HEMINGWAY’S HONESTY AND THE TRAGEDY OF A FAREWELL TO ARMS

Abstract

In his writing, Ernest Hemingway made frequent use of the word ‘honesty’. ‘Honesty’ is, however, an ambiguous term, and it is not an entirely simple task to figure out exactly what Hemingway meant when he used it. In this essay one of the objectives will be to seek to understand and establish a definition of the ‘honesty’ which Hemingway employed in his writing. During his lifetime, Hemingway indicated more than once that his novel A Farewell to Arms was meant as a tragedy. This notion has, over the years, been largely ignored by critics due to the fact that the novel does not fit into the category of tragedy as defined by Aristotle. Another objective of this essay, therefore, will be to examine A Farewell to Arms closely in order to see whether the novel can be said to create a tragic effect. The final and main objective of the essay will be to connect Hemingway’s ‘honesty’ with the tragedy of A Farewell to Arms to understand in what way, as I believe it does, the former contributes toward the latter.