The Style of Hemingways Writing in A Farewell to Arms.doc

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1、海明威永别了，武器的文体风格The Style of Hemingways Writing in A Farewell to ArmsContentsAbstract.11. Introduction .22. Hemingways style in A Farewell to Arms. .32.1 Hemingways simplicity. 32.2 The implicitly artistic writing.62.3 Hemingways dialogues. .103. Conclusion. 11Reference.12The Style of Hemingways Writi

2、ng inA Farewell to Arms摘 要：本文主要讨论海明威的文体风格在永别了,武器中是如何体现的.海明威的生活经历史如何影响它的创作风格的,他著名的创作风格:简单,直接,然而却能将各种情感表现得淋漓尽致,即言外之意,这都要归功于他著名的冰山理论原理.海明威简洁的散文风格在书中有很好地体现. 它从主人公的现实角度来叙述,读者很难找到作者的声音,这样就避免了详细地描写等手法.本文主要从三方面入手: 一是海明威的简约风格在永别了,武器中的体现;二是海明威所使用的独特含蓄表现手法如象征,意象等，以及冰山理论在文中的体现;三是海明威对对话的描写及其作用在文中的体现。关键词: 海明威；文体风

3、格； 永别了,武器Abstract: This article mainly discusses the stylistic of Hemingways writing in A Farewell to Arms，and discusses how the authors adventurous life and other influences contributed to his signature style: simple, straightforward, yet clearly conveying those emotions “beneath the surface.” the

4、famous iceberg theory. Hemingways signature declarative, terse prose serves him well in this novelA Farewell to Arms. It enables our narrator to be initially detached from life, and also serves to paint an uncompromising picture of the war. Additionally, it is used to produce a realistic narrative f

5、rom Henrys point of view, shying away from elaborate schemes and descriptions. I mainly focus on three points to analyse the stylistic of Hemingways writing in A Farewell to Arms: first, Hemingway simplicity; secondly, Hemingways implicitly artistic writing, such as symbols and images and his iceber

6、g theory; thirdly, the dialogue in Hemingways writing in the novel.Keywords: Hemingway；style；A Farewell to Arms1. Introduction When a writer becomes famous, he or she probably influences a generation at the time. But it is difficult to affect the following generations at home or abroad. In this mode

7、rn society, there had been a big flash of new theories and new ideas in both social and natural sciences, as well as in the field of literature. However it is no exaggerating to say that Ernest Hemingway is one of the well-known writers home and abroad, especially famous for his unique style.His rec

8、ognizable prose style and innovative “iceberg theory”, in which the author only gives the reader the necessary information and leave the rest for the readers to figure out, have gained him an immovable place in American literature as he had never fallen out of favor with academic studies or critics.

9、 His biggest theme of “grace under pressure,” keeping ones dignity in the face of extreme situations, is one he stove to keep in his own life. His style has been widely recognized and imitated, not only in English-speaking countries but also all over the world.Although critics give a various critici

10、sm on Hemingways life attitudes and value systems, most critics say well on his writing style, saying that Hemingway is a master of the modern narrative art and his style is unique in the world. He can select the most typical instance and events from many complicated events in social life, hiding hi

11、s subjective intensive writing, the objective and accurate descriptions gave the readers a vivid picture about life. Meanwhile he gives the readers room to imagine and to figure out their own ideas in their realistic life. It is no doubt to say that Hemingways style is important to do research and i

12、mitate for novelists in the country and also all over the world. As some critics said that A Farewell to Arms is one novel, which can be the most representative work to Hemingways special style. Here this article will do a research on how Hemingway develops his style in this novel through three poin

13、ts.A Farewell to Arms is one of Hemingways war and love stories, this novel takes place in Italy during world war I and is tied closely to the authors own experience as an American ambulance driver for the Italian Army. The story opens during a lull in the action and the reader meets a group of men

14、who work with the wounded during battle. In the course of waiting for action, the protagonist, Henry, meets and courts an English nurse stationed in Italy. The core of the tale is the evolution of the love of these two in the face of increasing military involvement, including an engagement in which

15、Henry is wounded and after his return to the front, an Italian retreat from which he barely escapes with his life. Ultimately, he and Catherine, his English love, defect and enter Switzerland to await the birth of their child. Baby and mother both die and Henry is left alone, his future left by the

16、author unplotted.2. Hemingways style in A Farewell to Arms2.1 Hemingways simplicityOne will become a little bored when he or she reads a book with long sentences which also have many adjectives. This fiction style is popular in the Britain and the United States in the 19th century. If one can not co

17、ncentrate to finish a long sentence, he or she maybe can not understand its meaning. It is like a long train of cars, when you stand on it and cannot see the end. But reading Hemingways writing one will not have such feeling. Most of his sentences are simple short and easy to understand. Hemingway i

18、s a special hand on using the language. His style is noted for its simplicity. Instead of using more drown out, overly descriptive writing, his stories were more of a “get to the point” style. This gave his works a more different feel and set them aside from what was common during his lifetime. In a

19、ddition he focuses on nouns and verbs and reduces the use of adjectives, especially complicated adjectives. In sentence structure, he uses coordinated clauses to avoid subordinated clauses that would imply value judgments. He uses the short and condensed sentences and a series of verbs to pull the e

20、vents going on. So this makes the whole book a simple but clear structure, for example:“Maybe she would pretend that I was her boy that was killed and we would go in the front door and the porter would take off his cap and would stop at the concierges desk and ask for the key and she would stand by

21、the elevator and then we would get in the elevator and it would go up very slowly clicking at all the doors and then our door and the boy would open the door and stand there and she would step out and I would step out and we would walk down the hall and I would put the key in the door and open it an

22、d go in and then take down the telephone and ask them to send a bottle of Capri bianco in a silver bucket full of ice and you would hear the ice against the pail coming down the corrider and the boy would knock and I would say leave it outside the door please.” (Ernest,23)This is really a long sente

23、nce with 164 words, but we cannot say it is complex. Instead it is easy to read and understand. There are the simple verbs, one after another. This indicates Henrys (the hero of the novel) mood. And it also implied that Henry hope things will go smoothly when he meets Catherine, just like the verbs

24、go one after another: maybe she would pretend that I was her boy-we would go in-the porter would take off-stop- ask-she would stand by-we would get in-it would go up-open-go in-take down the telephone-ask-send a bottle of Capri bianco-hear-knock-say leave it-. These verbs make the action goes smooth

25、ly and the event happened logically and smoothly.Hemingway disliked to use big words and the luxuriant adjectives and adverbs, but using the common daily words. He also avoid using the descriptive ways, especially the luxuriant writing, but using the simple and terse style to create his characters a

26、nd reflect the hero and heroins emotion and feeling. In the same way, describing a writers style as tough, or stuffy, or sweet doesnt make much sense to someone who hasnt contrasted several writing styles. It may sound like these terms are being made-up by editors as they go along. The truth is, how

27、ever, a real difference exists between a passage Ernest Hemingway pens and one William Faulkner pens, just as a fruity red wine tastes differently than a crisp chardonais. Individual writers tend to use different vocabularies, different sentence structure, and different punctuation. For instance, th

28、e Victorian writer George Bulwer-Lytton, the man who penned the phrase, It was a dark and stormy night. is famous for having a torrid writing style, one characterized by interjections and interruptions and piled-up phrases and clauses. Here is the first sentence to his novel Paul Clifford from 1830:

29、It was a dark and stormy night; the rain fell in torrents-except at occasional intervals, when it was checked by a violent gust of wind which swept up the streets (for it is in London that our scene lies), rattling along the housetops, and fiercely agitating the scanty flame of the lamps that strugg

30、led against the darkness.This style contrasts sharply with the simplicity favored by many twentieth-century American novelists. For instance, if an early twentieth-century writer like Hemingway had written the same sentence above, the hypothetical passage might have looked something like this:After

31、dark a storm came and sometimes in the wind there was a noise on the rooftops. You could see the streetlamps struggling to stay lit.Notice how the two passages differ. Bulwer-Lytton loves punctuation marks like dashes, parentheses, and commas. Hemingway tries to keep his sentences uncluttered, and o

32、ften deletes commas from the places they would normally appear. Bulwer-Lytton likes long sentences (58 words). Hemingway prefers shorter ones (26 words). In vocabulary, Bulwer-Lytton prefers laminate root-words like agitate, and Hemingway prefers Germanic root-words like struggle. Bulwer-Lytton like

33、s to repeat dominant images (dark and darkness appear in the same sentence). Hemingway dislikes such repetition. Bulwer-Lytton loves to use many adjectives (dark, stormy, occasional, violent, and scanty) and some adverbs (fiercely). Hemingway often uses no adjectives at all. In this hypothetical Hem

34、ingway passage, even the word dark is now functioning as a substantive noun, synonymous with night. While Bulwer-Lyttons style was quite popular in the Victorian period, most modern writers find his style excessive. We tend to prefer Hemingways clarity and brevity to Bulwer-Lyttons purple prose. Hem

35、ingways language in the novel is based on American modern daily colloquial words, which is highly polished. Its most conspicuous feature is to condense the words or phrases and the sentences. He usually uses the common and short words. It is not only economy in his writing but also simple and vivid.

36、 It is said that Hemingway develops the style of colloquialism initiated by Mark Twain. Once a journalist asked Hemingway, which writer is your pioneer in literature who is the one you learned most?” He first mentioned Mark Twain, praising his novel The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn:“ it is the bes

37、t book in this period. All of the American literature works are originated from this book. There was no such book before and hence after there will not be one as excellent as this.”(王守元，269) However, maybe this critic is a little exaggerating, there is rather much evidence. Perhaps Hemingways such c

38、ritic is initiated from Mark Twains clear and terse style of writing. Twain once stated his own idea about the literature creation:“ using the simple English words, short words and phrases. This is the modern writing and it is the bestEnglish writing should be like this. No luxuriant words and long

39、dull sentences, once you think an adjective, try your best to kill it. No, I did not say that we couldnt use the adjectives, but use few of them as much as possible. Thus the left ones are precious and powerful. Adjectives crowded together would have no strength but when they are far from each other

40、 they have the power and strength.” From these words we can see Mark Twain is the one who is different from the other writers in the early part of the 19th century. He makes a full use of American native language to create a new period of American realistic novel. Actually, Hemingway not only follow

41、s Mark Twains creating style, but also did some innovations on the creating thought and created his own special style. They both are excellent writers who create new styles of literature. Interestingly. Both of them have the similar experience: both of them were news reporter and field reporter; bot

42、h of them have the war experience and both of them have such deep life experience in the war. Therefore, maybe because of these similarities in their style, their points of view of literature creation are so close. As early as 1917, Hemingway was a cub reporter for the Kansas City Star. It is here t

43、hat the seeds of his unmistakable staccato writing style were planted as he followed the rules of the Stars stylebook exactly. “Use short sentences,” it said. “Use short first paragraphs. Use vigorous English, not forgetting to strive for smoothness. Be positive, not negative.”(何仲生，项晓敏，104) He worke

44、d hard to follow these rules on writing, using the simple, clear fresh and vigorous words to write short sentences. This is really a good beginning for Hemingways style. Hence after Hemingway makes a higher standard for himself in writing: deserting the news styles effect to polish literary words. S

45、o he trained himself to use only one sentence to write a short story. He did many such practices. Some sentences are clause-filled and eighty or more words long. Take for example the description in chapter one that begins,” There were mists over the river and clouds in the mountain and the trucks sp

46、lashed mud on the roads and the troops were muddy and wet in their capes; their rifles were wet and under their capes the two leather catridge-boxes on the front of the belts, gray leather boxes heavy with the packs of clips of thin, long 6.5 mm. Cartridges, bulged forward under the capes so that th

47、e men, passing on the road, marched as though they were six months gone with child. (Ernest, 1) It paints an entire dreary wartime autumn and foreshadows the deaths not only of many of soldiers but of Catherine. Hemingway s style is not only due to his journalistic basis of writing and the pioneers

48、inspiration and influence, but also due to his brave researching and pursuing spirit. No matter what kind of fiction it is, he always works hard to modify it. Through these hard working he finally distilled out a special style, which goes smoothly and stably, clearly and tersely. Although we see the words are short and simple, we still not only have a feeling that we are personally on the scene but also we can feel the characters psychological moods in the writers writing. Though