A Study Of The Death Consciousness In Hemingway’s Novels From The Perspective Of Freudian Psychoanalysis

Ernest Miller Hemingway is one of the most representative "Lost Generation" novelists in America’s twentieth century. His novels are famous in the world. In addition to his "iceberg principle" writing style and’"message type" concise language, the most important thing is that he keeps exploring the "death theme" in his works. Hemingway successfully creates countless "tough guy" images. At the same time, Hemingway’s works also reveal his cognitive process of the "death"Hemingway’s novels not only involve some sporadic death phenomena, but profoundly embody his special death philosophy. Among his five full-length novels, a novella, a script and eighty short stories, almost every piece writes about or talks about the death or death related plots. Hemingway wants to show his rational thoughts of death in a metaphysical way to people through his personal experiences and works. He proposes that death itself has a kind of beauty. He holds this kind of outlook on life, values and view of death, that is "alive, then live bravely". Meanwhile he stresses that one should face death with "tough guy" spirit.Hemingway said:"Life is a lonely struggle, the desperate passion of action, behind consciousness no meaning or reason to life, nothing can be clearly explained, to improve or save, can not really raise or resolve any problems. As a result, only the barriers of life "anger or die’or sad inability to wait and see." In the face of it. he focuses on writing people’s fear, escape and hesitation of death, writing a series phenomena of death. He has an intimate encounter with death on one’s deathbed. He negotiates with the death face to face. After negotiations fail, death is the only experience. However, in fact, he is not just writing the death for death, but to reveal the survival significance and the value of life, to show the strong tension of life will. In his view of death, the most important thing is not the irresistibility of death consciousness, but the beauty of the human tragedy and the realization of the greatest life value. Death is the negation of life, which also strengthens the aesthetic value and the significance of life. From a different perspective, the negation of life makes the death wear a dazzling halo of beauty.This paper attempts to use Freudian psychoanalytic theory as a foundation. It combines with Hemingway’s legendary life experiences, through six chapters, to unscramble Hemingway’s formation process of "death consciousness" and the subsequent impact on his later works. Meanwhile, the author selects his representative works of different periods--Indian Camp. The Killers. The Sun Also Rises. A Farewell to Arms, The Snows of Kilimanjaro and The Old Man and the Sea as the basis. This demonstrates the concrete connotation of Hemingway’s death philosophy behind his works. And the author tries to analyze Hemingway and his works from a brand new angle.Chapter One is the introduction of the thesis. Firstly, it introduces Hemingway’s life experience and his major works. Secondly, it introduces the research background, including the domestic and foreign research achievements for the death consciousness in Hemingway’s works. Finally, it gives a brief introduction to the process of the influence of Freudian psychoanalytic theory in western literary criticism and Chinese literary criticism.Chapter Two expounds the three major theories of Freudian psychoanalytical theory, including consciousness and unconsciousness, personality structure (ID, ego and superego) and death instinct.Chapter Three uses Freudian conscious and unconscious theory to analyze the formation process of Hemingway’s view of death. Firstly, due to the influence by the "death" of his grandfather and father in Hemingway’s childhood, Hemingway formed a kind of unconscious death view. Secondly, it analyzes the influence of his death consciousness during or after Hemingway joined in the World War during his adulthood. Thirdly, it has a deeper exploration of Hemingway’s death consciousness during his old years and the change by the impact of the social environment.Chapter Four analyzes the progress of death consciousness in Hemingway’s works in perspective of Freudian personality structure theory. It is divided into the following three parts:In the first stage, it takes Indian Camp and The Killer as examples to explore Hemingway’s personality consciousness in his works. This stage belongs to Hemingway’s preliminary stage of death. When Hemingway met the death at first time, he felt scary. In the second stage of ego stage, it analyzes Hemingway’s personality consciousness in The Sun Also Rises and A Farewell to Arms these two famous works. It attempts to dig out Hemingway’s negative and pessimistic attitude of the indifference for death during the War Times. In the third stage of the superego stage, it points out that Hemingway’s view of "death" has a qualitative leap in The Snows of Kilimanjaro and The Old Man and the Sea. It means that his attitude to the death has already gone beyond the death and moved towards the eternal.Chapter Five uses Freudian death instinct theory to analyze the three variations of Hemingway’s death consciousness. First of all, Indian Camp and The Killer are full of childish innocence. Hemingway thought "he would never die". Secondly, in The Sun Also Rises and A Farewell to Arms, two heroes in the novels experienced the wars. They had to cure their physical pain and psychological distress. Hemingway’s naive and fantasy to life in childhood fade away. He could face the war and the death directly and bravely, but he feels isolated. He points out that humans could face death bravely, but one cannot defeat death. The last but not the least, in The Snows of Kilimanjaro and The Old Man and the Sea, Hemingway not only dares to face to face with death. At the same time he is convinced that human beings are in a dominant position. Although human beings cannot conquer death, people can triumph over death in their spiritual level to realize their values of life.Chapter Six is the conclusion part of the whole thesis. The purpose of this thesis is to re-interpretation the "death" in Hemingway’s works by using Freudian psychoanalytic theory, so that we can get a more profound understanding of Hemingway’s death philosophy in his works. Hemingway shows a detached attitude to life and death. He insists that everyone should look straightly and bravely to the death and overcome the fear of death. Then one could realize the value and existence of life in a maximized way. This is the grandeur and dignity of death. Men will triumph over death, become the master of death and realize the values of lives in the end.