THE WAR AND THE END OF THE AMERICAN DREAM’S ROMANTICISM IN HEMINGWAY'S “A FAREWELL TO ARMS”

ВОЙНА И КОНЕЦ РОМАНТИЗМА «АМЕРИКАНСКОЙ МЕЧТЫ» В РОМАНЕ Э. ХЭМИНГУЭЯ «ПРОЩАЙ, ОРУЖИЕ»

Научная статья

Рабееах С.К.Б.*

ORCID 0000-0003-3208-8433,

Воронежский государственный лесотехнический университет им. Г.Ф. Морозова, Воронеж, Россия

* Корреспондирующий автор (safaa.rabeeakh[at]mail.ru)

Аннотация

Последствия Первой мировой войны отражены во многих литературных произведениях, особенно ярко они высвечиваются в романе Э.Хемингуэя «Прощай, оружие», в котором изображен конфликт человека, вовлеченного в физическую любовь и духовный поиск мира. В статье особое внимание уделяется трем основным сообщениям, посредством которых автор пытается передать свой опыт, касающийся отношения к «американской мечте». Первое сообщение посвящено ужасу войны, преломляющему романтический взгляд на несбыточную мечту и ведущему к ее разрушению, как на физическом, так и на духовном уровнях. Второе сообщение отражает беспорядочный мир, не приносящий надежды тем, кто искал мир и убежище. Что касается третьего сообщения, то писатель пытался показать жестокую реальность войны, разрушающую понятие убежища в рамках идеи войны и героизма. Все эти сообщения передаются с помощью образа главного персонажа романа – Генри, который сталкивается с отвратительными последствиями войны, реальными психологическими и философскими проблемами. Другая героиня романа – Кэтрин, обладающая духовной чистотой, становится защитным щитом, оберегом Генриха от внешнего мира; она его «передышка» от реальности. В итоге главный герой осознает, что романтическая духовная мечта не может существовать рядом с кровопролитием и эгоизмом, уничтожающим физически и духовно. В конце концов, Генри теряет все, он безутешен, поскольку понимает, что теряет свой щит из-за эгоизма, представляющего новую эру материальной мечты.

Ключевые слова: «американская мечта», Первая мировая война, солдаты, сообщения, дождь, саморазрушение.

THE WAR AND THE END OF THE AMERICAN DREAM’S ROMANTICISM IN HEMINGWAY'S “A FAREWELL TO ARMS”

Research article

Rabeeakh S.K.B.*

ORCID 0000-0003-3208-8433,

Voronezh State University of Forestry and Technologies named after G.F. Morozov, Voronezh, Russia

* Corresponding author (safaa.rabeeakh[at]mail.ru)

Abstract

The consequences of the First World War are reflected in many literary works, they are especially vividly highlighted in the novel by E. Hemingway “Farewell to Arms”, which depicts the conflict of a person involved in physical love and spiritual search for peace. The article focuses on three main messages through which the author tries to convey his experience regarding the relationship to the “American dream”. The first message focuses on the horror of war, refracting a romantic view of a pipe dream and leading to its destruction, both on the physical and spiritual levels. The second message reflects a fake love that brings no hope to those seeking peace and refuge. As for the third message, the writer tried to show the brutal reality of war, destroying the concept of refuge in the framework of the idea of war and heroism within physical and spiritual beliefs. All these messages are conveyed through the image of the main character of the novel – Henry, who is faced with the disgusting consequences of war, real psychological and philosophical problems. Another heroine of the novel, Catherine, who possesses spiritual purity, becomes a protective shield, a guardian of Henry from the outside world; she is his “respite” from reality. As a result, the protagonist realizes that a romantic spiritual dream cannot exist alongside bloodshed and selfishness, destroying physically and spiritually. In the end, Henry loses everything, he is inconsolable as he realizes that he is losing his shield due to selfishness, representing a new era of material dreams.

Keywords: the American dream, the First World War, soldiers, messages, rain, self-destruction.

Introduction

The fuse of the First World War was born in 1914 and winded up in 1918 which brought with its end a lot of Deadpool and rotten corpses. The two foils of the Alliance and the Axis were seeking hope, cure, and a governmental declaration of long live peace. Bhim S. Dahiya in his book «Hemingway's A Farewell To Arms: a Critical Study» says that this book must be considered as a historical and political novel and as an artist’s response to the First World War [1, P. 98]. Hemingway's eagerness to accede to a compact as a matter of patriotism let him get a position in the front as an ambulance chauffeur to the civil organization which is called a Red Cross. Henry was injured in one of the battles and was in due course redirecting to one of the hospital's cities of Milan to be treated.

In the middle of his recovery, Hemingway and Henry were in love with an American nurse, Hemingway loved Agnes in real life and Henry The anti-hero of Himingay’s who in his role fell in love with Catherine to develop the plot of material and spiritual love but Most critics believed that Agnes didn’t exchange her feelings with Hemingway as Cathrine did with Henry [2, p. 207]. Beyond the shadow of uncertainty, the feelings of harsh gloominess and dejection of a broken heart made Hemingway stiffen and became emotionless. Hemingway's novel portrayed a picture of the passions and solidity of a person who reflected widespread will-o'-the-wisp of the lost generation [3, P. 81].

Hemingway's sorrowful tale dealt with rotten material love, spiritual love, religion, and the search for shelter. As this novel also attempted to expose the nightmare the writer resided throughout this bloody warfare, Hemingway first message was to contemplate and report peoples and readers about the trepidation of hostility, the insurrectionary universe where they existed (wartime), and the necessity to elope and detect a shelter, a shelter that protected the individual from the tough actuality of heroism which represented the illusion of the far horizon. Hemingway's messages were conveyed through Henry his main protagonist the anti-hero who suffered the realistic psychological and philosophical problems outcomes of his commitments to join the horror of the First World War. All Henry’s behaviour and words exposed his week character and how he couldn’t take his responsibilities even towards love, in a book which is called «Bloom's how to Write about Ernest Hemingway» the writers say «Henry's character reveals that the book is really about the danger of one's commitments to a cause when the going gets difficult» [4, P. 91].

Catherine's spiritual inamorata symbolized Henry’s shield, protecting him from the exterior world. Hemingway mainly evinced the callousness of war and the harmful psychosomatic and somatic effects on people. Enlisted men are mutilated, shocked, and hurt in different possible directions. Their souls and bodies viewed as trivial. “At the start of the winter came the permanent rain and with the rain came cholera. But it was checked and in the end, only seven thousand died of it in the army” [5, P. 1]. The Rain in above lines was exploited paradoxically by the writer himself consciously, to raise the awareness of the lost generation of the limitless death of people, the death that absorbed the souls before bodies of the young people. The earth had to find its way with the big amount of rain to blossom with beautiful flowers, but the writer expressed his deep disappointments and deep frustration with the floating corpses that fill the ground. Hemingway could not stop repeating and underlining the appalling havoc that the war brought to his generation, the generation of lost love. The dead bodies brought Cholera to increase the amount of destruction and Hemingway tried to condemn the war in many possible ways. Henry celebrated the world's assertiveness to violate and crucify everyone; it was as if the universe could not stand letting anyone live in peace.

Henry was unstable because of the warfare; he was unhappy and constantly fighting agonizing memories of the war in his mind. The more horrors he witnessed in the war, the greater his aversion to war, and he even described the war as “rotten” because nothing good would stay behind, the war brought just decayed bodies and buildings. “How you like this goddam war? Rotten. I say it's rotten. Jesus Christ, I say it's rotten” [5, P. 19]. As Catherine tried to mention the topic of war or anything connected to it, Henry instantaneously intended to shift the subject, His bad memories did not let him even celebrate this chaotic war. It was grievous memories like doom that burden his dreams and the dreams of his generation. Ultimately, Henry's goal was to expel himself from the warfare on the physical and spiritual levels because he hated to be part of that extermination.

The connection of Henry as a lover and Catherine as a cheated beloved showed the second message of the writer, the message of rotten fake love because Henry considered his feelings and passions towards Catherin as a professional game within a materialistic world where his consciousness reverberated the materialism of the jazz era that put an end to the romanticism of the American dream. Hemingway wanted to say through Henry that he himself was involved in the materialistic generation apart from the old spiritual one. “I knew I did not love Catherine Barkley nor had any idea of loving her. This was a game”. The love and the relationship of Henry and Catherine helped Henry to stay oblivious to the exterior world to enjoy individual corruption that brought him peace as he thought. Under Catherine's embrace, Henry could forget the turmoil in the world and the warfare he fought and involved in. Henry’s material love was destroying another person's pure love; he wanted attention more than love itself he wished to forget the war and anything that reminded him of it, even if he was still cheating on a girl who had true feelings toward him. He could escape the reality of love and obligations, as Henry asked Catherine to forget about everything that destroyed his happy moments with her. He even did not want to have anything that reminded him of the exterior world because the reality was tormented and full of blood as he scared to bring himself those bad feelings that spoil his peace. “Let's not think about anything” [5, P. 131]. He refused to accept reality. The main issue with such kind of “escaped love” was always living in the dark gloomy part of people's souls. Henry was trying to think of losing Catherine as a shelter and he would accept and get over losing her as sacrificing objects to feed his selfishness. Catherine as he thought represented the third message of Hemingway's idea of shelter, she was the home and shelter where he could hide from his fears. “But I don't care. I'll get you some place where they can't arrest you and then we'll have a lovely time” [5, P. 218]. Henry's idea of losing shelter as a result of war exposed that the notion of the American Dream and the promised prosperity of a joyful life had been ruined, and made people homeless. Henry was without passion without love like the material age that he lived in, he cannot live in peace, the peace that rain might bring.

The novel was full of rain and other images of water but unfortunately, it stood for portending devastation and harsh fate “when the rains came the leaves all fell from the chestnut trees... troops were muddy and wet in their capes; their rifles...” [5, P. 2]. Hemingway as an author tried to describe the destruction coming from rain and from falling leaves which represented the foretelling of the writer of the coming soldiers' bad omen. Hemingway, like other modernists, used images and symbols to communicate his messages and keep people aware of the future.

Water in different cultures is considered as a purifying element that can wash people’s sins, for this reason, water is a sign of spiritual respect and life. Henry received a symbolic baptism consciously or unconsciously when he tried to escape from the authorities by crossing the river which represented the hidden spiritual side of the materialistic hero, who would later on, regretted the death of his beloved Catherine. Some critics argued that Henry was running away from his obligations toward Catherine, while others believed in his deep involvement in his relationship with Catherine. Robert W. Lewis, for example, argued that Henry escaped to “the simplicity, isolation, and irresponsibility of an idyllic life with his beloved”, but “in the depths of his mind Henry is really glad that Catherine dies” [6, P. 48-49].

The jazz age where Hemingway and our hero or anti-hero Henry belonged, showed how they were involved in the materialistic atmosphere, lack of faith in God but they didn’t disbelieve in God totally. It was the turning point of the third message of physical shelter in favour of the spiritual shelter represented by God when Henry tried to pray to save Catharine. That turning point connected the notion of the American Dream to the first meaning of this ethos because when the puritans and the earliest immigrants came, they believed that their dreams came true when they were connected to their beliefs in God as a savior.

Henry exemplified the old new face of the American Dream which was connected to God and just connected to the lost generation. Henry had some attempts to philander or might try to connect himself in some ways to the idea of religion but this connection accompanied by scepticism and uncertainty. Henry and religion had an illegal relationship because Henry was looking for material fulfilment and religion presented a purely spiritual relationship and that the complete third message of Hemingway that if you were addicted to one of these principles you had to lose the other one. Religion dealt with the soul of a person that gave him hope even in the most difficult situation while materialism promised to give happiness that a person could feel and touch. So Henry unconsciously was not looking for spiritual life or happiness but he was looking for material accomplishment. “There is good hunting. You will like the people and though it is cold it is clear and dry” [5, P. 5]. There was no chance in this novel to connect Henry to the spiritual world even his sympathy towards Catherine and his praying were just kind of words that he never believed in “I had not gone. It was what I had wanted to do and I tried to explain how one thing had led to another and finally he saw it and understood that I had really wanted to go and it was almost all right” [5, P. 7]. Henry's failure to ratify faith showed the disconnection of the man and god within a materialistic world which was full of disappointment and failure. Henry as a character of Hemingway's masterpiece stood for the man of the twentieth century, the century of the jazz age and lost generation.

Hemingway was trying to purify himself from corruption from war and selfishness. He protested against his rifle because it symbolized the horror that he saw in the front, Henry‘s American dream fell down because he lost everything. The war brought him desolation “You had lost your cars and your men as a floorwalker lose the stock of his department in a fire. There was, however, no insurance. You were out of it now. You had no more obligations” [5, P. 123].

The epilogue of this novel was concentrating on death, the death that represented the doom of one part of the dream that the whole American nation tried to accomplish. Hemingway within the whole dead bodies tried to give hope to people who achieved authenticity status in the final scene “It was like saying good-bye to a statue. After a while, I went out and left the hospital and walked back to the hotel in the rain” [5, P. 174]. Henry was looking for hope before Catherine’s death. During Catherine's last hour, Henry once again prayed to God without an answer: “...God, please don’t make her die. I’ll do anything you say if you don’t let her die. You took the baby but don’t let her die ...” [5, P. 172]. Hemingway realized his mistakes under Catherin’s death. Henry had already known the true forms of war, religion, patriotism, and love as they were empty of all forms of hope. Hope should only come from within, not from a dream chasing. Henry finally had known that he was alone could shape his destiny, far from illusions.

Conclusion

To sum up, Hemingway’s “A Farewell to Arms” and his messages with all the death, selfishness, ignoring, and disillusions were illustrated by the awakening of new hope or new dream after purifying one’s soul. Henry lost everything that he struggled for as a way of self relief. He eventually realized the status of being trustworthy as he understood the messages of love, destruction, and what did shelter to an individual mean. Henry was a touchstone to the readers of Hemingway as he had got a big lesson that selfish dreams could lead people to self devastation and fake beliefs in empty forms of hope.

Конфликт интересов Не указан.

Conflict of Interest None declared.

Список литературы / References

1. Dahiya B. S. Hemingway's A Farewell To Arms: a Critical Study / S. Dahiya. - Delhi: Academic Foundation, 1992. - 104 p.
2. Reynolds M.S. Hemingway's First War: The Making of A Farewell to Arms / M.S. Reynolds. – New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1976. – 326 p.
3. Baker C. Hemingway: a Life Story / C. Baker. – New York: Scribner's, 1969. – 487 p.
4. Becnel E. Bloom's how to Write about Ernest Hemingway / K.E. Becnel. - New York: Bloom's Literary Criticism, 2009. - 280 p.
5. Hemingway E. A Farewell to Arms / E. Hemingway. - New York: Simon & Schuster, 2014. - 330 p.
6. Lewis R.W. Hemingway on Love / R.W. Lewis. – Austin: University of Texas Press, 1965. – 252 p.