Ernest Hemingway : For Whom The Bell Tolls

     A Farewell to Arms is the book of Frederic Henry, an American driving an ambulance for the Italian Army during World War I. The book takes us through Frederic's experiences in war and his love affair with Catherine Barkley, an American nurse in Italy. The book starts in the northern mountains of Italy at the beginning of World War I. Rinaldi, Frederic's roommate, takes him

Ernest Hemingway, one of the most notable writers of the Lost Generation, encountered heinous acts of war which were seared into his mind, this assertion is evident with every page

Wagner-Martin, Linda, Reynolds, David S., and Myerson, Joel, eds. A Historical Guide to Ernest Hemingway. New York: Oxford University Press, Inc., 2000. Print.

The period between World War I and World War II was a very turbulent time in America. Ernest Hemingway most represented this period with his unrestrained lifestyle. This lifestyle brought him many successes, but it eventually destroyed him in the end. His stories are read in classrooms across America, but his semi-autobiographical writings are horrible role models for the students who read them. Hemingway’s lifestyle greatly influenced his writings in many ways.

This paper will discuss Ernest Hemingway's early affects and developments as a writer, literary pieces, and critics and reviews of his work. The area where Ernest Hemingway grew up affected his development as a writer. Ernest Hemingway was born in Oak Park, Illinois. He grew up in an upper-class suburb of Chicago (Gerogiannis). After some

   Ernest Hemingway has been greatly criticized for a supposed hatred of women that some feel is evident in his writings. One of the primary books that critics believe shows this misogynistic attitude is A Farewell To Arms. It is counterproductive to interpret the book using such a narrow focus because the author is dealing with much more profound themes. Hemingway is not concerned with the theme of gender equality, but rather with the greater themes of the inherent struggle of life and the inevitability of death.

Novels published after a major war are often the most deeply emotional, profound ruminations on human nature. The authors of these novels were once soldiers, living in fear and enduring sleepless nights. These authors channel their experiences and emotions into their work, often creating masterpieces of literature. A Farewell to Arms is one such novel. Its author, Ernest Hemingway, was in the Italian ambulance corps in World War I, much like the protagonist of A Farewell to Arms, Frederic Henry. The themes in A Farewell to Arms reflect his mentality and the typical soldier’s disillusionment in the institutions and values he had always held close. A Farewell to Arms explores the far-reaching disillusionment that seems to plague Frederic. The theme of Frederic Henry’s disillusionment of all that he believes in appears through his desertion of the war, the deterioration of his relationship with Catherine, and his thoughts on life.

Ernest Hemingway was a highly acclaimed author and journalist during the 20th century. He wrote many fictional novels and accounts as he traveled much and even attended World War I and World War II. Some of his most notable novels include: The Old Man and the Sea, For Whom the Bell Tolls, and the like. Hemingway had quite an influence even after his death in 1961 caused by suicide. Today, Ernest Hemingway is recognized as an excellent writer and attracts tourists to his house in Florida.

Ernest Hemingway’s novel A Farewell to Arms covers a romance that takes place during World War I. The novel itself came out shortly after the war, and was the first of Hemingway’s books to become a best-seller. Essentially, the novel contrasts the horrors of war with the romance of Henry and Catherine. Throughout the plot, Hemingway, a World War I veteran himself, uses the events of the book to make a statement about his thoughts on war. The core message of Hemingway’s A Farewell to Arms is that war damages the soldiers who fight in it both physically and emotionally, which is primarily illustrated by the number of deaths caused directly and indirectly by the war, the actions Henry is forced to take over the course of the book, and Henry’s growing cynicism towards war.

In A Farewell to Arms, For Whom the Bell Tolls, and The Sun Also Rises, Ernest Hemingway uses damaged characters to show the unglamorous and futile nature of war and the effects it has on people. Hemingway wants readers to know that war is not what people make it out to be; it is unspectacular and not heroic. Hemingway also feels that war is futile by nature and that most goals in war have almost no point. He also shows readers that military conflict often causes people to have shallow values and to hide their pain for their own protection.

For Whom the Bell Tolls, by Ernest Hemingway, was published in 1940. It is a novel set in the Spanish Civil War, which ravaged the country in the late 1930’s. Tensions in Spain began to rise as early as 1931,when a group of left-wing Republicans overthrew the country’s monarchy in a bloodless coup. The new Republican government then proposed controversial religious reforms that angered right-wing Fascists, who had the support of the army and the Catholic Church. Hemingway traveled extensively in Spain, and grew very interested in Spanish culture. Specifically, he writes about bullfighting, not only in this novel, but also in his other works as well. While Hemingway’s novels carry a common theme, For Whom the Bell Tolls is no different. In

Ernest Hemingway's WWI classic, A Farewell to Arms is a story of initiation in which the growth of the protagonist, Frederic Henry, is recounted. Frederic is initially a naïve and unreflective boy who cannot grasp the meaning of the war in which he is so dedicated, nor the significance of his lover's predictions about his future. He cannot place himself amidst the turmoil that surrounds him and therefore, is unable to fully justify a world of death and destruction. Ultimately, his distinction between his failed relationship with Catherine Barkley and the devastation of the war allows him to mature and arrive at the resolution that the only thing one can be sure of in the course of life is death

“Ernest Hemingway has been called the twentieth century's most influential writer. With the publication of A Farewell to Arms in 1929, he achieved widespread fame, and despite a steady decline in the quality of his work thereafter, his fame continued to grow until his suicide in 1961 and beyond.”

Ernest Hemingway the winner of the Nobel Peace prize lived a troubled life over his Sixty-two years of life and experienced many struggles. He went through a few marriages, different faiths and in the end, he lost his battle with depression. However, though all of this he made an impact on the world with the style and theme of American literature he wrote and is a significant influence to many authors and readers alike. During his life, there were many things that were an influence and help shape his writing into what it is today. Hemingway heavily focused on the theme of war during his career and was a topic of several of his novels one of those novels being “For whom the bell tolls” (Hemingway) The recognizable effects of Hemingway’s influence on literature is still witnessed around the world in the many tributes to him to this day.

In WWI nearly 37 million people died, Ernest Hemingway was not one of them. Hemingway was an ambulance driver in the Italian army until he was eventually injured by an artillery shell. Once Hemingway returned home he began writing a book based on his experiences of WWI. That book is A Farewell to Arms. In 1929 he published this book and it was met with mixed feelings and calls for it to be banned. I believe that A Farewell to Arms should not be banned because it brings to light many different viewpoints about the war as well as strong literary strategies beneficial to good writing.