Hemmingway's Connections Between War and Culture

Essay by joesepheHigh School, 12th gradeA, May 2014

download word file, 10 pages 0.0

Hemingway's Connections Between War and Culture.

Ernest Hemingway's works include a range of themes, of which a major topic is the fruitless and trivial nature of war, as related to individuals and society as a whole. In many of Hemingway's writings he depicts the effects of war on individuals through the use of damaged characters. Hemingway aimed to illustrate to his audience that war was not exactly what it was made out to be, according to the society of his time. He knew that war was not grand and was rather the opposite of heroic. He represented this through writings that depict the futile nature of war and the many goals associated with making progress in such conflict. Hemingway's works show that a society acclimated to a war-involved state-of-being produces a generation of people whose values are shallow, like the purposes of war. These people, characterized by Hemingway, are often forced to hide pain and emotional distraught because of the values created by their military and morally-conflicted society.

War is often spoken of in a heroic and gallant context. Typically the unspecified troops of militaries in conflict are spoken of as if they possess the courage and willpower to conquer any challenge that they might come across. Hemingway understood that soldiers were expected to live up to such contexts and thusly expressed this through his character's lives. In A Farewell to Arms, Lieutenant Henry is injured while simply eating pasta and cheese. His injury was the result of military conflict, more specifically, an artillery strike, and that is enough for Rinaldi to claim Lt. Henry as a hero. Rinaldi further claims that Lt. Henry is deserving of various medals, despite Lt. Henry's own belief that he did nothing to deserve such awards. Rinaldi sees the simple connection to war and...