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Major Themes

Love as a response to the horrors of war and the world

Hemingway repeatedly emphasizes the horrific devastation war has wrought on everyone involved. From the opening account of cholera that kills "only" 7,000 men to the graphic description of the artillery bombardment to the corrupt violence during the Italian retreat, A Farewell to Arms is among the most frank anti-war novels.

But Hemingway does not merely condemn war. Rather, he indicts the world at large for its atmosphere of destruction. Henry frequently reflects upon the world's insistence on breaking and killing everyone; it is as if the world cannot bear to let anyone remain happy and safe.

Indeed, whenever Henry and Catherine are blissful, something comes along to interrupt it - be it Henry's injury, his being sent back to the front, his impending arrest, or, finally, Catherine's death from childbirth. With such misery confronting them at every turn, the two turn to each other. Catherine, especially, plunges almost too easily into love when she first meets Henry.

Grace under pressure and the Hemingway hero

Although less important in this novel than in his 1926 novel The Sun Also Rises, Hemingway maps out what it means to be a hero. Chiefly, the "Hemingway hero," as literary criticism frequently tags him, is a man of action who coolly exhibits "grace under pressure" while confronting death. Henry's narration is certainly detached and action-oriented - only rarely does he let us into his most private thoughts - and he displays remarkable cool when shooting the engineering sergeant. Characters in the novel strive for this grace under pressure in an otherwise chaotic world.

Rain and destruction

From the first chapter to the last word, the novel is flooded with rain and other images of water. The rain almost always heralds destruction and death; it impinges upon whatever momentary happiness Henry and Catherine have and turns it into muddy misery. Ironically, rain often signifies fertility in literature but here stands for sterility, as it does in much post-WWI literature.

However, water is positive in other ways. Henry receives symbolic baptisms when he bathes and, more prominently, when he twice escapes from the authorities via a river and a lake.

Abandonment

The novel deploys several instances of abandonment, intentional and forced, in the realms of love and war. After the death of her fiancé, Catherine understandably fears abandonment by Henry, and he makes every attempt when separated to reunite with her. Even Helen fears abandonment by Catherine. In the war, we see several cases of abandonment: the engineering sergeants, who abandon Henry and the other drivers; Bonello, who abandons the drivers to give himself up as a prisoner; the Italian retreat, a large-scale abandonment; and Henry's escape from army. However, Henry's abandonment is completely justified (he was going to be executed if he did not), and it is less a desertion that what he calls a "separate peace." Ultimately, he decides that not abandoning Catherine is far more important than not abandoning the war, though he does feel guilty over leaving behind Rinaldi and the others at the front.

Journalistic style of omission

As is typical in a Hemingway work, Henry's narration is spare, detached, and journalistic. Contrary to what the reader might expect, the effect often heightens emotion. For example, Hemingway ratchets up the connotations of death and violence by omitting explicit mention of blood when it drips on Henry in the ambulance.

Hemingway shows his range when he occasionally uses a near "stream-of-consciousness" narration for Henry. In these few cases, Henry's thoughts are ungrammatical, awkwardly worded, and repetitive - much as the mind works, especially under such chaotic circumstances. A notable example is the long second-person narrative passage in Chapter XXXII after Henry has divorced himself from the army. By addressing himself as "you," Henry shows how he has separated from his former self through his "separate peace."

Hills Like White Elephants: no summary for that, it’s really short! Go and read it here:D http://www.gummyprint.com/blog/archives/hills-like-white-elephants-complete-story/

Ok, there is a summary too (http://www.gradesaver.com/complete-short-stories-of-ernest-hemingway/study-guide/section5/), but I really recommend reading the story.

The analysis is taken from the aforementioned link:

“Hills Like White Elephants” centers on a couple’s verbal duel over, as strongly implied by the text and as widely believed by many scholars, whether the girl will have an abortion of her partner’s child. Jig, clearly reluctant to have the operation, suspects her pregnancy has irrevocably changed the relationship but still wonders whether having the abortion will make things between the couple as they were before. The American is anxious that Jig have the abortion and gives lip service to the fact that he still loves Jig and will love her whether she has the procedure done or not. As the story progresses, the power shifts back and forth in the verbal tug-of-war, and at the end, though it is a topic of fierce debate among Hemingway scholars, it seems that Jig has both gained the upper hand and made her decision.

Ultimately, the American’s ammunition in this verbal duel with Jig is the ability to make the relationship emotionally hostile for her, as evidenced by his reactions to her comments about the appearance of the hills and the fact that everything she waits for tastes like licorice. Hemingway implies Jig is more emotionally invested in the relationship, which for the American is clearly mostly about sex.

Jig, for her part, is very reluctant to have the operation, cares to some degree about the baby (“Doesn’t it mean anything to you?”), believes the couple’s relationship has been irrevocably altered simply by the pregnancy (“It isn’t ours anymore”), and does not believe an abortion will solve their problems anyway. Jig’s ammunition is that the American will probably have to support her and the child in some way if she forgoes the abortion; the fact that he has not already left her signals that she has some kind of hold over him, though she may not be married to him. Perhaps he does actually love her, as he claims.

One of the most notable aspects of this story is that Hemingway breaks with his typical “bitch goddess” characterization of women. Jig is a sympathetic character, ultimately more sympathetic, scholars have argued, than the American. She sees the issue of the abortion as a multilayered question, and considers the impact it will have upon her relationship with the American, upon the child itself, and upon the couple’s economic means (“We could get along.”) Another important feature of the story that backs up the idea that Jig is the protagonist is that Jig appreciates the beauty of the train station’s natural surroundings. Hemingway was a great believer in the power of nature to edify and uplift people, and the fact that Jig understands and values “fields of grain and trees along the banks of the Ebro,” along with their attendant mountains and shadows of clouds, indicates that she is the character with her priorities straight. Later in the story, Hemingway states, “the girl looked across at the hills on the dry side of the valley and the man looked at her and at the table.” Once again, Jig is looking to nature as a guide in her time of crisis while the American ignores the scenery.The title of the story has led many to speculate on what the “white elephant” symbolizes for the couple. A white elephant is generally thought of as unusual and cumbersome, in short, a problem. Various theories exist. The white elephant could be the pregnancy, the baby itself, the abortion, Jig’s reluctance to get the abortion, the American’s insistence that Jig abort, Jig herself and the American himself. The most popular choices among scholars are that the white elephant is the baby/pregnancy (the obvious choice) and the American himself, given his bullying of Jig.

4.2 William Faulkner. Delta Autumn/The Bear.

William Cuthbert Faulkner (born Falkner, September 25, 1897 – July 6, 1962) was an American writer and nobel prize laureate from Oxford, Mississippi. Faulkner worked in a variety of media; he wrote novels, short stories, a play, poetry, essays and screenplays during his career.

Delta Autumn

Commentary

The hugely significant event in this story, set again in Isaac's advanced old age, is the reunification of the "black" branch of the McCaslin family tree with the "white" branch. Carothers Edmonds is Carothers McCaslin's great-great-great-grandson and the heir of the white branch; his lover is McCaslin's great-great-granddaughter and the heir of the black branch. Their child stems from both sources and from the single ultimate source, Carothers McCaslin (who is described as self-engendering, despite all biological evidence). Nevertheless, Isaac is upset by the revelation; he believes that history is not yet ready for the union of the branches and of the races. But Faulkner suggests that history marches on despite human opinion of it; the child of Carothers Edmonds and Tennie's Jim's granddaughter will carry the McCaslin family forward into the future.

Around this revelation, the story takes up the question of gender difference--not so much in political terms as in psychological terms and in terms of the regeneration of the species. The symbolism is a bit heavy-handed (the men are no longer allowed to kill does, only bucks; Carothers Edmonds says that history is never lacking in does and children), but it becomes more central to the novel's main concerns when we remember that Carothers Edmonds is the heir to the female branch of the McCaslin family tree, the Edmonds branch, just as Isaac is heir to the male, McCaslin, branch. When Carothers Edmonds kills the doe at the end of the story, it is a kind of act of self-obliteration.

The killing of the doe is also illegal and references the argument Edmonds has with Isaac over the nature of human moral behavior. Isaac, taking a more optimistic tone from his youthful obsession with historical shame and the curse of ownership, argues that people are essentially good but are held down by their circumstances. Edmonds argues that people behave because they are afraid of the police, afraid of punishment. By killing the doe, Carothers Edmonds steps outside that fear but without proving himself any better than his circumstances.

The Bear

Summary

As Isaac grows older, he becomes an expert hunter and woodsman, and continues going with the hunting parties every year. The group becomes increasingly preoccupied with hunting Old Ben, a monstrous, almost immortal bear that wreaks havoc throughout the forest. Old Ben's foot was maimed in a trap, and he seems impervious to bullets. Isaac learns to track Old Ben, but it is useless to hunt him because all the hounds are afraid of him. Sam Fathers, who teaches Isaac Old Ben's ways, says that it will take an extraordinary dog to bring Old Ben down.

Isaac sees Old Ben several times. Once, they send a tiny fyce-dog with no sense of danger after him, and Isaac even has a shot at the huge bear. But instead of taking it, he runs after the fyce and dives to save him from the bear. He looks up at Old Ben looming over him and remembers the image from his dreams about the bear.

At last they find the dog capable of bringing Old Ben to bay: Lion, a huge, wild Airedale mix with extraordinary courage and savagery. Sam makes Lion semi-tame by starving him until he will allow himself to be touched; soon, Boon Hogganbeck has devoted himself to Lion and even shares a bed with him. Using Lion, they nearly catch Old Ben, but Boon Hogganbeck misses five point-blank shots. General Compson hits the bear and draws blood, but Old Ben escapes into the forest. Isaac and Boon go into Memphis to buy whisky for the men, and the next day, they go after the bear again. General Compson declares that he wants Isaac to ride Kate, the only mule who is not afraid of wild animals and, therefore, the best chance any of the men have to get close enough to the bear to kill him.

In the deep woods, near the river, Lion leaps at Old Ben and takes hold of his throat. Old Ben seizes Lion and begins shredding his stomach with his claws. Boon Hogganbeck draws his knife and throws himself on top of the bear, slitting his throat. Old Ben dies, and a few days later, Lion dies as well. Sam Fathers collapses after the fight and dies not long after Lion. Lion and Sam are buried in the same clearing.

Isaac returns to the farm near Jefferson, to the old McCaslin plantation. Time passes; eventually he is 21, and it is time for him to assume control of the plantation, which is his by inheritance. But he renounces it in favor of his cousin McCaslin Edmonds, who is practically his father. Isaac has a long argument with McCaslin in which he declares his belief that the land cannot be owned, that the curse of God's Earth is man's attempt to own the land, and that that curse has led to slavery and the destruction of the South. McCaslin tries to argue with him, but Isaac remembers looking through the old ledger books of Uncle Buck and Uncle Buddy and piecing together the story of the plantations slaves, and he refuses the inheritance. (One of Isaac's inferences is particularly appalling: Tomey, the slave who Carothers McCaslin took as a lover and the mother of Turl, may also have been Carothers McCaslin's daughter by another slave, Eunice. Eunice committed suicide shortly before Turl's birth, and from this and other factors, Isaac deducts that she must also have been Carothers McCaslin's lover.)

So, Isaac refuses the inheritance, moves to town, and becomes a carpenter, eschewing material possessions. He marries a woman who urges him to take back the plantation, but he refuses even when she tries to convince him sexually. He administers the money left to the children of Tomey's Turl and Tennie, even traveling to Arkansas to give a thousand dollars to Sophonsiba, Lucas's sister, who moved their with a scholarly negro farmer who never seems to farm. He continues to hunt and to spend all the time he can in the woods.

Once, he goes back to the hunting camp where they stalked Old Ben for so many years. Major de Spain has sold it to a logging company and the trains come closer and louder than before. Soon, it will be whittled away by the loggers. Isaac goes to the graves of Lion and Sam Fathers, then goes to find Boon Hogganbeck. Boon is in a clearing full of squirrels, trying to fix his gun. As Isaac enters, Boon shouts at him not to touch any of the squirrels: "They're mine!" he cries.

Commentary

"The Bear" is the centerpiece of Go Down, Moses, just as Isaac McCaslin is the book's central character. It is the longest story in the book, and it is Faulkner's most intense, focused, and symbolic exploration of the relationship of man and nature. Old Ben, the legendary bear, is a symbol of the power and inscrutability of nature--he is nearly immortal, nearly invulnerable, capable of overpowering virtually anything, and capable of wreaking havoc on human settlements and establishments. The men, who put their minds to work on the single purpose of hunting him, are in some way representative of man's drive to control nature. (There is some thematic ambiguity in the fact that hunting has been portrayed as a noble and respectful act, but here it becomes, in part, a symbol of man's attempt to conquer nature, to which it has previously been contrasted.) Old Ben is a virtually mythic force, and only over the course of years are the men able to bring him down. Old Ben becomes a symbol both of untamed nature and of some principle of freedom and independence in the human spirit. But, like the wilderness in Isaac McCaslin's lifetime, he is brought down in the end. The death of Old Ben at the hands of Boon Hogganbeck is also somewhat ambiguous--it is a moving, devastating scene, but it seems unclear whether Old Ben's death is a right or a wrong in Faulkner's eyes or something more complex than either. There is something almost wild about Boon Hogganbeck, Old Ben's killer, himself; the image that closes the story, with Boon trying desperately to fix his gun so that he can shoot the squirrels and shouting at Isaac that they are his, is certainly an unsettling metaphor for the destructiveness and possessiveness of human civilization.

4.3 Poetry selection:

i. Lee Masters. Elsa Wertman. Hamilton Green.

Edgar Lee Masters (1868-1950), a Chicago lawyer who had grown up in the downstate communities of Petersburg and Lewistown.

In 1915 Edgar Lee Masters published Spoon River Anthology, which became an immediate commercial success.

Spoon River Anthology is a collection of epitaphs of residents of a small town of Spoon River (named after the real river in Western Illinois). Unconventional in both style and content, it shattered the myths of small town American life. A full understanding of Spoon River requires the reader to piece together narratives from fragments contained in individual poems.

Masters employs the highly effective strategy of having people speak frankly from the grave, where no further harm can befall them. Most of the speakers in the imaginary town of Spoon River have suffered some indignity, treachery, or injustice during their lifetime. On the whole, these are not happy utterances. Nearly every citizen has gone to the grave with some dark secret, like Elsa Wertman, the "peasant girl from Germany," who was seduced by her master (Thomas Greene) while she was working in the kitchen. After her "secret began to show," Mrs. Greene successfully schemed to pass off the baby (Hamilton Greene) as her own. Hamilton becomes a famous and eloquent politician, and the poem concludes with Elsa's poignant admission that she cried during his speeches, apparently having been moved by his powers of speech, but

That was not it.

No! I wanted to say:

That's my son! That's my son!

I WAS a peasant girl from Germany,

Blue-eyed, rosy, happy and strong.

And the first place I worked was at Thomas Greene's.

On a summer's day when she was away

He stole into the kitchen and took me

Right in his arms and kissed me on my throat,

I turning my head. Then neither of us

Seemed to know what happened.

And I cried for what would become of me.

And cried and cried as my secret began to show.

One day Mrs. Greene said she understood,

And would make no trouble for me,

And, being childless, would adopt it.

(He had given her a farm to be still.)

So she hid in the house and sent out rumors,

As if it were going to happen to her.

And all went well and the child was born--

They were so kind to me.

Later I married Gus Wertman, and years passed.

But-- at political rallies when sitters-by thought I was crying

At the eloquence of Hamilton Greene--

That was not it. No! I wanted to say:

That's my son!

That's my son.

The epitaph Hamilton Greene is the next after Elsa Wertman’s story. He is the son of Elsa. He didn’t know who his real mother is, and the irony, of course, is that he said that he has inherited his "vivacity, fancy, and language" from his mother, though Elsa had no vivacity, no fancy or language, and his father had terrible judgment.

I WAS the only child of Frances Harris of Virginia

And Thomas Greene of Kentucky,

Of valiant and honorable blood both.

To them I owe all that I became,

Judge, member of Congress, leader in the State.

From my mother I inherited

Vivacity, fancy, language;

From my father will, judgment, logic.

All honor to them

For what service I was to the people!

ii. E.A.Robinson. Luke Havergal.

E.A. Robinson (1869 – 1935) is the first important poet of the twentieth century and famous for his use of the sonnet and the dramatic monologue. Many of his poems are on individuals and individual relationships; most of these individuals are failures. He is traditional in the use of meter; many of his longer works are in blank verse.

He moved from Gardiner, Maine to New York, where he led a precarious existence as an impoverished poet while cultivating friendships with other writers, artists, and would-be intellectuals, and in 1896 he self-published his first book, The Torrent and the Night Before, paying 100 dollars for 500 copies. Robinson meant it as a surprise for his mother. Days before the copies arrived, Mary Palmer Robinson died of diphtheria.

His second volume, The Children of the Night, had a somewhat wider circulation. Its readers included President Theodore Roosevelt's son Kermit, who recommended it to his father. Impressed by the poems and aware of Robinson's straits, Roosevelt in 1905 secured the writer a job at the New York Customs Office. Robinson remained in the job until Roosevelt left office.

Gradually his literary successes began to mount. He won the Pulitzer Prize three times in the 1920s.

Luke Havergal is a haunting poem of a dark and depressing tone; thirty-two lines about a desperately bereaved man being tempted by a voice from the grave to commit suicide in order to reunite with a beloved woman who is dead.

The protagonist Luke Havergal is grieving of his dead love. From the very beginning of the poem it’s clear that narrator pushes Luke to the action of going “to the western gate”. True meaning of the place becomes clear later in the poem, which it’s not an actual gate, but it symbolizes death, the end of life. The sun sits down at the west; therefore it represents the end of the cycle, the darkness, night and death. And the word “gate” represents the portal, the point of transition, the way to escape from the misery. The 1st line of the 2nd stanza “No, there is not a dawn in eastern skies” implies that there is no hope “to rift the fiery night that’s in your eyes” – to get out of depression Luke is in. “But there, where western glooms are gathering, the dark will end the dark if anything” – because there is no hope for Luke in the eastern skies, the only direction that left for him is “western glooms”, and there the “dark”-death will end the “dark”-misery. The stanza ends with narrator repeating “not a dawn” line, emphasizing that there is no hope, locking Luke in desperate set of mind.

In the third stanza narrator becomes an active character of the poem. The parts “out of the grave” and “quench the kiss” clue us on the idea that the speaker is Death, because in the Western culture grave is associated with grave and usually Death kisses her chosen ones. By kissing Luke, Death will “flame” his forehead, which implies madness, craziness. The words “blinds you to the way that you must go” mean that Luke will be blinded and led to the wrong path, sinful path, again suggesting the suicide. Then suicidal intentions are confirmed by words “there is yet one way to where she is” – Luke will join his love in death, “Bitter, but the one faith never miss” – it’s painful to die, but it’s a sure way to reconnect with her.

In the final stanza Death rushes Luke to the action. She hurries him because the fatal western gate with its “crimson leaves” of depression is fading away, as “winds are tearing them away”. Death warns him not to think of anything “nor think” and lock his senses “nor anymore to feel”, as any of those actions might change his suicidal mindset.

Luke Havergal

Go to the western gate, Luke Havergal,

There where the vines cling crimson on the wall,

And in the twilight wait for what will come.

The leaves will whisper there of her, and some,

Like flying words, will strike you as they fall;

But go, and if you listen she will call.

Go to the western gate, Luke Havergal—

Luke Havergal.

No, there is not a dawn in eastern skies

To rift the fiery night that’s in your eyes;

But there, where western glooms are gathering,

The dark will end the dark, if anything:

God slays Himself with every leaf that flies,

And hell is more than half of paradise.

No, there is not a dawn in eastern skies—

In eastern skies.

Out of a grave I come to tell you this,

Out of a grave I come to quench the kiss

That flames upon your forehead with a glow

That blinds you to the way that you must go.

Yes, there is yet one way to where she is,

Bitter, but one that faith may never miss.

Out of a grave I come to tell you this—

To tell you this.

There is the western gate, Luke Havergal,

There are the crimson leaves upon the wall.

Go, for the winds are tearing them away,—

Nor think to riddle the dead words they say,

Nor any more to feel them as they fall;

But go, and if you trust her she will call.

There is the western gate, Luke Havergal—

Luke Havergal.

iii. Robert Frost. The Gift Outright.

Robert Frost (1874-1963) was born in California but raised on a farm in the northeastern United States until the age of 10. Like Eliot and Pound, he went to England, attracted by new movements in poetry there. A charismatic public reader, he was renowned for his tours. He read an original work at the inauguration of President John F. Kennedy in 1961 that helped spark a national interest in poetry. His popularity is easy to explain: He wrote of traditional farm life, appealing to nostalgia for the old ways. His subjects are universal -- apple picking, stone walls, fences, country roads. Frost's approach was lucid and accessible: He rarely employed pedantic allusions or ellipses. His frequent use of rhyme also appealed to the general audience.

The Gift Outright was written as early as 1936, but Frost did not publish it until 1941, a few months after the United States entered World War II. Although it had already achieved a level of familiarity and fame among the American public, “The Gift Outright” received special attention when Frost recited it at the inauguration of President John F. Kennedy on January 20, 1961. Frost had originally planned to recite a poem entitled “Dedication” that he had written for the event. However, because of the glare of the sun and his poor eyesight (he was eighty-seven years old at the time), he was unable to read his copy of the poem and instead recited “The Gift Outright.”

The Gift Outright

The land was ours before we were the land's.

She was our land more than a hundred years

Before we were her people. She was ours

In Massachusetts, in Virginia,

But we were England's, still colonials,

Possessing what we still were unpossessed by,

Possessed by what we now no more possessed.

Something we were withholding made us weak

Until we found out that it was ourselves

We were withholding from our land of living,

And forthwith found salvation in surrender.

Such as we were we gave ourselves outright

(The deed of gift was many deeds of war)

To the land vaguely realizing westward,

But still unstoried, artless, unenhanced,

Such as she was, such as she would become.

From one perspective, this poem may seem to be nothing more than a triumphantly patriotic work; Frost himself once compared it to “The Star-Spangled Banner.” The colonists in America initially struggled to become one with the land because of their ties to England. As years passed, however, they were able to build a commitment to the land and establish their identities as Americans because of their efforts to build a land that was not based on the traditions of Europe. In this way, the poem can be read as Frost’s personal celebration of manifest destiny.

The broad enthusiasm for America that characterizes the poem takes an unexpected turn in the grave thirteenth line: “(The dead of gift was many deeds of war.)” Suddenly, the poem is not only about a commitment to the land, but also a discussion of the Revolutionary War and remorse that the battle over the land caused so many deaths. The use of parentheses in this particular line ensures that the specifics of the war are not mentioned, but does insist that the memory of the war should not be forgotten or cast aside.

The poem can also be read as somewhat defensive and even belligerent in terms of its approach to the land. Frost repeats the term “ours” numerous times in the text, but insists that the “we” of the poem is the white settlers from Europe, rather than the original “owners” of the land: the Native Americans. Frost chooses to ignore the conflict between the colonists and the Native Americans and instead focuses on the clash between the Old World and the New World, the European world of tradition and oppression and the new American world of freedom and destiny. As a result, the type of American identity that Frost expresses is very different from the contemporary understanding of the American identity as an amalgamation of different cultures and ethnicities.

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