Narratological Approaches To Hemingway's A Farewell To Arms

Ernest Hemingway was an eminent writer in America and a giant of modernist fiction, well versed in modern narrative art, for which he was awarded Nobel Prize in 1954. AsHemingway's representative work in his early literary career, A Farewell to Arms dealswith the imperialist war and its lasting traumatic effect upon the younger generation of the1920s both physically and mentally. Since its publication in 1929, the novel has receivedmore than due attention. Indeed, it is justifiable to say that critics have almost exhausted thestudy of the novel, including the myriads aspects of its style and rhetoric. However, anarrotological approach—readings aided by the insights from narratology that might provemore fruitful in explicating the narrative techniques in Hemingway's novel—remains afield that demands further attention.Drawing from theories of classical narratology, especially the insights from NarrativeDiscourse written by the famous French narratologist Gerard Genette, this dissertationfocuses on the textual analysis of narrative situation, narrative voice, narrative time andnarrative distance as they are presented in A Farewell to Arms. By fusing textual analysiswith theorectical explorations, the dissertation seeks, hopefully, to explicate and illustrateHemingway's outstanding artistic narrative and the everlasting and profound effects hisworks produce.