Love and War— on A Farewell to Arms
A Thesis Submitted
To Foreign Language Department
Of College of Information & Business, Zhongyuan University of Technology In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements
For the Degree of Bachelor of Arts
By
Bao Qingwu
Student ID Number: 200580314439
Supervisor：Wang Shuyan
May 15 , 2009
论 文 摘 要
迄今为止，人类历史经历了无数的战争，大大小小的，国内的或者是国际的，侵略战争或者是反侵略战争，但是不论是哪一种战争，都会给一个国家，人类甚至是地球带来灾难。由于战争的灾难性，更多的人明白了战争的本质，他们通过各种方式与战争对抗。海明威写了部小说《永别了武器》来唤醒在战争中迷失自我的人们。这部小说给人们的思想带来了冲击，影响深远。
本文将从爱情和战争的关系入手，运用马克思主义哲学理论中“对立统一的规律”，详细分析两者在小说《永别了，武器》中既相互对立、又彼此联系的关系，深入了解小说的反战主题，进而从中领悟到：当时人们厌恶战争、向往和平的理想，并给生活在和平社会的人们以深刻的启示：珍惜生活、热爱和平。
关键词：爱情悲剧;反战;矛盾冲突;对立统一
I
Abstract
So far, the history of human beings has experienced too many wars, big or small, national or international, aggressive or anti-aggressive, no matter what kind of war it is, it will always bring big disaster to the country, environment, and the people. Due to the destructiveness of war, more and more people are getting a clear understanding of what war is about, and then they began to fight against war in different ways. Hemingway wrote the novel A Farewell to Arms to wake people who had lost themselves in the war to be aware of wars. To this day, the novel still has a big impact on people’ mind.
Starting from the relationship between love and war, the thesis will use the law of the unity of opposites in Marxist philosophy, and make a detailed analysis of the relationship between the two subjects—of them are against and connected with each other at the same time. This thesis will also explore the anti-war theme of the novel to realize that people at war time filled with anger and hate are looking forward to a peaceful life, and give readers in modern society a deep inspiration of appreciating life and treasuring peace.
Key words: love tragedy; anti-war; conflicts; unity of opposites
II
Table of contents
Abstract (Chinese) ……………………………………………………………….. Abstract (English) …………….………………………………………………….
1. Introduction…………………………………………………………………... I II 1
2. A Brief Introduction to Hemingway and His Novel A Farewell to Arms…………………………………………………………………………………
2.1 Introduction to Hemingway…………………………………. ….……………..
2.2 Introduction to the Novel ……………………………………. ….…………….
2.2.1 The Background of the Novel………………….……. ….…………………
2.2.2 The Plot of the Novel………………………….……. ……………………..
3. An Analysis of the Relationship Between Love and War in the Novel from the Perspective of the Law of the Unity of Opposites………………………………..
3.1 The Connotation of the Law of the Unity of Opposites. ……………. ………..
3.2 The Definition and Relationship Between Love and War……………………..
3.3 An Analysis on the Relationship Between Love and War in the Novel………..
3.3.1 Two Story Lines in the Novel………………………………………………
3.3.1.1 The Story of the First War……………………………………………..
3.3.1.2 The Love Story Between Henry and Catherine………………………..
3.3.2 The Conflict Between Henry’ Love and the War…………………………...
3.3.2.1 The Cruelty of the War vs. the Sweetness of His Love………………..
3.3.2.2 The Tragedy of Henry’s Love Caused by the War……………………..
3.3.3 The Interaction of Henry’s Love and the War………………………………
3.3.3.1The Birth and Growth of His Love Inspired by the War………………..
3.3.3.2 Wounds of the War to Henry Remedied by His Love………………….
4. The Realistic Significance of the Analysis on the Relationship Between Love and War in the Novel……………………………………………………………….
5. Conclusion…………………………………………….. …………………………. References…………………………………………………………………………… 1 2 2 2 2 3 3 3 4 4 5 6 7 7 9 10 10 12 13 14 16
Acknowledgements………………………………………………………………………………. 17
1. Introduction
In the 21st century, peace and development have become the two most important topics of the world, which are the strong desire and urgent demand of people, and the main trend of the development and the times. However, armed conflicts and hegemonies still exist in some countries or areas. People are opposed to war, calling for peace, human society can only be developed successfully when the war is completely eliminated. As a matter of fact, at the time the WWI was over, Hemingway, an American writer, expressed his anger against the war and his expectation of a wonderful life and love in his magnum opus A Farewell to Arms, which is based on his own experience.
The novel A Farewell to Arms, which choses battle as the topic, has been receiving attention from Chinese-foreign literary circle. Tan Jijia makes a study from the perspective of fatalism, he thinks that it is useless it is useless for love to against war, it is doomed to fail. The foreign scholar Lauren Huhnerkoch also analyzes that: in this time of chaos, the characters in A Farewell to Arms all try to find shelters from the brutality he or she faces everyday by turning to their vices. Each character thinks he or she can find the comfort that he or she are seeking by some illusions. Beside this, there are many other scholars make researches on this novel from the perspective of existentialism, symbolism, stylistics and so on.
However, the study of the relationship between love and war in this novel is not so complete. This thesis will give a more detailed analysis on the relationship between the leading character—Frederic Henry’s love and the war he had experienced, with the law of unity of opposites, in order to help people in knowing well of the disadvantages of war.
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2. A Brief Introduction to Hemingway and His Novel A Farewell to Arms
The novel A Farewell to Arms is wrote by Hemingway with his own experience, so this is also a semi-autobiographical novel. In order to make a better understanding, Hemingway’s life should be concerned in the first place
2.1 Introduction of Hemingway
Hemingway, who was an American writer, the founder of journalistic style and the winner of the Nobel Prize for literature in 1954, was born in 21st July, 1899. He has a normal childhood. In his whole life, he tried different types of work, like journalist, ambulance driver and so on, but finally he became a writer. The time he worked on the battlefield as a driver, he once was hurt by a bomb nearby. Many bomb pieces were still in his body after three months surgery in Milan. That explosion permeated through both his body and spirit. The older he got, the more pain he suffered from the mental trauma. Hemingway felt cheated by witnessing the reality, and started hating the war. Under this situation, this novel is created. As the saying goes ―coins have two sides‖, this nightmare helped Hemingway with this novel, and brought him a big success. Hemingway’s language is short, exact, direct and powerful, so it is easily understood with better persuasion.
2.2 Introduction to the Novel
This novel A Farewell to Arms is finished in 1929. It is set in a special period, so when people do researches on this novel. The background of the novel should be referred to.
2.2.1 The Background of the Novel
This novel takes the WWI as the background. The war broke out after the assassination of the Archduke Franz Ferdinand; it was between Austria-Hungary and Serbia. France, Great Britain, and Russia joined as the Allied powers against the Central Power alliance of Austria-Hungary and Germany. Eventually, America joined the war on the side of the Allies after Russia had withdrawn. The conflict had lasted for four years; it has cost $350 billion claiming the lives of twenty-two million people. The story of the novel A Farewell to Arms happened in this time.
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2.2.2 The Plot of the Novel
This story went around the war between Australia and Italy, The narrator was Frederick Henry, which was unclear at first. Frederick was an American volunteer in the Ambulance Corps, and a second lieutenant in the Italian Army. Further into the novel, Frederick became involved with Catherine Barkley, who was a member of voluntary aid detachment. He slowly fell in love with her and, in his love for her, he found commitment. Their relationship brought some order and value to his life. Compared to this new form of order in his life, Frederick saw the losing Italian army as total chaos and disorder. But the war refused to give them any chance to pursue happiness. Even after they ran far away from war, Catherine still lost her life by giving birth. Everything was taken away from Henry.
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3. An Analysis of the Relationship Between Love and War in the Novel from the Perspective of the Law of the Unity of Opposites
Everything in the world will follow the law of the unity of opposites, so do love and war, they may seem have no connection with each other, but put them together in a certain circumstance, they will get affected by each other, and finally become a unity.
3.1 The Connotation of the Law of the Unity of Opposites
Then what is the law of the unity of opposites?
―Unity of opposites is the central category of dialectics, and it is viewed
sometimes as a metaphysical concept, a philosophical concept or a scientific
concept. It defines a situation in which the existence or identity of a thing (or
situation) depends on the co-existence of at least two conditions which are
opposite to each other, yet dependent on each other and presupposing each
other, within a field of tension.‖ (qtd.. on: /wiki/Unity_
of_opposites)‖
For example, a person want to jump from place A to place B, the destination is B, to reach there, he must not only have a destination B. The start point A, which is opposite to B, can not be ignored, that is the unity of opposites, also can be understood as co-existence of opposites.
3.2 The Definition and Relationship Between Love and War
According to Wikipedia, ―love is any of a number of emotions and experiences related to a sense of strong affection and attachment. The word love can refer to a variety of different feelings, states, and attitudes, ranging from generic pleasure to intense interpersonal attraction.‖ (qtd. on:/wiki/Love). It is very hard to define love, because one hundred people have one hundred understandings of love. And what is war?
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―War is reciprocated armed conflict between political units aimed at a
desired political end-state... War is an interaction in which two or more
militaries have a struggle of wills… War is not limited to the human species,
as ants engage in massive inter-species conflicts which might be termed
warfare, or chimpanzee packs will engade each other in tribe like
warfare.(/wiki/War, 2009-3-15)‖
War can be found in human society, and in nature. Once the war starts, there should be a harm to both sides. It can be proved in this novel A Farewell to Arms.
In most situations, love and war are separated two things, love is between two people and war is between two groups of power, the different is that love can provide happiness to both sides, while war will produce destruction to all the envolvers. What if love and war are put together? It will surely give a vivid comparison. The war will of course break the love while the one side is going to fight, and may lost his life on the battle field. The happiness he got from love may also change his mind about the war, and heal the wound he recerive from war, like Henry in the book.
3.3 An Analysis on the Relationship Between Love and War in the Novel
According to the law of unity of opposites, Henry’s love and the WWI are dependent on each other, though the war grabbed love away from Henry, he did not lose it. Actually, the love helped Henry escape from the cruelty of the war.
3.3.1 Two Story Lines in the Novel
There are two topics in the story, love and war. Both topic acted at the same time, but the novel described them separately.
Hemingway was so smart that he had already tell the readers of the topic from the coverage—the title. A Farewell to Arms, which is Usage of pun, people can have two understandings of the title since ―arms‖ here can refer to the weapons and the hugs.
The title here is very ironic, and octanoic acid, Henry said goodbye to both war and love due to the interaction between them; that is destiny, Henry could do nothing about it. He chose to become a soldier because of his innocence; he was cheated by 5
the government as the Hemingway himself. But after his growth with his love, he would definitely be awakened from the traps, and then even if he was not caught by the friendly troop, he would find another way to escape from the war. It does not mean he was a coward, he just found the truth and made the right choice, what he escaped from is hypocrisy. And say that he said farewell to hugs stands for the vanishing of his love. There are many hints in the novel that the war would finally cause their misfortune about their love and life. This love is even born upon misfortune – war, which caused much death in the world.
3.3.1.1 The Story of the First World War
This part of the story began in Gorizia, Italy, the headquarters of Frederick’s troop, during World War I. A young priest stayed with the troop. Everyone but Frederick was Roman Catholic, but he was the only one who respected him. Frederick had a leave and was deciding where to go. The priest suggested going to Abruzzi. Although Frederick said he would go, he went to somewhere else. When he returned, he said he was sorry he did not go, but that he went to a place where a man can find his inner self. Lieutenant Rinaldi shared a room with Frederick. He was an emotional Italian, and was always in love with someone.
While fighting, Frederick got wounded very badly. From then on, Henry had to face series of event that beat his mind, like Italian troops were losing day by day, and German got involved, then the army had to run away from their motherland. On his way to Pordenone, he lost his comrade in arms and almost got killed by his own army. Then he could do nothing but jumped into the river to save his love. This is the story line of war in the novel, it continued all the time, even Henry and Catherine were spending their time together or after the end of the novel, it never stopped, which means more and more tragedy was playing alone with this love of Henry. So Henry’s experience is only a epitome of people’s life at that time.
3.3.1.2 The Love Story Between Henry and Catherine
Under the help of Rinaldi, Henry met Catherine. From the beginning, Frederic 6
and Catherine’s relationship started in a strange state. Frederic knew Catherine was a beauty, but he still continued to pursue her. He did not even love her at first, but he still needed a way of escaping his present situation, so he decided to go after her. Plus, he really did not think he had anything to loose. There were no stakes named from the start. He did not really care that whether he lost anyway.
―I did not love Catherine Barkley nor had any idea of loving her. This was a
game, like bridge, in which you said things instead of playing cards. Like
bridge you had to pretend you were playing for money or playing for some
stakes. Nobody had mentioned what the stakes were. It was all right with
me.‖1
The time he changed his mind and became crazy about Catherine is the period he got wounded in the work, ―When I saw her I was in love with her. Everything turned over inside of me.‖ (Hemingway, chapter 14, Book 2). But war is merciless, after his recovery, he should go back to the front line. The next time he saw Catherine is after his dying experience, this time, he had made his mind up---leave the war and have a wonderful life with Catherine, they decided to go to Switzerland, where they really had a short period of sweet life. Though it was short, Hemingway spent a lot of words on it, and this part reached the peak point, everything seemed so beautiful, the war was ―gone‖, the city was full of peace, it feels like all that they did was worthy. As this thesis said before, in fact, the war never ends, so they would never catch the real happiness, the influence of the war would not disappear. At the end, Catherine died in the hospital, and Henry went his way home, the story stops here, but readers will not stop thinking, what is the future of Henry? Every person has his own opinion. Though it is sad for everyone, it is more powerful to make people see through the harm that a war can really cause. 1 All the quotations of this novel can be found in the e-book by Hemingway. Available on: /sw/html/2008821205759.asp, 2009-3-15, there is no introduction for the following quotations.
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3.3.2 The Conflict Between Henry’ Love and the War.
Love and war are two opposite things; there must be conflicts between them. War is cruel, while Love is sweet, in this novel A Farewell to Arms, war is the background of Henry’s love, while love is the premise Henry go to the war. On the other hand, war includes love and love includes war. In this story, they both exist together and only together. Existence of one is entirely dependent on the other.
3.3.2.1 The Cruelty of the War vs. the Sweetness of His Love
The cruelty of the war can be seen every where in this novel. Due to the history of Hemingway, he exactly expressed his feelings toward the war. Sun Shubiao argued about Hemingway’s view of war—―war is a stockyard‖ (孙树彪，2007：92).
―I did not say anything. I was always embarrassed by the words sacred,
glorious, and sacrifice and the expression in vain……now for a long time, and
I had seen nothing sacred, and the things that were glorious had no glory and
the sacrifices were like the stockyards at Chicago if nothing was done with the
meat except to bury it‖. (Hemingway, chapter 27, book 3)
From these words, Hemingway expressed his thought by using Henry’s tongue. Sacred, glorious, and sacrifice are nothing but hypocrisy, they mean nothing to the soldier and people, they can not bring the dead back. To fight for ―glory‖, Henry had to face the death of his friends, of innocent faces. With the time was passing, the soldiers became mad, things were getting disordered, for example,
―We stood in the rain and were taken out one at a time to be questioned and
shot. So far they had shot every one they had questioned. The questioners had
that beautiful detachment and devotion to stern justice of men dealing in death
without being in any danger of it. They were questioning a full colonel of a
line regiment.(Hemingway, chapter30, book3)‖
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The Italian soldiers did not know what they are doing, they just killed everything they saw, and they also did it when they killed Aymo, another friend and comrade in arms of Frederic. Body wound is one part of the war’s production. The other part is the mind trauma caused by war, especially the youngster, who were energetic at the beginning, and full of expectations, but not long after they joined the war, they became dispirited and lost themselves in the war.
The war never ends unless one side wins, so there is a chance for people to lose their home, just like Frederic left Gorizia in order to escape from Austrians and Germans. In the war, there is no future; the future is filled with uncertainty. But the love is different. It is full of sweetness, Hemingway always wrote about love at the right time, not only for Henry, but also for the readers. The love in the story can bring the readers a good mood against the tense of the war.
―Once in the night we went to sleep and when I woke she was not there but I
heard her coming along the hall and the door opened and she came back to the
bed and said it was all right she had been downstairs and they were all
asleep. …. She brought crackers and we ate them and drank some
vermouth. … I went to sleep again in the morning when it was light and when
I was awake I found she was gone again. She came in looking fresh and lovely
and sat on the bed and the sun rose while I had the thermometer in my mouth
and we smelled the dew on the roofs and then… (Hemingway,chapter16,
book2)‖
This part in the novel can tell people how sweet their love is, though they are in the hospital, it did not sound that way. It sounded more like a paradise for Henry, compared with the battle field or a hospital without Catherine. Several times Catherine walked away, and then went back to Henry’s side. It provided Henry a sense of safety. That was what he really needed. In fact, the love between Henry and Catherine is the shadow of Hemingway himself. Chen Shuiying pointed that many of 9
the love scenes is adapted according to Hemingway’s love with Agnes, though they never worked it out; and to some degree, Hemingway had his dream partially fulfilled in his novel. (陈水英，2007：123)
3.3.2.2 The Tragedy of Henry’s Love Caused by the War
The tragedy of Henry’s love can not be avoided through the whole passage, there are lots of signs for that. When the first time Frederic met Catherine, they talked about their experiences. When Catherine mentioned her former boyfriend, she said: ―I didn’t know about anything then. I thought it would be worse for him. I thought perhaps he couldn’t stand it and then of course he was killed and that was the end of it.‖ (Hemingway, chapter4, book1). This implied the future of Henry and Catherine. If Henry did what the boy had done, he probably ended up being dead some where. The truth is more a pity. Even Henry made the right decision, he left the troop, found a peaceful life, but he could not run from the reality anyway. Maybe it was an accident, but in this novel, the death of Catherine was doomed by the society and the war. The society did not give them any chance to take a breath after Henry did his best to pull himself out of the war.
―Why are they going to arrest me?‖
―For something about the war.‖
―Do you know what?‖
―No. But I know that they know you were here before as an officer and
now you are here out of uniform. After this retreat they arrest everybody.‖
(Hemingway, chapter 36, book 4).
Henry took off his uniform because he almost got killed from it. And this time he would be arrested by not wearing the uniform. The reality did not offer him any choice but running away. He could run for 10 years ,but he could not run for a whole life. At the end, if Catherine luckily survived from the accident, would the happiness 10
really knock the door? The answer is no, it is no chance before the war is over.
The love and the war are opposite to each other, one can not exist without the other one. Like bacteria and its host. The bacteria needs its host to provied nutrition, while the host needs the bacteria to keep the balance in its body. If one day the bacteria kills the host, then it will go to the way leading to self-destruction. But war is different from bacteria. It has no life. It is meaningless. All the thing it needs to do is producing harm. So there is no bulwark of love, no matter what kind of situation Henry had to face. He would lose his love one day.
There are many metaphors in this novel to show the influence on the love caused by the war. In this part of the novel: ―troops went by the house and down the road and the dust they raised powdered the leaves of the trees. The trunks of the trees too were dusty and the leaves fell early that year and we saw the troops marching along the road and the dust rising and leaves…‖, (这里出处应该是小说原文吧！) Liu Bin points out that Hemingway used the leaves which fell early that year to symbolize the early fallen of Henry’s lover, implying the sad ending of the story (刘斌，2008：78). Love is wonderful, but love in war is nothing but an illusion. Thy tragedy of love is caused by the war. Hemingway considered people as ants on a flaming stick, some get out, and their bodies burnt and flattened, and go off not knowing where they were heading. But most of them go toward the fire and then back toward the cooler end and finally fell off into the fire. At the end of the world, even the best people shall be destroyed, no matter how strong he is.
3.3.3 The Interaction of Henry’s Love and the War
Since love and war are opposite to each other, according to the law of the unity of opposites, they should co-exist with each other as well, which means they will have interaction on each other, which can partly change each one in a better way, but it can not change the result.
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3.3.3.1The Birth and Growth of His Love Inspired by the War
To some degree, the background of WWI was the hot bed for Henry’s love, if there was no war, Henry would not join the army, and Catherine had been married already. There would be no such a moving love story at all. Their love can be divided into three stages. The love did not show up at the first sight. On the contrary, Frederic just considered it as a game at the beginning, like bridge, saying things instead of playing cards. At this time, Frederic just wanted to escape from the insanity of war, His love for Catherine was an escape into another world for himself emotionally, it provided him emotionally with a private place, where he could go to separate and forget the horrible realities of war occurring in and around him. Under any other normal circumstances this love probably would have never happened. But when Aymo was killed by his own army, Frederic discovered the reality that he was not really separated from this event at all. He was still part of this war whether he liked it or not.
Henry was a lucky person, he had the opportunity to meet the right woman, otherwise he would be like his friend Rinaldi, who was drunk in chapter 26 and said: ―It is a wonderful thing. It burns out the stomach completely. Nothing is worse for you…self-destruction day by day. It ruins the stomach and makes the hand shake. Just the thing for a surgeon.‖ (Hemingway, chapter 25 book 3). Everyone suffered from the war, but Rinaldi could not find a woman like Catherine, so he had to put his feelings upon the alcohol, without concerning whether it is bad for health. Wine is an important item in this novel, it appears frequently. It is an necessary way to release from the high pressure of war. It is an anesthetic for both body and mind.
In the second stage of their love, they spend their time together in a hospital of Milan, after a long period of separating and a bad event in the war, Frederic finally found him fall in deep love with Barkley, he thought:
―God knows I had not wanted to fall in love with her. I had not wanted to fall
in love with any one. But God knows I had and I lay on the bed in the room of
the hospital in Milan and all sorts of things went through my head but I felt
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wonderful. (Hemingway, chapter14, book2).‖
The war helped him again, though the leg was hurt, it showed him the fact of the war, and fact that he needed Catherine deeply in his soul.
The last stage was set in Stresa, the stupid Italian soldier made him up his mind to leave the battle. In Stresa, Henry and Catherine reunited again, and this is the last time they got together, the love gave value to their lives, they thought that they could live a totally different life forever. But they forgot that their love was born in the habour of the war. It is cursed. They could not escape from the destiny. Their love would not become true. Anyway, Catherine was gone in the end. Would their love go away too? Henry had answered this question already. He had made a commitment to Catherine that he would never forget her. So their love would never really end.
3.3.3.2 Wounds of the War to Henry Remedied by His Love
Indeed, the war caused too many wounds to Henry and other people connected, especially on the spirit. It can be seen clearly from this paragraph:
―Afterward it was dark outside and I could see the beams of the search-lights
moving in the sky. I watched for a while and then went to sleep. I slept heavily
except once I woke sweating and scared and then went back to sleep trying to
stay outside of my dream. I woke for good long before it was light and heard
roosters crowing and stayed on awake until it began to be light. I was tired and
once it was really light I went back to sleep again. (Hemingway, chapter13,
book2)‖
Hemingway, who was also a victim of the WWI, had the same experience of being exploded by a bomb. In his old age, he still woke scared some time. It is very hard for common people to imagine.
Catherine did make a great contribution to Henry’s recovery. Besides, she was a 13
nurse, and she knew how to take good care of patients. Her love for Henry was so truthful that he could even feel it by looking, joking or smiling. The war was like darkness that misled too many youths. Catherine was a beam of light, which was so bright that pointed out the right way for Henry. Wang Jinghong said in her article: ―Fortunately, yes. Henry was losing in thought and his soul was in the time of darkness, then he encountered in his life, another round of the Sun - the gentlest, the most beautiful,and the kindest woman—Catherine Barkley.‖(王晶红，2007：82) Any time of thinking about her could be a relief to the war:
―I could remember Catherine but I knew I would get crazy if I thought about
her when I was not sure yet I would see her, so I would not think about her,
only about her a little, only about her with the car going slowly and clickingly,
and some light through the canvas and …. (Hemingway, chapter32, book3)‖
It was the most important time for him to make the decision. Should he leave the army? But the desire to find his other part, Catherine, drove him to the correct destination, as far away from war as it could be. To help Frederic recover from the wounds, the heroine must be a strong person, too. Zhang Xinjia described Catherine as an elegant actor under the high pressure (张心嘉，2007：110). Zhang took Catherine’s love with Frederic as a good remedy to cure his wounds, and enjoyed each moment of it. Henry was getting more and more mature with Barkley. And now he had more faith on his love and became mixed with Catherine into one person. War meant nothing to them. Only death can separate them physically.
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4. The Realistic Significance of the Analysis on the Relationship Between Love and War in the Novel
It is very necessary to make an imagination of the relationship between love and war in the novel. This story is very special, it will not be that coincidental to suffer so many misfortune at one time. Of course, but no matter what kind of life people are living with, they should learn something from this story and get some benefit in real life.
Firstly, with the development of modern society, people will receive more and more money. That is good news, because people can eat better, drink better, and get a better living condition. But this will also follow the law of unity of opposites. On the other hand, the young people probably forget the hard time their fathers had been through and waste their fruit. They learn well to enjoy but do not know how to create.
Secondly, some lovers today thought that they can buy love with money. But they have made a big mistake. Love is not merchandise; it is a kind of emotion that only can be exchanged by hearts of two people. From the analysis, people can find out what is best for them. It is neither fame nor good wearing. Happiness can be only found, not bought.
Lastly, maybe some people live in the peaceful countries, but in fact, the war never stops, more tragedies are performing all the time. The readers will be clear about the harm and hypocrisy of the war. Then more and more people will pay attention to the situation around the world and join the process of anti-war.
This novel tells people another significant truth: people can be eliminated, but they can not be beaten. Just like Catherine and Henry. The war robbed her life, but it did not win, because finally they did not give in. They did their best to fight against destiny. Wars are wars, there are no so-called just wars or unjust wars, each war will cause a big amount of casualties, most of which are common people. So as one of the common people, all he needs to do is to make a good use of time, pay more attention to his friends and do something useful for the society.
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5. Conclusion
Generally speaking, starting from the relationship between love and war in the novel A Farewell to Arms, this thesis analyzes the relationship between Henry’ love and WWI by using the law of unity of opposites in philosophy, and concludes that the war is the prime criminal to the tragedy of Henry’s love, while Henry’s love helps Henry find himself in the miserable war, giving more people a new understanding of war and love. In this way, more and more people in moden times will appreciate their happy life in reality, and have the courage to conquer any problem they will meet. Due to the author’s limitations, some places of this thesis still need to be amended.
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References
Assadnassab, Sara (2005). ―Hemingway?s Depiction of Women in A Farewell to Arms‖, Lule?
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Hemingway, Earnest (2005). A Farewell to Arms (Wilfred Pulley, Adapted). Beijing: Aviation
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Hemingway, Earnest (2009). A Farewell to Arms, [On-line]. Available Telnet:
/sw/html/2008821205759.asp, 2009-3-15.
P?RNU??, Oana-Andreea. ―The Experience Of War In Hemingway’s A Farewell To Arms‖.
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Acknowledgements
Firstly, I would like to show my deepest gratitude to my supervisor, Wang Shuyan, a respectable, responsible teacher, who has provided me with valuable guidance in every stage of the writing of this thesis. Without her instruction, I could not have completed my thesis.
And then I shall extend my thanks to my university that has given me the chance to finish this thesis and all the teachers who have helped me in my four-year study, like professor Yan Qiuxia, Shen Guorong, Yao Xiaoming, Liu Li, Duan Shiping and Knox , to whom I shall say a lot of thanks.
At last, I should show my appreciation to my friends, who have encouraged me to overcome difficulties in my life and in the course of writing this thesis.
Thanks again.
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