Ernest Hemingway’s “A Farewell to Arms”: Philosophical and Religious Views Seen through Symbolism and Naturalism


In A Farewell to Arms, one of the themes of Frederic Henry's adventure as an ambulance driver during World War I is identity seen through a text of a judicious admixture of naturalism and symbolism. Hemingway has not only portrayed war, death, sex, love and religion, but has also intensified the effects of his writings through his use of symbols and ironies.  Carlos Baker has analyzed the central themes of A Farewell to Arms in terms of the Mountain and the plain. Mountains are of dryness and comfort, where as the plain represents rain and the fog. 

Creative Writing Lesson: How to Write an " Autobiography of River"? Model for Writing Class for EFL Students


      
Writing a Topic Paragraph: I am river Ganga. People call me in different names at different places. You may laugh to hear that I am going to write my autobiography as I have painted an entire history of Aryan race. They have written their autobiographies then why do I not in my own vision?

Comparative End Reading of O’ Henry’s “The Cactus” and “The Princess and the Puma”


O. Henry's Narrative Craftsmanship and Symbolism in "The Cactus" and "The Princess and the Puma"

Introduction

O. Henry, the celebrated short story writer, employed his narratives not only as a means of artistic expression but also as vehicles for exploring unconventional possibilities. Despite his adept use of irony and plot twists, some of his stories might appear less appealing to modern readers. O. Henry's hallmark ironic twists were achieved through two main themes: narrative reversal and character transformation. Stories like "The Gift of the Magi," "The Furnished Room," and "The Ransom of Red Chief" employed straightforward yet impactful paradoxical coincidences to delve into artistic concepts and deliver ironic conclusions.

Subversion of Genre Expectations

In works such as "The Cactus" and "The Princess and the Puma," O. Henry appeared to play with and potentially subvert the fairytale genre. His storytelling craftsmanship was commendable, creating an impression that his tales were spun as if recounted by a skilled narrator.

Symbolism and Reversal of Meaning

O. Henry's imaginative genius was exemplified in his use of the cactus, conventionally associated with rejection and wounds, as a symbol of romantic invitation. This reversal of established conventions challenged readers to reinterpret symbols in novel ways. "The Cactus" commenced with a third-person limited narrative, allowing readers to glimpse Trysdale's despondent state. The story delved into the subjective experience of time versus objective reality, particularly relevant to Trysdale's predicament. The narrative later looked back at Trysdale's past romances, aiding his understanding of his present misery. Although the narrative was primarily Trysdale-focused, the narrator's voice remained influential.

Character Transformation and Revelation

As the story unfolded, Trysdale's realization of his self-inflicted suffering emerged. The "garbs of pretense and egoism" he had donned were now revealed as "rags of folly." The narrative skillfully built curiosity about the failure of Trysdale's prior romantic liaison. It was eventually disclosed that Trysdale's pretense of knowing Spanish to impress his sweetheart had backfired. When she responded to his proposal with a cactus, he mistakenly interpreted it as rejection. The cactus, named "Ventomarme," was actually an invitation he failed to grasp due to his lack of Spanish knowledge.

Subversion of Conventional Roles

O. Henry's depiction of the lady-love contrasted with conventional feminine traits, ironic in nature. Instead of the woman idolizing the man, it was the reverse, contributing to Trysdale's downfall by boosting his vanity. The story subtly hinted at Trysdale's empty boasts of linguistic prowess as a potential source of his crisis.

Symbolism and Irony

Symbolism was interwoven throughout "The Cactus." Trysdale's removal of gloves symbolized his conscious abandonment of his past and the warmth of love he needed to relinquish. His arrogance, however, led him astray. Had he been humbler, he might have sought clarification from his beloved regarding the "thorny" message, potentially avoiding his pride-driven blunder.

Foreshadowing and Humor in "The Princess and the Puma"

"The Princess and the Puma" employs humor and foreshadowing to captivate readers. The interruptions and witty commentary enhance the narrative, culminating in a surprising climax. The story follows the conventional pattern of genre while imbuing a universal sense of defeat in the face of fate.

Role Reversal of Archetypes

Josefa O'Donnell, a cowgirl princess, defies archetypes by saving Ripley Givens from a mountain lion instead of being rescued. O. Henry's signature twist emerges when it's revealed that the lion was Ripley's pet, suggesting it had plagued other ranches. This technique showcases O. Henry's hallmark surprise endings.

Conclusion

O. Henry's "The Cactus" and "The Princess and the Puma" exemplify his narrative finesse, employing reversals and symbolism to captivate readers. He not only adheres to short story conventions but transcends them, crafting stories that offer universal insights into the human condition and the ironic twists of fate.


Refe: Wkipedia, Encarta

Merits and Demerits of Fielding as a Novelist— Salient Features of Fielding’s Art as a Novelist



It was Sir Walter Scott who called Fielding ‘the Father of the English novel’, and he certainly deserves the title.

His characterization 

Successful characterization is the very backbone of the art of a novelist, and in this respect Henry Fielding is second to none. Fielding’s skill in characterization has received eloquent praises from critics. The reality, the vividness, the vitality, and the variety of his characters have been linked with those of Shakespeare himself, Thus Raleigh admires his vivifying power which brings to life the various walking gentleman and stage-mutes, and further that, “In his two later novels Fielding completed that gallery of portraits which transcends for reality and variety the work of all former English narrations save, perhaps, Chaucer’s alone.

Like Richardson, Fielding had a genius for sounding the emotions of the human heart, but his methods are different. Richardson ponders over human weakness with a wrinkled brow and with many sigh; Fielding looks, laughs, and passes on. He does not seek to analyze or over breadth, humanity and attraction, denied to Richardson.

Richardson might be the father of the novel of Sentiment, but Fielding is certainly the father of the novel of Character Says Harold Child, ‘(The novel of character must always go to Fielding as its great exampler.” He peopled the novel with a great crowd of lively and interesting characters and endowed them with life and vitality. Even his minor characters are singularly alive. As Hazlitt points out, “he has brought together a greater variety of characters from common life marked with more distinct peculiarities, and without an atom of caricature, than any other novel-writer whatsoever,” In this respect, Fielding has been equaled by few and surpassed by none. The canvas of Tom Jones alone contains forty figures.

His Plots

Undoubtedly, Fielding is the true father of the English novel. His works exhibit all the essential features of a successful novel. He revolutionized the concept of plot-construction. It is in him that we get for the first time the concept of a closely knit organic plot. His skill in plot- architecture cannot be over praised. There is practically no superfluity in Tom Jones. The action moves rapidly and there is hardly any incident or character which does not contribute to the story. As Walter Allen points out, “No plot has ever been carried with more consummate skill and the skill can be truly appreciated only after the book has been closed.” Raleigh has this conduct of a complicated plot in mind when he says, “there could be no better school for novelist than is afforded by the study of Fielding’s plots.” In this respect, all future English novelists down to Thackeray have been indebted to him.

Comprehensive Picture of Contemporary Life

Fielding may also be called with equal truth the founder of the Novel of Manners. The picture which he presents of contemporary life society, dress, habits, and manners, is epical in its range, sweep and variety. Every aspect of contemporary life has been presented, with rare force and realism, and this makes his four novels, more specially. Tom Jones, important social documents. Fielding’s acquaintance with life is fully as wide as Defoe’s while his insight is keener and deeper. It was this catholicity which Richardson censured when he said, “his brawls, his jars, his goals, his sponging houses, are all drawn from what he has seen and known.” As Richard Church puts it, “he is the first writer to focus the novel in such a way that it brought the whole world as we see it, within the scope of this new, rapidly maturing literary form, “As Raleigh points out, common life is the material of his stories but it is, “handled with the freedom and imagination of the great artist.”

His Realism

Fielding’s realism marks a significant advance in the history of the English novel. He went to “the doomsday book of Nature” for his subjects, and reproduced it faithfully and accurately without any heightening or concealment. This has exposed him to the charge of being immoral and low, but as Saintsbury points out, “all these charges have been brought against nature too.” The learned critic further adds, “To embellish, and correct, and heighten, and to extra decorate nature was not Fielding’s way, but to follow, and to interpret, and to take up her own processes, with results uncommonly like her own.”

Fielding’s realism is also seen in the fact that he invariably gives a local habitation and a name to his scenes. He was the first English novelist to localize his scenes. Lionel Stevenson righty points out, “The geographical locations are always precise. The towns and inns along Tom‘s route from Glastonbury to London the streets and taverns of the metropolis; while Fielding does not indulge in much description of landscape for its own sake, he always makes the setting recognizable. “To quote Cross, ‘he tentatively indicated the place that nature might occupy in the novel of the future.”

His Humour

Fielding was the first to infuse the novel with the refreshing and preserving element of humour. Fielding’s humour is spontaneous, all,-pervasive, kindly, genial and tolerant. It has immense variety. He rises to pure comedy in such characters as Adams and Partridge, and to comedy lower and more farcical in characters, like Mrs. Slipslop and Square Western, There is ample humour of situation too, in his novels. Agitation, vanity and pedantry-causes of hypocrisy and vice—are the objects of his satire; though even his satire is always mild and gentle. “He sends his satire laughing into the world.” Irony is the great weapon he uses to expose hypocrisy and vanity. It is no exaggeration to claim that Fielding is one of the greatest ironists in European literature.

Established in the Tradition of the Omniscient Narrator

Fielding relieved the novel from the tyranny and constraint of the latter method of narration. All devices to account for the subject matter, such as bundles of letter, or moth-eaten documents, discovered by chance, are brushed aside as cheap and silly. Cross rightly remarks that, “Fielding throws off the mask of anonymity, steps out boldly, and takes us to accept his omniscience and omnipresence.” Fielding becomes his own story-teller and thus initiates a practice which has been universally followed, with little exception, ever since.

Conclusion

In short, he gave to the novel a larger, wider, higher, and deeper range. There is enormous range of suggestion in Fielding. Innumerable doors stand open in his ample room, and lead from it to other chambers and corridors of the endless palace of novel-romance.

Key Points:

Merits and Demerits of Fielding as a Novelist: Salient Features of His Art

Merits:
  • Character Depth: Fielding's characters are multidimensional, reflecting human complexities.
  • Realism: His novels capture the nuances of society, portraying both virtues and vices.
  • Humor: Fielding's witty narratives and satirical humor add depth to his storytelling.
  • Narrative Technique: His use of narrator commentary and authorial intrusion offers unique perspectives.
Demerits:
  • Lengthy Diversions: His novels occasionally digress into lengthy tangents.
  • Moralizing Tone: Fielding's didactic tendencies can sometimes overshadow the narrative.
  • Stereotyping: Some characters may be reduced to caricatures or stereotypes.
Salient Features:
  • Picaresque Elements: His novels often follow the adventures of a roguish protagonist.
  • Social Commentary: Fielding uses his characters to critique societal norms and hypocrisy.
  • Moral Ambiguity: He explores moral gray areas and ethical dilemmas in his narratives.
Fielding's strengths in character development, realism, and social critique are counterbalanced by occasional narrative detours and moralizing tones. His art as a novelist remains influential due to its balance of wit, insight, and exploration of human nature.
Ardhendu De

Goldsmith and Sheridan: the Champions of Anti Sentimental Comedy- How do You Distinguish “The Rivals” and “She Stoops to Conquer” from a “Sentimental Comedy”?


There had been a decay of the spirit of true comedy before Oliver Goldsmith and Richard Brinsley Sheridan of which the best exponent was Congreve in his masterpiece "The Way of the World". The Comedy of Manners, so popular in the Restoration period, was now rapidly degenerating. It became much too coarse, artificial and blatantly immoral.

Nature And Her Description That You Can Learn From Mathew Arnold’s Poetry : How far Removed from William Wordsworth?


The nineteenth century poetry is rich in Nature and her description. As regards to the poetry of Arnold, who can think of Arnold’s poetry as a whole with the feeling that nature is always behind it as a living background. Whether it be the story of wind and rain shaking Tintagel, or the scent laden water meadows along the Thames, or the pine forests on the flanks of Etna, or an English Garden in June Oxus, its mists and fens and “the hushed Chorasmian waste”.

Arnold has worshiped nature with the devotion of William Wordsworth. But he is not the High Priest of nature for he treats her as a refuge from the fever and fret and the weariness and waste of life. He also turns to nature to learn the moral lesson it teaches. He recommends the supreme lesson of peaceful toil, of incessant labour, of work as duty which nature teaches us. But he does not like friendship with nature. Man may learn from nature, love and admire and enjoy her, he must still remember that ‘Nature and Man can never be fast friends,’ and that ‘man must begin where Nature ends’. Though he has warned us not to expect too much from nature, be regarded her as a source of solace and soothing, of comfort, and consolation.

Arnold’s poetry of Nature is marked with exactness of observation and vividness of description. He had a keen eye for the details of Nature, and takes care to describe them as vividly as possible. Arnold’s pictures of nature have the brightness and the stillness necessary for a perfect reflection. They also possess the lustre and the polish of craftsmanship.

Another quality of his nature poetry is his partiality for subdued subjects, for quiet and subdued moods, for the silences of Nature rather than for her sounds. Rugby Chapel begins into the autumn evening coldly, sadly descending:
Coldly, sadly descends
The autumn-evening. The field
Strewn with its dank yellow drifts
Of wither'd leaves, and the elms,
Fade into dimness apace,
Silent;—hardly a shout
From a few boys late at their play!
The lights come out in the street,
In the school-room windows;—but cold,
Solemn, unlighted, austere,
Through the gathering darkness, arise
The chapel-walls, in whose bound
Thou, my father! art laid.
 The thought of the turbid ebb and flow of human misery comes to his mind when he is standing on the Dover Beach at night:
The sea is calm tonight.
The tide is full, the moon lies fair
Upon the straits; on the French coast the light
Gleams and is gone; the cliffs of England stand,
Glimmering and vast, out in the tranquil bay.

Arnold loves and writes tenderly of birds and flowers. He has a whole poem on Philomela. The other birds that he mentions are the swallow, the rock, the nightingale, the blackbird and the cuckoo. He shows a botanist’s sense for flowers and views them keen eye. The blue convolvulus, the scented poppy, the frail-leafed white the dark-blue bell, the white roses and lilies, the musk carnation, the chestnut and the snapdragon, the cowslip and the daffodil, the May-flower and the primrose - they and others brighten and perfume the poetry of Arnold.

Rivers have been used both significantly and symbolically by Arnold— The Thames, the Nile, the Rhone, The Aar, the Oxus, the Murghab, the Helmond are present in his poetry besides lakes and seas. They beautify and brighten the background, but at times he invests them with symbolic significance.

Wordsworth had influenced him very much. Arnold echoes the sentiments of Wordsworth in his poetry. He has the same devotion for Nature as Wordsworth himself. But there is an essential difference between the viewpoints of the two poets. Wordsworth’s approach to nature is essentially ethical; Arnold’s approach is scientific; for him Nature is Matter in motion taking a plentiful variety of forms, obeying certain fixed laws. Secondly, Wordsworth touches her mild and beneficent aspects; Arnold deals with both the lovely and the terrible aspects of Nature. Again, Wordsworth speaks of the holy plan and healing power of Nature; Arnold believes in nature’s capacity to assuage the discontent and unrest of human beings, but he finds no key human mystery there; he cannot see nature as the fountain-head of hope, joy and light. As Hugh Walker has pointed out, “Arnold has Wordsworth’s calm, but neither his cheerfulness, nor his detachment.  Wordsworth lives and thinks with the hills for his sole companions, but Arnold never rests in Nature alone. In place of the steady optimism of Wordsworth we have in Arnold the sense that a destiny so rarely yielding great results as life of man,
Though bearable seems hardly worth
This poop of worlds, this pain of birth”.

Key Discussions:

Nature and its Description in Matthew Arnold’s Poetry: A Contrast to William Wordsworth

Arnold's Perspective:
  1. Arnold's nature descriptions reflect a more critical and somber outlook.
  2. He often portrays nature as a source of solace amidst the complexities of modern life.
Urban Influence:
  1. Arnold's poems often incorporate urban settings and the impact of industrialization.
  2. Nature serves as a counterbalance to the artificiality of urban existence.
Intellectual Contemplation:
  1. Arnold's nature descriptions are marked by intellectual reflection.
  2. He contemplates philosophical and existential themes in nature's presence.
Wordsworth's Romanticism:
  1. Wordsworth's nature poetry emphasizes a spiritual connection with nature.
  2. He celebrates the inherent beauty and purity of the natural world.
Sentiment vs. Intellect:
  1. While Wordsworth's approach is more sentimental, Arnold's nature descriptions reflect his intellectual engagement.
  2. Arnold's views offer a distinct contrast to Wordsworth's Romantic idealism.
Matthew Arnold's nature descriptions deviate from Wordsworth's romantic portrayal, reflecting a more contemplative and intellectually engaged perspective that considers nature's role within a changing society.

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