A Study Of Narrative Irony In The Sun Also Rises And A Farewell To Arms

Hemingway’s two early novels The Sun Also Rises(1926) and A Farewell to Arms(1929) are distinctly classified as modernist works of the 1920 s. Within the pages of these texts, Hemingway intentionally blurs the lines between the romantic narrative pattern and the ironic one. Questions are arguably raised by the scholars and literary critics over the specifics of each respective case: Do the young heroes change and grow? Are the heroes’ romantic conquerors or are they ironic failures? Are they initiated into some greater consciousness of the world around them? How does an understanding of these heroes’ initiations help enrich Hemingway’s implied meanings in the novels?From the perspective of the archetypal mode of quest journey, the author of this thesis attempts to discover the narrative irony in the development of the moral actions of the heroes. Through the analysis of these two works by Hemingway, in the light of archetypal perspective, we can enhance the understanding of them. Such analysis not only leads to a coherent understanding of the meaning of each novel, but also helps to illustrate Hemingway’s place within the tradition of literary modernism.An understanding of these heroes’ initiation pattern in Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises and A Farewell to Arms, according to the narrative irony, determines the legitimacy and necessity of an ironic reading of these important works by Hemingway, and at the same time, it would enhance the readers to gain a coherent understanding of their meaning, and this would, in turn, further verify Hemingway’s literary position within the tradition of modernist literature. More importantly, narrative irony can be conductive to interpreting the ambiguous or artfully vague texts as embedded in The Sun Also Rises and A Farewell to Arms.Through the analysis, we can find that irony permeates the pages of A Farewell to Arms and The Sun Also Rises. By Hemingway’s artful use of narrative irony in these texts, the readers are able to find that the heroes’ unfulfilled quest represents the universal plight of modern man. Hemingway emphasized the fundamental futility ofhuman struggle within the confines of life and death. These heroes try to attain knowledge with the hope of transforming their innocence to experience, but their hope is only to be smashed by the harsh reality, thus both books end in overwhelming irony.