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《永別了，武器》的象征主義(一)
Symbolism in A Farewell to Arms
《永別了，武器》的象征主義
Abstract
Hemingway, one of the most brilliant novelists in the history of the western literature, is famous for his symbolism. In the novel A Farewell to Arms, he applied the symbolism under different scenes, which endows rain, snow, mountain, plain, and water with different kinds of implication to highlight the ruthless, sad, miserable and desolate atmosphere of the war and discloses the people's depression, helplessness and desperation in the war. In addition, the characters also have the strong symbolic meaning. Therefore, this paper mainly analyzes the symbolic meanings of the mountain，plain，rain，snow and the characters in the novel，and interprets their significance and value in the appreciation of the novel.
Key words: symbolism; landscapes; weather; emblematic people
摘 要
海明威是西方文學(xué)史上最杰出的小說家之一。他的作品主要以象征主義手法見長。在他的作品《永別了，武器》中，海明威運用了象征主義手法，在不同的場景下，對雨，雪，高山，平原，和人物賦予各種不同的含義，來渲染出戰(zhàn)爭的無情，悲涼，凄慘，蕭條的氣氛，襯托了戰(zhàn)爭背景下的人們郁悶，無助和絕望的種種情緒。書中，天氣，景物仍是小說不可或缺的自然環(huán)境的一部分，但卻不再是單純的自然現(xiàn)象，而是作為暗示主人公遭遇的象征.人物的象征意義也特別的強烈。本論文詳細(xì)分析了其中的高山、平原、雨、雪和人物所表達(dá)的象征意義，并解讀其在作品中的意義和價值。
關(guān)鍵詞：象征主義；地點；天氣；象征性的人物
Contents
Ⅰ. Introduction………………………………………………………………1
A. Brief Introduction to the Plot……………………………………….......1
B. The Definition of Symbolism……………………………………….......1
Ⅱ. Symbolic Meaning of the Landscapes………………………………........2
A. Symbolic Meaning of the Mountain………………………………….....2
1. Mountain of Happiness…………………………………………........2
2. Mountain of Family………………………………………………......3
B. Symbolic Meaning of the Plain…………………………………………..3
1. Plain of Destruction…………………………………………………...3
2. Plain of Death…………………………………………………………4
Ⅲ. Symbolic Meaning of the Weather……………………………………........4
A. Symbolic Meaning of Rain………………………………………….........4
1. Rain of Despair………………………………………………………..5
2. Rain of Death…………………………………………………….........5
B. Symbolic Meaning of the Snow…………………………………………..6
1. Snow of Dream………………………………………………………..6
2. Snow of Peace……………………………………………………........7
Ⅳ. Emblematic People………………………………………………………….7
A. Symbolic Meaning of Catherine………………………………………….7
B. Symbolic Meaning of the Priest…………………………………………..8
Ⅴ.Conclusion……………………………………………………………….......8
Notes……………………………………………………………………….......10
Bibliography……………………………………………………………………12
I. IntroductionA. Brief Introduction to the Plot
Ernest Hemingway was one of the most famous writers of the world in 20th century whose writing career spanned thirty-five years. As a writer, he was creative and talented, and his gifts to the 20th century’s world literature were numerous. A Farewell to Arms, a love story, draws heavily on Hemingway's experiences as a young soldier in Italy. It tells the story of Lieutenant Frederic Henry－a young American ambulance driver serving in the Italian army during World War I. Henry falls in love with the British nurse Catherine Barkley. Since he is wounded at the front by a trench mortar shell, she looks after him in the hospital during his recuperation, and their relationship develops. His recuperation and romance with the now pregnant Catherine ends abruptly when Henry must return to the front. Henry narrowly escapes death at the hands of fanatical Italian soldiers, who are executing officers separated from their troops during the Italians’ disastrous retreat following the Battle of Caoretto. He finds Catherine, and after a sojourn in an Italian resort, the couple flees to Switzerland on the eve of Henry's arrest for deserting. In Switzerland, they live in harmony until the tragic end of her pregnancy, during which both she and the child die. Much has been said about the prose style Hemingway used and a great debate has been waged over whether the novel is about machismo and the sex object—Catherine Barkley. However, A Farewell to Arms is not a novel glorifying war. Instead, it is a tragic love story whose farewell is from war to love.
B. The Definition of Symbolism
In A Farewell to Arms, Hemingway used symbolism to analyze the novel, and in the dictionary, symbolism has five meanings: 1.The practice of representing things by means of symbols or of attributing symbolic meanings or significance to objects, events, or relationships. 2. A system of symbols or representations. 3. A symbolic meaning or representation. 4. Revelation or suggestion of intangible conditions or truths by artistic invention. 5. The movement, theory, or practice of the late 19th-century Symbolists.
Symbolism is an especially evocative kind of image, which uses concrete image to show the abstracts. That is, a word or phrase referring to a concrete object, scene, or action also has some further significance. For example, roses, mountains, birds, and voyages have all been used as common literary symbolism. It is usually too simple to say that a literary symbol “stands for” some idea as if it were just a convenient substitute for a fixed meaning; it is usually a substantial image in its own right, around which further significances may gather according to differing interpretations.
Ⅱ. Symbolic meaning of the Places
The mountain and the plain are two important images in the story. They form a sharp contrast which stands as basic structure of the whole novel. The mountain is a symbol of peace, happiness, family and love while the plain is a symbol of destruction, death and war.
Symbolic meaning of the Mountain
Mountain of Happiness
At the beginning of the story, Earnest Hemingway presents a mobile picture in which thousands of people are moving and acting .It not only starts the story, but also sets the basic tune, a destructive tune for the whole novel .And moreover, it arranges a series of important imagines for the later development of symbolism.
“In the late summer of that year we lived in a house in a village that looked across the river and the plain to the mountain .In the bed of the river there were pebbles and boulders .dry and white in the sun, and the water was clear and swiftly moving and blue in the channels .Troops went by the house and down the road and the dust they raised powdered the leaves of the trees.”﹙Chapter 1﹚
The first sentence of the paragraph of in the novel puts the readers in a house from whose window he car look across the river and plain to the mountains in the distance .Maybe the readers have not realized it , but the mountain and the plain have appeared softly .The second sentence draws reader’s attention from the mountain to the river and produces a feeling of clear , dry ,wide and full of sunshine .The river extends finely ,under the dealing of the author until it is connected with one of the important symbols—the mountain ,a symbol of happiness.
Mountain of Family
“Nearby was a beautiful little village. The mountains that surrounded it added even more to its beauty. Catherine and I both felt wonderful. Everything seemed perfect, even the rain.”﹙Chapter 32﹚
When they lived on the mountain, they have a happy period. They established a home on the mountain. Lived on the mountain they are far from war and death, they are just stay with each other. The mountain is just a symbol of family. It represent a peaceful and happy life.
Symbolic Meaning of the Plain
Plain of Destruction
The plain has appeared dimly at the very beginning. Then it comes out clearer and clearer with the development of the story. “Troops went by the house and down the road and the dust they raised powdered the leaves of the trees. The trunks of the trees too were dusty and the leaves fell early that year . ”In the autumn, we see the dust and fallen leaves. The leaves are just rotting and rotting to dust. The troops are just marching on to dust. Hemingway creates such a strong impression on the readers that everything is going to dust and everything is going towards destruction. These things happen on the plain.
The big destructive retreat also happens on the plain. There are deserted cars, houses, carts, axes everywhere. There are also the fighting and cursing soldiers, the sad country people, the dead bodies, the shooting and the unreasonable battle polices. Everything is in mess and everything ends up in chaos and destruction.
Plain of Death
“Straight through to the end of February, to the end of winter, we lived very happily. Occasionally, we decided to go to Lausanne, where the hospital was. ”﹙Chapter 34﹚
Catherine’s death also happens on the plain. When, they both flee to Switzerland, they really have a quite happy life on the mountains. But in the spring, with the coming of rain and an urge for a hospital for the childbirth, they move down the mountain to Lausanne, a small town in the plain beside the lake. There Catherine dies of the childbirth and the child is stillborn. Though it seems to be an accident, there is a kind of inner association between the misfortune and the plain. So while the mountain symbolizes the peace and family, the plain just symbolizes the destruction and death.
Ⅲ. Symbolic Meaning of the Weather
In A Farewell to Arms, many of symbols are provided by the weather description. These natural weather images enlarge the realistic framework of the novel by suggesting that the elements of nature lie under the social life of human being, whether life is urban, rural. Thus, weather images become very important in establishing emotional tone of the novel. In the novel, we are greatly impressed by the weather images of rains and snows. Hemingway has made the best use of these images .Rain, is represent unfortunate things .The snow, on the other hand, stands for happy things.
A. Symbolic Meaning of Rain
As a kind of set-off of the symbolism, the use of rain receives highly praise .In fact, it just likes a refrain of the main tune.
1. Rain of Despair
“Rain” gets appropriate application as a pessimistic symbol. In part three, Henry comes back to the frontline and the army is defeated. All of the muddy ground, fallen leaves and damaged houses demonstrate the bad situation. What’s worse, it rains all the time:
The ground was muddy and wet, and the leaves already had fallen from the trees. It stormed all that day. The wind drove down the rain and everywhere there was standing water and mud. The plaster of the broken houses was grey and wet.
It describes the fallen leaves at this time, which symbolizes the soldier’s bad mood, to forebode the defeat of war, and the soldier’s despair. Just as the driver Aymo says that they maybe drink rainwater tomorrow. By this time, Hemingway developed the symbolism of the rain to such a degree that the reader experiences a genuine sense of foreboding. And indeed, the following day will bring death to Henry’s disintegrating unit. Besides, in part three, there are many words which point to describe the rain:
On a raining night, Henry and Catherine start to hard retreat. Rain always comes down. In this part, “rain” often appears. Horses and people are walking in the muddy. As if the muddy predicts everything as the muddy road. In Henry’s heart, the war has no meaning, and he just wants to accompany with Catherine. Then Italian soldiers kill Aymo. Everything becomes disorder. “Rain” does not only predict Henry who must face the danger in the course of retreat, but also indicate the war’s destroy to humanity and leave shadow in the human’s heart.
2. Rain of Death
Henry and Catherine live in a little, comfortable and wooden house in the mountain in Montreux during the rest of the fall and the winter. The life looks peaceful: they discuss marriage and they hike, read and talk about what they will do together after the ending of the war. The war just goes away, but the protagonist is in anxiety. From the newspaper, Henry knows that the war is still on. It rains again after a peaceful winter:
In the last chapter, Catherine dies of a difficult delivery— just like she fells. She is afraid of the rain because sometimes she sees herself die in it. At last, Henry comes back to hotel lonely and the tragic story ends up with the rain. The ending is so simple, having no cry, but the readers will feel that Henry’s tear is falling down with the rain:﹙Chapter 41﹚
I could see nothing but the dark and the rain falling across the light from the window. After a while I went out and left the hospital and walked back to the hotel in the rain. ﹙Chapter 41﹚
The death of Catherine strikes Henry. There is nothing he could do, no one whom he could talk with, and no place where he could go. To him, tomorrow is just too far, and the dark nights have no lover’s accompany. The war destroys everything of Henry, including his belief. Henry comes back to hotel lonely that indicates he has bid farewell to war and love.
Symbolic Meaning of Snow
Regarding the novel’s symbolism ,notice that snow comes unusually late during the winter described .Rain and snow both drive the plot and maintain our interest ,as we hold our breaths every time it rains in the novel .Snow gives us different feeling .
Snow of Dream
The opposite image of rain is snow .While rain always appears with death and despair; snow just appears with peaceful life and beautiful dream.
“One day, as my friend and I were enjoying some wine in one of the local bars, it began to snow outside .we knew then that the fighting would stop until spring.”﹙Chapter 1 ﹚
When snow first comes I the fall ,the war is all over that year .It’s a happy thing for soldiers that snow falls because they do not like the war ; they disgust it and hate it .
Shortly thereafter, Henry describes the priest’s home region of Abruzzi as a “place where the roads were frozen and hard as iron, where it was clear and cold and dry and the snow was dry and powdery….”When Henry goes to the front, from the car, he can see two ranges of mountains, green and dark to the snow line and then white and lovely in the sun .Maybe it’s a dream.
2. Snow of Peace
When Henry deserts the army and makes a separate peace in Switzerland .The snow accompanies Catherine and Henry the whole winter until the coming of spring and rain. With the disappearing of the snow, it has turned into slush; their happy life also comes to an end.
Through the whole novel, the snow impresses us as coldness and clearness. It’s connected with the mountain. Together they symbolize the peace and happy life and to some degree they also symbolize an unrealized dream in the mind of the war-wounded people.
Ⅳ. Emblematic People
In this novel, remove to the natural landscape, Hemingway also gives different figures in the symbolism of the different. Some relevant people stand for the spirit which dominates Henry’s life.
Symbolic Meaning of Catherine
Catherine is the Hemingway of the gentlest, kindest, and most romantic and most bravely woman; she is Hemingway's most memorable image of the people. On the symbolic meaning, Justice is concerned. Catherine represents Hemingway ideal of love and family. There are many examples reflecting her life, love and death have their own deep-hole review. When Catherine was coming at the first time, her fiancé had just died in the battlefield; she was in the very guilty state of mind.
“I felt that I owed him something. I waited him so long to agree to marry him. I don’t know why .Then he joined the Army. I didn’t like the idea, but it was already too late.”﹙Chapter 5﹚ It is precisely because of her can only exist in the traditional concept of marriage, Love it so that they left a deficiency.
Catherine went on to say, "Early to know if what he wanted me to give him anything. All this reason I now know. "From the Catherine here to see her fiancé’s death shattered the traditional wave of love man dreams.
In the end of the novel, Catherine has been died because her birth baby. We can see Catherine’s courage. With the death of Catherine so that Henry deeper understanding. Catherine's love of the input and as well as her dedication shown by the kindness, loyalty, maturity and courage to make the people found the meaning of life, and she is indeed the most memorable women image in the novel. The final work, she almost became a love of abstraction. Catherine has become a death entirely her own, the abstract, there is no anger image, for the living, she is like a spirit of love and family.
Symbolic Meaning of the Priest
Symbolism in the way of the work also involved with other people. Henry’s two closest friends represent a statue of morality. One is the young Italian doctor Rinaldi. Another close friend is a nameless Italian priest. He seized every opportunity to preach the virtues of Christianity. It was he trying to convince Henry. During the holidays he persuades Henry to visit his hometown of Abruzzi. Priest depicts this mountainous countryside where have clean cool air, abundance of birds and its friendly people. There is a place close to heaven. In the middle of the novel, He disappeared in readers’ vision. However, he represent the quality has been affecting the development of the story.
When Henry and Catherine arrived in Switzerland Heights, they began married life form. They understand is the spirit of the priest inspiring them. The priest stands for the spirit which dominates Henry’s life.
Ⅴ.Conclusion
Ernest Hemingway, in his novel A Farewell to Arms, used the nature to structure the novel and provided symbols that replaced the emotion of human. The nature serves as a basic structure of the plots and the actions that occurs. It also emerged as a source of symbols that replace human’s sentiment or feelings.
The combination of natural symbolism with death and language create a powerful unity to the events of the novel. The death is foreshadowed by the rain, which is used as a substitute of the emotion. Thus the rain represented not only the death, but also the grief, the pain, and the despair that follow with death. It represented a form of purging further, a means of forgetting what have just happened. While the snow stands for a peaceful life and a beautiful dream. The mountain represents happiness, love and family. While the plain is just represents opposite symbolic meaning. It stands for death, sadness and destruction .People is also play an important role in the novel which stands for the spirit which dominates Henry’s life.
Hemingway was famous for his “ice-berg” theory. He was entitled pretty high honor as the “mastery of the art of modern narration”. Hemingway’s fame as a writer was confirmed with the publication of A Farewell to Arms in 1929. The novel portrayed a farewell to war and love. Hemingway had rejected the romantic ideal of the ultimate unity of lovers, instead of suggesting that all relationship must end in death, which reflected extremely Hemingway’s tragic view to the world and the life. Through the study, we can make a clear realization from all above mentioned, such as the theme, the analysis of the symbolism, the criticism to wars, etc, served his pessimistic mind. At last we acquire some enlightens that we should love our life and cherish the existing peace.
Bibliography
Hemingway Ernest, A Farewell to Arms. New York: Charles Scribers Sons, 1929．
Kennedy and Gioia，ed., Literature: An Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, and Drama, 9th Ed.
Nagel, James. "Ernest Hemingway". Dictionary of Literary Biography.Vol. 9. Part2 .Ed. James J .Martine. Detroit: Gale, 1981.100-20.
常耀信.美國文學(xué)簡史.天津:南開大學(xué)出版社, 1990. 6(1999. 10重印).
海明威著,林疑今譯.永別了,武器.上海：上海譯文出版社, 1995年12月.
劉象愚.走進經(jīng)典叢書:戰(zhàn)爭與人——走進海明威的〈永別了武器〉.北京：北京師范大學(xué)出版社, 2007.
喬喜梅.淺議《永別了，武器》的藝術(shù)特色.蘭州大學(xué)學(xué)報（社會科學(xué)版），28(2000).
魏春紅.淺論《永別了，武器》中的象征.齊齊哈爾高等�？茖W(xué)校學(xué)報.3(2008).
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