A Graceful Actress Performing The Code Hero

Ernest Hemingway, a great spokesman of "the Lost Generation", is a renownedAmerican writer of the Twentieth century;he is the 6th American writer who getsNobel Prize for Literature (1954). His special writing style gives a great influence onlater American writers. He centers successfully his novels on personal specificexperiences and affection to make many charming "code heroes" who struggle in thetragic faults. The attraction of "code hero" reveals Hemingway's aesthetic point ofview;human beings keep their dignity when facing failure and show their undefeatedgrace in the adversity. As we know, Hemingway is famous for making male characterand giving his attention to male's world. So many critics believe that Hemingway isjust adept in describing code heroes and male world without women. Most of hisprotagonists —— matadors, hunters, soldiers, and fishermen belong to this category.Critics have never ceased to pour down their comments on women in his workssince his first novel published. None of his works select women as protagonists, butwomen appear in his a few novels and many short stories as an important role. Somecritics begin to notice Hemingway's women, but their comprehension to women,personally, is too extreme. They declare that women in his works seem exist as a foilor an opposite of a man.But personally, this opinion goes to extreme. It's all right to focuses theircriticism on a male writer since he is expert in depicting male characters and maleworld, but if the critics give too much attention to the male characters to ignore, evendepreciate the female characters, there is a suspicion of extreme, and violating theauthor's creative intention.In the paper, I will take Catherine Barkley in A Farewell to Arms as an exampleto illustrate that Hemingway's women, in a specific historic surrounding, also possesscode hero's character —— he praised highly in his whole life. She also is a "codehero" in Hemingway's works.This paper is divided into 5 parts.Part I is the introduction, it gives a panoramic view of Hemingway's in critics'eyes since he becomes well-known. Part I is the introduction, it is composed of twosections. Section 1 gives a panoramic view of Hemingway's women in critics' eyessince he becomes well-known. They are separated into two parts, one is regarded as amindless woman, a leech-shadow of hero, the other is a succubus who asks for theequal position, even competition with men, their existence compose menace to men.Section 2 introduces Hemingway' women's living background —— women's socialposition in World War I, and the terms of "code hero" and "grace under pressure".The main body of the novel is composed of 3 chapters. The traditional commentson Catherine Barkley in A Farewell to Arms are opposed through the following 3respects: Catherine's attitude towards love and marriage, war and death. These threechapters will prove that Catherine Barkley is not a leech-shadow in critics' eyes, but awoman who has a mature opinion of her own about love, marriage, war and death.The portrait of Catherine Barkley shows Hemingway's mature viewpoints on women.The last part is conclusion of the paper. Catherine does not sigh in despair and sitdown under pressure, but oppose it perseveringly, and keeps her dignity when facingtragic faults. So Catherine also possesses the characteristics of code hero, she is one ofcode heroes, too, under Hemingway's pen.