'A Farewell to Arms' and 'Soldiers' Pay': Hemingway and Faulkner, the Great War, characters, styles, and settings (Ernest Hemingway, William Faulkner)

Ernest Hemingway and William Faulkner, whose early careers were largely fashioned by the Great War, published early novels, A Farewell to Arms and Soldiers' Pay, simultaneously encompassing the era. They were ironically in direct antithesis in terms of how intended results were achieved. Both injected themselves into their various characters and the reader can learn much about their lives from simply inhaling their characters. Analysis will also illuminate their individual methods in style, characters, and settings. Hemingway wrote tersely, using a physical setting and his own experiences in his early novel, while Faulkner experimented more symbolically and leisurely within settings which involved not only the minds of his characters but a small town set in the South, representing society as a whole. Both authors, through different methods, allowed their peers of the day and future generations to better understand this era of chaos and turmoil knows as The Lost Generation.