The Style of Hemingways Writing in A Farewell to Arms

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. hemingway's 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 narrat

5、ive from henry's 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

6、his iceberg 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

7、 this modern 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 sty

8、le.his recognizable 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 o

9、r critics. 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 vario

10、us criticism 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,

11、 hiding his 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 rese

12、arch and imitate 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

13、three points.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 gro

14、up of men 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

15、 in which 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 le

16、ft by the 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

17、can not concentrate 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. h

18、emingway is 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 life

19、time. in addition 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

20、pull the events 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

21、 stand by 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

22、open it and 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

23、long sentence 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

24、the verbs 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 g

25、oes smoothly 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 ch

26、aracters and reflect the hero and heroins emotion and feeling. in the same way, describing a writer's style as tough, or stuffy, or sweet doesn't make much sense to someone who hasn't contrasted several writing styles. it may sound like these terms are being made-up by editors as they go

27、 along. the truth is, however, 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 punc

28、tuation. for instance, the 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 fir

29、st sentence to his novel paul clifford from 1830: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 ag

30、itating the scanty flame of the lamps that struggled 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 pas

31、sage might have looked something like this:after 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. hemingw

32、ay tries to keep his sentences uncluttered, and often 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 germ

33、anic root-words like struggle. bulwer-lytton likes 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 us

34、es no adjectives at all. in this hypothetical hemingway passage, even the word dark is now functioning as a substantive noun, synonymous with night. while bulwer-lytton's style was quite popular in the victorian period, most modern writers find his style excessive. we tend to prefer hemingway

35、9;s clarity and brevity to bulwer-lytton's purple prose. hemingways 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.

36、it is not only economy in his writing but also simple and vivid. 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,

37、 praising his novel the adventures of huckleberry finn:“ it is the best 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

38、exaggerating, there is rather much evidence. perhaps hemingways such critic 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

39、 bestenglish writing should be like this. no luxuriant words and long 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

40、 together would have no strength but when they are far from each other 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 p

41、eriod of american realistic novel. actually, hemingway not only follows 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 simil

42、ar experience: both of them were news reporter and field reporter; both 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 191

43、7, hemingway was a cub reporter for the kansas city star. it is here that 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 st

44、rive for smoothness. be positive, not negative.”(何仲生，项晓敏，104) he worked 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

45、 writing: deserting the news styles effect to polish literary words. so 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

46、were mists over the river and clouds in the mountain and the trucks splashed 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 th

47、in, long 6.5 mm. cartridges, bulged forward under the capes so that the 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

48、is not only due to his journalistic basis of writing and the pioneers 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, wh

49、ich 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 the detached narrative at times seems almost

50、mechanical, great feeling emerges through what is unsaid and through specific images, such as the soldiers with guns and ammunition under their capes that make them look like “six months gone with child” that image is particularly well chosen, for even in this opening henry connects rain with an und

51、esirable type of fertility that actually heralds death and destruction. in addition to pregnancys equation with weaponry, rain makes the country “wet and brown and dead ” and brings on the cholera; the dusty opening, on the other hand, is idyllic in its pastoral splendor. this paragraph is the retre

52、at of the italian troops from the defeat. the author did not mention a word of these soldiers mood and feeling, but we can feel their sadness and desperateness and their mood against war. hemingways terseness here reaches an effect of silence implying everything it is this stylistic simplicity that

53、best conveys the very complex emotions involved in hemingways subject matters. the simplicity allows the writer, the characters and the readers the opportunity to brace themselves for difficult moments in life without indulging in sentimentality. immersed in the style, the reader instinctively under

54、stands a kind of nobility associated with courage.2.2 the implicitly artistic writing another characteristic of hemingways writing is his desperate pursuit of a kind of implicitly artistic writing. in his writing we cannot find the direct descriptions of the characters moods, such as sadness, disapp

55、ointment, fear, anger, despair etc. these moods are always hidden in the lines. hemingway “shows” but does not “tell”. in death in the afternoon (1932), a book ostensibly about bullfighting, hemingway often explains the raison detre of his style. this is what he said: “i was trying to write then and

56、 i found that the greatest difficulty, aside from knowing truly what you really felt, rather than what you are supposed to feel, and had been taught to feel, was to put down what really happened in action; what the actual things were which produced the emotions that you experiencedbut the real thing

57、, the sequence of motion and fact which made the emotion and which would be as called in a year or in ten years or, with luck if you stated purely enough, always, was beyond me and i was working very hard to try to get to it.” the effect of this showing what should be properly called natural action

58、is the effect known as the “tip of the iceberg”. hemingway wrote in this book, as hemingway himself once said, "if a writer of prose knows enough about what he is writing about he may omit things that he knows and the reader, if the writer is writing truly enough, will have a feeling of those things as strongly as though the writer had stated them. the dignity of movement of an iceberg is due to only one-eighth of it being above water.” this is hemingways famous “ iceberg theory ”.this novel is the most practical example of hemingways iceberg t