Hemingway's "benevolence" Interpretation

The thesis analyzes four of Ernest Hemingway's works—The Sun Also Rises, A Farewell to Arms, For Whom the Bell Tolls and The Old Man and the Sea—in the light of Confucian idea of"humaneness".The thesis is divided into five chapters. Chapter one gives a brief introduction of the background of the subject, the thesis statement and the method of research. Chapter two gives the concept of Chinese culture first, that is"the spirit of optimism",and then makes a comparison between the background of"a culture of optimism"—without dependence—and that of the texts. The second and the third parts of this chapter focus on relevant ideas of Confucian"humaneness". Chapter three analyzes the transformation of"individualism"into"collectivism"in Hemingway's works. And this very transformation is just that of being humane. Chapter four demonstrates that love and optimism of the humaneness gradually come into being in the four works. In the first part of this chapter, the process of how the protagonists of these four works gradually gain the love of the humaneness is discussed—the absence of love in The Sun Also Rises, the love in the narrow sense in A Farewell to Arms, the love of sacrificing in For Whom the Bell Tolls and the collectivism and the love for life in The Old Man And the Sea. The second part of this chapter analyzes the grittiness and the optimism of the humaneness separately. Chapter five briefly sums up the meaning of analyzing Hemingway's works in the light of Confucian idea of"humaneness".