# of Words: 315

A Farewell to Arms was printed in 1929 by Ernest Hemingway, a Nobel Prize-winning American writer. Like the protagonist, Hemingway served at the Italian Army as a Red Crossambulance driver during World War I, got wounded, also spent time in an American Army in Milan, where he fulfilled with a nurse. Similar to characters in A Farewell to Arms, Hemingway was profoundly influenced by his own experiences at war.

Actually, Hemingway is considered to be part of the "The Lost Generation." The phrase was coined by Gertrude Stein to refer to Modernist artists that felt "lost" after seeing the horrors of World War I.

Hemingway certainly relied on his own experiences in WWI Italy to write this novel, but he did use other sources as well. Though A Farewell to Armsbegins in 1916, Hemingway did not get to Italy until the summer of 1918. The Italian escape from Caporetto, described in these detailed in the novel, began in October 1917. So how did Hemingway describe it so well? The novel is meticulously researched. Hemingway was a journalist and worked for the Kansas City Star paper when the retreat was on, read details of it, and was very concerned over the war generally. (For a discussion of the importance of newspapers to the novel, see "Symbols, Imagery, and Allegory.") It is very likely that such concern motivated him to enlist with the Red Cross at the first location.

A Farewell to Arms caused a great deal of fuss when its very first installment was released by Scribner's Magazine. The Boston superintendent of police kept Scribner's away newsstands, though not for long. He maintained that it was pornography. (Check out "Sex" for more.) Fortunately, the ban only boosted earnings and gave the novel free publicity. Nowadays, it's hardly considered pornographic and is instead known for its sensitive depiction of the war. The novel is even educated at U.S. military academies.

Related Papers

The Canterbury Tales Geoffrey Chaucer

The Canterbury Tales is the world's strangest road trip. It tells the story of a group of pilgrims (fancy word for travelers) on their way to Canterbury, who engage in a tale-telling contest to pass the time. Besides watching the interactions between the characters, we get to read 24 of the tales the pilgrims tell. And as it turns out, Medieval storytellers had some 'tude. Geoffrey Chaucer probably wrote The Canterbury Tales in the late 1380s and early 1390s, after his retirement from life as......Read More

The Fall Of The House Of Usher Edgar Allan Poe

Edgar Allan Poe was an American author in the first half of the 19th century famous for scaring the hell out of the readers. He's the master of dismemberment, underground crypts, murder, suffocation, ghosts, the living dead, haunted mansions, bloodstream, and all the other amazing features of your favourite horror films. He has been hugely popular in France, and several scholars attribute this popularity to the stunning translations of his work by the poet Baudelaire, that left Poe poetic......Read More

A Christmas Carol Charles Dickens

Remember that film, The Perfect Storm? Where a whole group of natural phenomena coincide in just the right way to make George Clooney really sad on his small boat in the center of a freakishly raging sea? Well, that is pretty much the exact same thing which occurred in 1843, when A Christmas Carol was printed. Alright, see you later! ... Oh, sorry, you're right, we must likely unpack that small analogy before peaceing out entirely. Just what exactly were the components of the perfect storm......Read More

Related Topics