On The Relationship Of "Fathers And Sons" In Hemingway's Fiction

Ernest Hemingway, is generally seen as a modernist writer, a member of the "lost generation" and a representative of the privileged white middle class. In a career that spanned some thirty five years, Ernest Hemingway explored many aspects of the human condition and man's relationship with others, but none seems more important to Hemingway than the relationship between fathers and sons. The thesis attempts to make a study of the depiction of the father-son relationship and generational conflicts in Hemingway's fiction, as well as the symbolic meaning in father-son relationship.Hemingway always puts his heroes under heavy pressure and has them face difficult situations, which the courageous and resilient can turn into victories. Using his fiction, this thesis will focus on the perspective of the sons and the way Hemingway uses father-son protagonists to convey son's initiation into the harsh realities of life. At such an early stage in his identity formation, the child, who is always a boy, is especially vulnerable to the outside stimuli of dissonance and conflicts.Hemingway's fiction emphasizes the relationship between fathers and children. Fathers and sons in Hemingway's fiction share warm, frustrated, respectful, contentious, simple, complex, limitless, and repressive relationships with each other. Deconstructing the powerful white father figure in stories like "Indian Camp" and "The Doctor and the Doctor's Wife", Hemingway depicts the false values and shallowness of the civilized world, which the child protagonist Nick has to reject. As a result, the son always swings between the love to his father by nature and the negative to his father's idea for values. Hemingway's story "Fathers and Sons", as the last Nick Adams story, underlines the importance of Nick's memory of the father. It also makes clear how unbridgeable the gap between the generations has become, as Nick is unable to reach out to his own son.Hemingway's continued concern with the father-son relationships, will be illustrated by a discussion of central passages in For Whom the Bell Tolls and an in-depth analysis of The Old Man and the Sea, which features symbolic father-son relationships on several different levels. More than any other Hemingway fiction, For Whom the Bell Tolls illustrates a son's approving process to his father, as Robert Jordan not only reaches an understanding of his father's cowardly suicide but is also able to sacrifice his life to ensure the survival of others. The power by nature in a father-son relationship that is based on love and trust is depicted in The Old Man and the Sea. Even though the relationship between Santiago and Manolin is only a symbolic father-son relationship, it is the most positive bond between the generations in Hemingway's fiction.The thesis attempts to analyze the description of fathers and sons in Hemingway's fiction, Viewing from the angles of humanism and education, the thesis tries to offer viewpoints as follows: A father has great influence upon his son in the formation and development of the character of the young; As a father is the first teacher of his son, he should set up good examples for children in strong character and correct idea of life.