On Thoughts of Hemingway’s Writing Skills in A Farewell to Arms

郝旭霞

摘 要：Ernest Hemingway， one of the best–known novelists in America， is regarded as the spokesman of “Lost Generation” because of the theme of war and the special writing skills in his works. And A Farewell to Arms is considered to be the greatest achievement during this period.

關鍵詞：symbolism； brevity implication

中圖分類號：G632 文獻標識碼：B 文章編號：1002-7661（2014）06-375-01

Introduction

A Farewell to Arms， Hemingways mature work， which seems to be the authors autobiography with his experience in the First World War， tells us a tragic love story between Frederic Henry and Catherine Barkley in the battle of Italy.

For Foiling and Indicating the Theme

Symbolism is an important writing technique of Hemingway and it is apparent in the description of every part in A Farewell to Arms. Among the many， which might be mentioned， we shall focus on the weather （rain， sunshine）. And those things will leave deep impression on readers to awake them of longing for peace.

A. Rain — Death， Tragedy and Destruction

Hemingway is capable of employing symbols in his novel to mean something more， and most of these symbols are used to convey his sense of the filthiness and horror of the world， especially rain — the main symbol， starts from the beginning of the novel to the end， standing for death， tragedy and destruction. And this symbolism has its realistic source，This is the reason why large amounts of rain appear in this novel while not other symbols employed.

B. Sunshine — Peace

Compared with the large amount description of rain， there exists a little sunshine in this novel， which puts hope into readers hearts and makes them feel comfortable when they are obsessed with the shadow of war. Sunshine is the symbol of peace， so whenever the author describes sunshine， he paints a beautiful picture full of ease and tranquility.

Hemingways Special Writing Style

This part， with some examples， analyzes two important traits in Hemingways artistic style： brevity and implication. His brevity mainly lies in the description of setting； his implication often produces unexpected artistic effect. Whats more， he frequently employs symbols to achieve the implication.

A. Brevity

H. E. Bates once said， “Hemingway is a person holding an axe.” “He cut superfluous words attached to the whole forest， reverted the basic branches of the cool features， deleted explanation， even discussion and all colorful decoration” （Ma 177）. As we know， Hemingway is famous for his brief writing style called “Axe Principle”， which might be formed in his work as a cub reporter for “The Kansas City Star” that advocated lean and economic writing style （Qi 56）.

B. Implication — Iceberg Principle

Hemingways another unique writing style is his “Iceberg Theory”. In Death in the Afternoon （1932）， he outlined his “Theory of Mission” or “Iceberg Principle”.

Guided by this principle， Hemingway uses simple and concise sentences to describe landscape at the beginning，

Conclusion

The achievement of A Farewell to Arms is not only based on the anti-war theme and Hemingways code hero — Henry， but also the techniques of writing. So what I have tried to do here is to analyze these writing skills. Because Hemingways writing skills path a way to be successful in writing for both then writers and new generations.

Now we are required to know more about western culture especially the feature of different periods reflected in their literature. So the analysis of Hemingways writing skills helps readers know “Lost Generation” theoretically， and learn the essence of then period.

Works Cited：

[1] Hemingway， Ernest. A Farewell to Arms. 2nd ed. Xian： World Press， 2005.