Ernest Hemingway: A Farewell To Arms
Hemingway and the disenchantment with patriotism
One theme used to persuade people to support war, is the idea of “holy war”. Holy war tends to be linked to the idea of patriotism, and may be defined as an attempt to convince the audience that God is on the side of the speaker or writer, and that failure to side with the speaker’s or writer’s argument will be the equivalent of a failure to defend God
As we see in the quote from “A Farewell to Arms”, Hemingway’s first person narrator is disenchanted, and this disenchantment shows itself in his reaction to certain expressions.
- What expressions does Hemingway mention that have to do with the idea of “holy war”?
- What does Hemingway say about patriotism?
- Why is his narrator so critical of the concept?
- Do you think his statement would have been the same if he had not been to war?
Pair work
In this quote, the first person narrator of Hemmingway’s A Farewell To Arms tells us of his view on words typically used as a means of persuasion in connection with warfare:
”Abstract words such as glory, honor, courage, or hallow were obscene beside the concrete names of villages, the numbers of roads, the names of rivers, the numbers of regiments and the dates.”
- Think up a heading that covers all the words that embarrass the narrator
- What is he saying about these words?
- Why do they embarrass him?
- Who might use such terms, and why?
- What does the word billposter tell us about the message?
- Why are they rendered obscene in relation to concrete names?
Woodrow Wilson versus Ernest Hemingway
Based on your discussion of the quote from A Farewell to Arms, discuss in pairs what the narrator of that story might feel about Wilsons and his Comittee on Public Information, and jot down key words for discussion in class.
George Creel: How We Advertised America
- Why was CPI established?
- Creel describes CPI as ”a vast enterprise in salesmanship”.
- What examples does he give in the text to back his claim?
