A Study Of Hemingway's A Farewell To Arms From The Perspective Of Trauma Theory

Ernest Miller Hemingway(1899-1961)is one of the most prominent American writers in the twentieth century.Based on his own experiences,A Farewell to Arms,with the war and love as its central theme,presents a tragic story between a young American Henry and an English nurse Catherine during WWI.They fall in love but have no chance to eventually live together.With his keen insight and iceberg principle,Hemingway depicts the double damage of war to human,especially to the young American people who lost their ideal and faith after the war.Hemingway becomes the representative writer of “The Lost Generation” in American literary history.This thesis probes into the causes of traumas and also the recovery from trauma in Hemingway's A Farewell to Arms from the perspective of trauma theory.This thesis consists of three parts: introduction,body and conclusion.The introduction part gives a brief account of Hemingway's life,his literary works and the relevant studies about him.The body part has four chapters.Chapter One reviews the domestic and foreign studies on his novel A Farewell to Arms and introduces the three periods of the development of trauma theory.Chapter Two expounds the causes of Hemingway's traumas and the protagonists' traumas as seen from the perspective of individual trauma,such as family,marriage,identity,faith and other factors.Chapter Three is intended to explain how trauma affects both Hemingway's life and the characters' life in the novel,for instance,the troops,the priest,medical staffs and nature.Meanwhile it influences the plot from collective trauma.Chapter Four explores the methods of recovery from trauma according to the writer and the characters in the novel.The conclusion part points out that the writer spares no efforts to get rid of the effect from wars but fails in the shadow of trauma.And the description of Henry's struggle is merely the real reflection of Hemingway's inner world and also the profile of turbulent citizens after the war.As for the theoretical significance,the application of trauma theory in the interpretation of A Farewell to Arms provides not only a method for understanding the close relationship between the writer and his work but also a new perspective of the study of his novel.What is more,it also has much realistic significance in arousing arouse people's attention to the influence and recovery of trauma in contemporary world.