The Transformatioil Of Death Concept In Hemingway In His Later Works

A writer is bound to create works under the influences of his personal experiences and the background of his time. Furthermore, if a writer intends to win his position among the highest rank and maintain his stay in that rank, he must understand how to assimilate the characteristics of his time and his personal experiences into his works, in the most appropriate way, so as to sublimate his personal experiences into the an universal objectivity that can strike a responsive chord in all the readers of the works. Ernest Hemingway falls on this highest rank of great writers. He exhibits the entire world his legendary life through his immortal works. It is no wonder that until the very present day the anecdotes about his legendary life are still among the most-often-mentioned topics of all the great writers; and his works still proceed to encourage all those aspiring and ambitious individuals who may be flung by capricious destiny into an impasse temporarily.Hemingway’s works are always considered to be closely connected with his life experiences. And it is possible to infer Hemingway’s personal thinking and philosophy from his many novels, such as Death in the Afternoon, For whom the Bell Tolls and so on. In his works heroism is the most important quality that Hemingway advocates a man should fight ruthlessly to achieve. Death is the threading line that runs through almost all of Hemingway’s works. Both heroism and the theme of death can be demonstrated to be endowed with much significance in Hemingway’s life. In Hemingway’s works death is his ideal device by which the writer utilizes to portray the heroism of his heroes. When all the deaths in Hemingway’s works are taken into consideration, it can be detected that different protagonists acquire different attitudes towards death and thus different protagonists choose different ending, despite death consumes them all at last. This difference should be attributed to a transformation of Hemingway’s personal understanding of life and death. In his early works, Hemingway’s conception of death is clear and direct. He believes that death is inevitable and nobody can escape this doom; and that if an individual can confront the nothingness of his life with a staunch attitude and perfect competence, and winds up with a solitary death, then this can be the perfect example of heroism. In Hemingway’s later works, however, he comes to understand that the individual doesn’t have to carry out his profession or trade with absolute competence, as "to err is man"; and that a man must learn how to accept others and how to be loved by others, because a single individual is always alone, whereas a man and the group that the man is dedicated to can both achieve progress if they are appropriately merged together. More importantly, Hemingway further believes that a death by one’s intimate comrades or one’s beloved ones is an important symbol of man’s sociality, and that an individual’s assimilation into a team or group will not undermine his becoming a hero.In addition, the author of this thesis finds that Hemingway’s later works are not all well received by many critics, such as Across the River and into the Trees and Islands in the Stream. If the heroism depicted in Hemingway’s earlier works is the target that these critics try so hard to find in Hemingway’s later works, their searching will end up with futility and disappointment, as Hemingway himself has already undertaken to change. This transformation in his later years can be considered quite an important progress both in his literary creation and his personal meditation upon life and death of man.