| As the spokesman for the "Lost Generation", Ernest Hemingway (1899?961) has aroused interest of many readers, and many critics have made comments on him. His works express the feelings of the whole generation: hatred of war, fear of death, confusion and no choice of life. At the same time, he created a "code hero" who shows "grace under pressure".Comments from critics at home and abroad mostly talk about his "code hero" and "nothingness thoughts". But the current research results either emphasize the former or the latter, which will lead to the deviation in understanding Hemingway's writing thoughts.In his four masterpieces: The Sun Also Rises, A Farewell to Arms, For Whom the Bell Tolls and The Old Man and the Sea, his main characters, disillusioned with failed ideals, struggle vainly all the time as a "code hero" showing "grace under pressure". They cannot escape the fate of "struggle in nothingness", as the thoughts of nothingness and struggling co-exist in his works. This thesis intends to reach a thorough .understanding of Hemingway's writing thoughts and asserts that there is an eternal theme in Hemingway's works梥truggle in nothingness, which does not remain unchanged but has been developed during his writing career.The title of The Sun Also Rises (1926) is from a passage Hemingway quotes from Ecclesiastes which shows his thoughts of nothingness. Both the hero and the heroine suffered from World War I. While Jack Barnes was wounded in the war, Brett Ashley lost her husband in it. Although they loved each other, they could not get married for Jack's physical problem. What the war has affected was not only their life, but also their former beliefs. They became wandering pointlessly and restlessly, enjoying things like fishing, swimming, bullfights, and beauties of nature, believing that the world is crazy and meaningless and futile. Their whole life is undercut and defeated. The only strength to live on with any dignity comes from nowhere but themselves. There is nothing one can do but to take care of one's ownlife and be tough against the fate, tough with grace under pressure, that is, "struggle in nothingness".A Farewell to Arms (1929) explores the misery of the "Lost Generation" in the war. It focuses on the war experiences of Frederic Henry, telling how he takes part in the war voluntarily, how he is wounded, becomes war-weariness, runs away from the war, makes separate peace, and how his lover Catherine and their baby die during a birth giving operation. It explains how people like Jack Barnes come to behave the way they do. Frederic becomes a very embittered man, fighting single handed against overwhelming odds. Here stands the Hemingway hero, an average man of decidedly masculine tastes, sensitive and intelligent, a man of action, and one who keeps emotions under control. He struggles bravely in nothingness.For Whom the Bell Tolls (1940) is about the Spanish Civil War. In this novel the traces of Frederic Henry are still clearly visible in Robert Jordan. It deals with three days in the life of Robert Jordan, the Hemingway hero, who is fighting as an American volunteer in the Spanish Civil War. He is sent to join a guerrilla band to blow up a strategic bridge as part of an attack which he knows is doomed to fail. He spends three days and nights in the guerrillas' cave, and falls in love with a Spanish girl Maria. To win time for the guerrilla to retreat, Jordan successfully destroys the bridge and is wounded in the retreat. He has done his best for his comrades-in-arms and for the cause which he believes in.In The Old Man and the Sea (1952), the story of the fisherman Santiago is certainly a story of defeat. The isolated old man, who goes " too far out" in search of "the big one", returns home with the useless skeleton of a "fish that was". He returns home exhausted, bloody, stripped of gear, and even poorer than 'when he started out. His entire journey has "produced" nothing梕xcept perhaps, food for the scavenger sharks. The image of "code hero" reappears here thoroughly in the old...
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