OF DEATH OF HEMINGWAY’S NOVELS

by
Wang LuSheng

October,2008
College of Technology,Xiaogan University

Abstract
Hemingway is one of the greatestmasters in themodern literary history. He expresseshis own specif-ic thought toward death bymeans of experiences and angle of view. Tragedy consciousness and death knot are the kernel of Hemingway’s works. This article analyses and discusses the masters' several typicalworks, then tries to understand the death, tragedy and distillation expression in them. From the analysing and discussing we can see Hemingway’s tragic works don’t mean death only, but mean that people can see hope, lightand new-born throughtdeath. The more importantly is determined by its profound influence upon the attitudes of the “lost generation” towards life after the wars.

Keywords: Hemingway; death theme; Code Hero

论海明威小说死亡主题
摘要
海明威是世界现代文学史上最卓越的大师之一,他以其自身的亲身体验及独特视角在其作品中展示了自己对于死亡的独见之处。悲剧意识与死亡情结是海明威作品创作的核心内容。通过对大师几部典型作品的分析论述,来试图理解其作品中的死亡、悲剧与升华,从中看出大师眼中的悲剧绝不完全意味着死亡,而是寓意人们从死亡中看到希望、光明与新生。因而,它的产生有着重要的意义,尤其是海明威式的对待死亡的方式—“压力下的风度”生命精神对美国战后“迷惘的一代”产生了积极的影响。

关键词:海明威; 死亡主题；硬汉

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contents
1.Introduction…………………………………………...1
2.Ernest Hemingway’s Life Experiences and His Death Theme……2
2.1 Ernest Hemingway’s Death Theme………………………………………..2
2.1 Ernest Hemingway’s Life Experiences…………………………………….
3.The Significance of Hemingway’s Death Theme………………….
4.Conclusion…………………………………………………………
Notes…………………………………………………………………
Bibliography…………………………………………………………

1 .Introduction
Ernest Hemingway and his wokrs have been frequently commented and parised In China，his style and the spirit of“Grace under pressure”in particular. By contrast，The death theme revealed in his wokrs seems to have not been duly dealt with. The papers concenring Hemingway Published in the Past two decades in the three leading Chinese literary Periodicals-Foreign Literarure Studies，Literarure Review And Foreign Lietratures-and in a few other academic joumals, mainly focus on his artistie feature,Code Hero, Iceberg Principle and the writing style. There are fewer pieces dealing with his death theme, among which several Pieces are especially devoted to Hemingway’s view of death, consciousness of death and his philosophy of death, another approaches Hemingway’s death theme from the perspective of the life hero, and the last deals with Hemingway’s death theme in terms of the religious influences. For instnace，carried in Foreign Lietratures in March 2003，Zhu Li’s article entitled Approaching Hemingway’s Philospohy of Death gives a research on Hemingway’s Philosophy of death.It briefly discusses Hemingway’s life experiences，Code Hero and the significance of Hemingway’s Philosophy of death. However，the changes in Hemingway attitude towards death and the social meaning of his death theme are ignored.
These studies on Hemingway’s death theme are either too general lacking in convincing details and proof most probably due to the limited space allowed for articles in academic periodicals or merely focus on a particular aspect of the death theme.Moreover，while some pieces do conduct a study of Hemingway’s consciousness of death in his novels，the author of the present thesis has found that no thorough and careful research has been done，since they just roughly divided Hemingway’s attitude towards death into three kinds，neglecting the slight changes in his attitude, and they are lacking in a comprehensive elaboration of the profound meaning of the death theme.
Therefore，based on the researches conducted，the author of this thesis chooses death as the perspective to approach Hemingway’s works in hopes that a more comprehensive elaboration of his writings can be fulfilled.
Hemingway’s death theme arises from his life-in-death/death-in-life experiences. When Hemingway was a child，he always went together with his father to diagnose the patients，which is inevitable for him to contact diseases and even death. Thus it can be seen that, the shadow of death has left an indelible impression upon little Hemingway, and the feeling has been written into his later writing.
It can also be detected that Hemingway demonstrates the change of his view of death through the heroes in his novels. It is true that Hemingway’s view of death does not form from the beginning of his literary career: instead，it has withstood a long and complex process. In his early works，he shows his fear for death，then with het time going on，with his understanding of death deepening，the fear has changed into the feeling of powerlessness, to acknowledgment, to transcendence and finally to detachment. It is worth mentioning that some writers include Henry’s attitude to death in acknowledgment of death, and Santiago’s attitude to death in transcendence of death.
Through a thorough analysis of the background and Hemingway’s view of death，The significance and importance of his death theme also appeared: its social meaning，Its spirit of Code Hero, and its truthfulness. The death theme distinguishes Hemingway. No one would read Hemingway Without noticing his view of death. Hemingway’s novels are often capable of many interpretations ，which may result from his changeable attitude towards death as well as his writing techniques. His view of death can be found in his themes，heroes and settings of the books, It is safe to say that it is the death theme that gives his writings more fascination. In addition ,in this writing, the author of the thesis clarified Hemingway’s Code Hero in his death theme.

2. Ernest Hemingway’s Life Experiences and His Death Theme
2.1 Ernest Hemingway’s Death Theme
Some of Hemingway’s biographers have speculated that his apparent fascination with death arose from the nearly fatal injuries that he received in World War 1.In his personal life Hemingway deliberately courted danger and exhibited a fatalistic disregard for his own life, a characteristic which has been partially fully transplanted to his literary characters. In The Sun Also Rises，death from World War l shadows the actions of most of the main characters ; specifically，death has robbed Brett Ashley of the man she loved before she met Jake ,and that fact，though only Alluded to in the novel，largely accounts for her membership in the lost generation .A Farewell to Arms begins and ends with death: Catherine Barkley’s finace was killed before the main events of the novel began: and her own death at the end will profoundly influence the rest of Frederic Henry’s life. In For whom the Bell Tolls，death is nearly found in every scene，a fact suggested first by the image of the bell in The novel’s title and epigraph, the bell’s tolling is a death knell. Perhaps the most important thing in For whom the Bell Tolls refers to Robert Jordan’s choice to die，as he does come from his reflections on the heroic death of his grandfather compared with what he sees as the cowardly suicide of his father .Finally，Santiago’s memories of his dead wife in The Old and the Sea Play in and out of his mind as he confronts the Possibility of his own death in his struggle against the great marlin and the sea
Indeed，in Hemingway’s works ，as Nelson Algren observes that，as though a man Must earn his death before he could win his life. Yet it would be a mistake to allow What may appear to be Hemingway’s preoccupation-or to some obsession-with Death to obscure the fact that he is , above all, concerned in his fiction with the quality of individual life，even though it must be granted that the quality and intensity of his characters’s lives seem to increase in direct proportion to their awareness of the reality of death.
Death is really not a fragmentary Phenomenon in his writings. His five novels，one medium-length novel，one play and eighty-one short stories，all discuss death or have a Plot related to death.

2.2 Ernest Hemingway’s Life Experiences
Hemingway’s preoccupation with death is directly related to his own life experiences, as has been briefly mentioned above. He was born with a liking for adventure, which enables him to live a complex life and makes him brush Past death many times .However ,each experience all entrusts him with the new thinking and opinion on death, even when he was a little child，he began to think about it .His family also left a deep impression on him his father was a Physician，who has a strong influence on Hemingway. If the childhood’s experiences only created light sorrow in Hemingway，then his youth---an unusual war age，made him deeply realize the brutality of death. Hemingway experienced World War I，World War II and Spanish Civil War，and went to Italy，Turkey，Spain，England，France and China.
In addition to his childhood’s life and his war experiences，Hemingway withstood five traffic accidents in his whole life. During World War II，in London，in a ear accident，his forehead and knee were badly injured，which even made several newspapers Publish the obituary rnotiee.In1953，Hemingway Paid a travel to Africa for hunting，where he experienced two aircraft accidents，and almost lost his life In the first aircraft accident，his wife broke two ribs，and his liver，waist and vertebra got severely wounded .In the second fire of aircraft，he hit the gate with the head，which brought him the most serious cerebral concussion，even to die. A Person’s experiences
of so multitudinous de are really rare in the world.
In view of the above-mentioned experiences, death has become unavoidably the Core of his works, which he never gets tired of elaborating all his life. He wants to demonstrate his meditation upon death to the average people through his own works. Through delineation of suicidal death，fear for death，death caused by the war，despise for death, ete, Hemingway proposes his own view of life and value: death itself has one kind of beauty, living then bravely living. He also advocates facing death with the spirit of Code Hero. Just like what the critic has said to the effect that，behind his manifestation you can find far more contents than what people imagine. Here，the far more contents refer to his view of death. His heroes，when facing defeat or death， often try to preserve one kind of thing(later we know it refers to“Grace under Pressure”).They know their attitude to death itself is victory .Even if they have been
Defeated in fact，they are still maintaining a kind of ideal-a Principle to be a man. With this Principle，Hemingway has systematically elaborated his understanding and view of death.
3. The Significance of Hemingway’s Death Theme
In his writings, Hemingway displays and discusses the death Phenomenon，which has formed his unique style of conveying the message of death. In other words，He has created his own Pattern of dealing with death. In his works，you can not find Straightforward descriptions of the devastation and injuries caused by the war Instead，what you can find are People’s complicated Psychological changes when confronting death. With his simplecasual，conversational and rough words，Hemingway more subtly suggests rather than directly delineates the cruelty of the war
The significance of Hemingway’s death theme not only lie in its Provoking deep meditation on the wars and their disastrous consequences，but more importantly lies in its Profound influence upon the attitudes of the“lost generation” towards life after the wars. In works like The Sun Also Rises，he has displayed the great influence caused by the war upon the young generation,and has created the literature of the “lost generation” through mirroring the mood of the time. A Farewell To Arms，the Sequel of The Sun Also Rises, not only describes the death of belief and the death of love, but also brings out a probe into the social causes that led to the existence of the “lost generation” by means of depicting Henry’s Painful experience in the war. Through the description of the event, the heroes and their attitudes towards death, Hemingway demonstrates an immortal spirit of living---“Grace under Pressure”, which undoubtedly has a Positive influence on the lost generation，who survived the cruelty of the war but found themselves slip into a ruined land and a faithless world.
Hemingway’s attitude towards death and his pattern of dealing with death and can best be represented by the “Code Hero” that he creates in his books .According to Professor Paul Totah of St. Ignatius, Hemingway defined the Code Hero as “a man who lives correctly following the ideals of honor, courage and endurance in a world that is sometimes chaotic,often stressful,and always painful.” The Code Hero measures himself by how well they handle the difficult situations that life throws at him. In the end，the Code Hero will lose because we are all mortal，but the true measurement is how a Person faces his destiny. The Code Hero is typically an individualist and free-willed. Although he believes in the ideals of courage and honor, he has his own set of morals and Principles based on his beliefs in honor courage and endurance. Qualities such as bravery, adventuresome and travel also define the Code Hero. The rite of manhood for the Code Hero is how to face death. However, once he faces death bravely and becomes a man he must continue the struggle and constantly prove himself to retain his manhood through maintaining “grace under Pressure”.
The spirit of the Code Hero permeates into the majority of Hemingway’s novels. Even the young man in Hill like White Elephants contains many of characteristics of the Code Hero such as free-willed, individualistic, and travel-liking. In Our Times contains a various assortments of Nick Adam stories at various stages of his life, and shows the Code Hero at various stages of its development In A Farewell to Arms, you can find the true Hemingway code heroes as wall, exemplified first by Catherine, and later more significantly by Henry. In The Old Man and the Sea, one will find many hardships with the support of courage, bravery and friendship, which are qualities one can spot in a Hemingway Code Hero.
Through the Code Hero, the important of his death theme also appeared: Hemingway does not intend to draw a kind of conclusion, but wants diligently create one kind of mental magnificence---“grace under pressure” in front of death. Why can his death theme give the humanity the life power to increase the confidence? This is not merely because only human beings have the death consciousness, which enables them to develop the sense of urgency to overcome the inertia of life, but is more related to the central question of the death theme---the significance and value of death: its essence is to entrust with the limited life the eternal or the infinite significance and value. Life and death is the unity of opposites and cannot be separated from each other.
To Hemingway this is even much worse than death and dif