1。 Introduction

1。1 Literature Review on the Characters in A Farewell to Arms

A Farewell to Arms is one of Hemingway’s masterpieces in which the soldier Frederic Henry and the nurse Catherine Barkley are the main characters。 Just as the pun “arms” in the title of the book indicates, two main subjects are entwined in this story: war and love。 One subject “love” entangles itself with the other and these two subjects weave a romantic but tragic love story。 Attracted by this complicated theme, many critics tend to analyze A Farewell to Arms from different angles: some of them comment on the writing strategies which Hemingway has applied on his novel writing (梁永安, 2010), some of them focus on the cruelty of the war that Hemingway has directly revealed in this book (尹燕, 2006) and others are interested in the characterization in A Farewell to Arms, especially the characterization of the protagonists Frederic and Catherine (赵立维, 2011)。来自优W尔Y论W文C网WWw.YoueRw.com 加QQ7520,18766

Frederic, who is also the narrator of the novel A Farewell to Arms, in different critics’ eyes, plays extremely different roles in the novel。 Some critics suggest that Frederic is a tough guy, a code hero。 For instance, Miao holds that Frederic is another code hero characterized by Hemingway because he has a strong sense of independence when he confronts the death and disasters (苗永敏, 2005)。 However, Frederic also has been regarded as a loser, a failure, a member of the Lost Generation (徐颜森, 2011) and Xu also points out that though Frederic survives the war, he is totally destroyed by the war both physically and mentally and it is not until he dies that he can get rid of the shadows which are cast by the war。 Moreover, Xu adds that the manhood of Frederic is blurred。 Charles Hatten (1993) agrees with Xu and points out that one of the novel’s central themes is that “Henry’s experience of war as a failed effort to shore up a problematic masculinity” (Hatten, 83)。

When it comes to the analysis of the heroine Catherine, critics also hold different opinions。 Scholars used to define Catherine as an ideal woman for she is beautiful and lovely and most importantly, she meets Frederic’s every need and tries her best to please him。 Charles J。 Nolan Jr。 (2009) agrees with this opinion and hints that this kind of women can also be regarded as destroyers of men。 According to him, until the 1980s, Catherine Barkley, Brett Ashley , and Maria  were seen as either destroyers of men or fantasy figures---“bitches or goddesses” (Nolan Jr。, 105)。 Later, the prevalence of feminist movement arouses public sense of women’s rights。 Thus, many critics begin to argue that it is Hemingway’s misogyny that makes Catherine in A Farewell to Arms an accessory of Frederic rather than an independent woman。 Until today, many critics still hold the same opinion。 For example, Chen proposes that Catherine comes into existence just because the hero Frederic needs someone to support him when he goes through hardships (陈小艳, 2012)。 But there are some other critics who analyze Catherine from different perspectives。 Instead of stating that Catherine is a flat figure whose only job is to serve Frederic, they give several new identities to her。 Some critics state that Catherine plays the role of the mother of Frederic –– she makes him feel at home (赵立维, 2011)。 Some critics state that Catherine is Frederic’s guider for she guides him and helps him to grow from a lost boy to a mature man (戴连云, 2004)。 Some critics even reach a consensus that Catherine does better than Frederic in some ways，just as Bickford Sylvester (1986) suggests, “Catherine calls attention early in the novel to the endlessness of war” (Sylvester, 75), Catherine realizes the reality of the war earlier than Frederic。 Furthermore, some critics propose that different from Frederic, Catherine is wise enough to find out what kind of person she is and what she wants at the very beginning (范能维,2009)。