Abstract

Ernest Hemingway is a well-known writer in America, and A Farewell to Arms is one of his representative works. This work strongly reflects Hemingway’s anti-war sentiment. This thesis attempts to analyze the reflection of Hemingway’s anti-war sentiment in this novel, involving description of environments, tragedy of Henry and Catherine, descriptions on soldiers’ life, and symbols to show what human beings suffer from war and how eager people are for peace. At the same time, the author discusses enlightenment from the novel to call on people against war and keep peace.
 
Key Words: Hemingway  anti-war  peace

摘 要

海明威是美国著名作家，其作品《永别了，武器》是其代表作品之一，同时该作品反映了海明威的反战思想。本文分析了海明威在这部作品中的反战思想的体现，涉及对小说中环境描写，亨利和凯瑟琳的悲剧爱情，对战士的描写，及其文中象征手法的运用等方面。通过分析,本文指出战争给人类带来的巨大伤害和人们对和平的急切渴望。本文同时对该著作当今世界的启发进行了探讨，呼吁人们抵制战争，维护和平。

关键词：海明威 反战 和平

1 Introduction

A Farewell to Arms is a famous work and many scholars analyzed it from different perspectives including existentialism, feminism, symbolism, and the analysis of characters. Chen Li analyzed existentialism in this novel through Henry’s tragic fate. Hemingway shows people’s unfortunate fate ruined by the devilish war, accuses the war’s brutality and absurdity, condemns the war’s destructive consequences brought to all human beings and also analyzes causes of the formation of “the lost generation.” Judith Fetterley analyzed feminism in Catherine as a selfless angel. She makes a contribution to all women through her study. On the perspective of characters, scholars analyze Henry and Catherine’s complicated characters. Tang Ning and Zhu Weimin in their studies described Henry as a puzzled, escaping, disillusioned and helpless man. Under the analysis of Catherine by Xue Ying, Catherine is regarded as a developing figure with a foreshadowing before readers see her.
Based on these references above, the present author will study on Hemingway’s anti-war sentiment in A Farewell to Arms to show his and all human beings’ eagerness for peace. The present author believes that in everyone’s heart there exists a pure land which is far away from war and can still support human beings in spirit during war times.