《英美经典小说及其影视欣赏》电子课件.doc

Lecture ThirteenA Farewell to Arms I. Introduction to HemingwayErnest Hemingway was born on July 21, 1899, in Oak Park, Illinois. His father was the owner of a prosperous real estate business. The father was a man of high ideals, very strict and censored the books he allowed his children to read. His mother considered herself pure and proper. She was a dreamer who was upset at anything which disturbed her perception of the world as beautiful. She taught her children to always act with decorum. She adored the singing of the birds and the smell of flowers. Her children were expected to behave properly and to please her always. When he was a small boy, the mother treated him as if he were a female baby doll and she dressed him accordingly. He began to pull away from his mother and never forgave her for his humiliation. The town of Oak Park was very old fashioned and quite religious. He loved to fish, canoe and explore the woods. When he couldn't get outside, he escaped to his room and read books. He loved to tell stories to his classmates, often insisting that a friend listen to one of his stories. In spite of his mother's desire, he played on the football team at Oak Park High School.As a student, Ernest was a perfectionist about his grammar and studied English with a fervor. He loved the sea, mountains and the stars and hated anyone who he saw as a phony. During World War I, he rejected from service because of a bad left eye and became an ambulance driver in Italy for the Red Cross. Very much like the hero of A Farewell to Arms, Ernest is shot in his knee and recuperates in a hospital, tended by a caring nurse named Agnes. Like Frederick Henry in the book, he fell in love with the nurse and was given a medal for his heroism. Ernest returned home after the war and was rejected by the nurse with whom he fell in love. He wrote articles for The Toronto Star. In Chicago he met and then married Hadley Richardson. She believed that he should spend all his time writing, and bought him a typewriter for his birthday. They decided that the best place for a writer to live was Paris, where he could devote himself to his writing. They could not live on income from his stories. So he again wrote for The Toronto Star. He took his wife to Italy to show her where he had been during the war. He was devastated. Everything had changed and was destroyed. Hadley became pregnant and was sick all the time. She and Ernest decided to move to Canada. By then, he had written three stories and ten poems. Hadley gave birth to a boy. Even though he had his family, Ernest was unhappy and decided to return to Paris. It was in Paris that Ernest got word that a publisher wanted to print his book, In Our Time, but with some changes. The publisher felt that the sex was too blatant, but Ernest refused to change one word. Around 1925, Ernest started writing a novel about a young man in World War I, but had to stop after a few pages, and proceeded to write another novel, instead. This novel based on his experiences while living in Spain was The Sun Also Rises. In 1927, Ernest found himself unhappy with his wife and son. They decided to divorce and he married Pauline, a woman he had been involved with while he was married to Hadley. A year later, Ernest was able to complete his war novel A Farewell to Arms. At age 31 he wrote Death in the Afternoon, about bullfighting in his beloved Spain. Ernest was a restless man; he traveled all over the United States, Europe, Cuba and Africa. At age 37 Ernest met the woman who would be his third wife; Martha , a writer like himself. He went to Spain to become an "antiwar correspondent", and found that war was like a club where everyone was playing the same game, and he was never lonely. Martha went to Spain as a war correspondent and they lived together. He knew that he was hurting Pauline, but could not stop himself from getting involved with women. In 1940 he wrote For Whom the Bell Tolls and dedicated it to Martha, whom he married at the end of that year. It was at this time that Ernest, always a drinker, started drinking most of his days away. He would host wild, fancy parties and did not write at all during the next three years. At war's end, Ernest went to England and met an American foreign correspondent named Mary Welsh. He divorced Martha and married Mary in Havana, in 1946.Ernest wrote The Old Man and the Sea in only two months. He was on top of the world. The book was printed by Life Magazine and thousands of copies were sold in the United States. This novel and A Farewell to Arms were both made into movies.In 1954 he won the Nobel Prize for Literature. Toward the end, Ernest started to travel again, He became obsessed with sin. He never got over feeling like a bad person. In the last year of his life, he lived inside of his dreams. He was suicidal and had electric shock treatments for his depression and strange behavior. On a Sunday morning, July 2, 1961, Ernest Miller Hemingway killed himself with a shotgun. II. Main plot of A Farewell to Arms Henry is a young American ambulance driver serving in the Italian army during World War I. At the beginning of the novel, the war is winding down with the onset of winter, and Henry arranges to tour Italy. The following spring, upon his return to the front, Henry meets Catherine, an English nurses aide at the nearby British hospital His friend Rinaldi quickly fades from the picture as Catherine and Henry becomes involved in an elaborate game of seduction. Grieving the recent death of her fiancé, Catherine longs for love so deeply that she will settle for the illusion of it. Her passion, even though pretended, wakens a desire for emotional interaction in Henry, whom the war has left coolly detached and numb.Henry learns happily that Catherine has been transferred to Milan and begins his recuperation under her care. During the following months, his relationship with Catherine intensifies. No longer simply a game in which they exchange empty promises and playful kisses, their love becomes powerful and real. As the lines between scripted and genuine emotions begin to blur, Henry and Catherine become tangled in their love for each other.Once Henrys damaged leg has healed, the army grants him three weeks convalescence leave, after which he is scheduled to return to the front. He tries to plan a trip with Catherine, who reveals to him that she is pregnant. As they part, Catherine and Henry pledge their mutual devotion.Henry travels to the front, where Italian forces are losing ground and manpower daily. Soon after Henrys arrival, a bombardment begins. When word comes that German troops are breaking through the Italian lines, the Allied forces prepare to retreat. Henry leads his team of ambulance drivers into the great column of evacuating troops. The men pick up two engineering sergeants and two frightened young girls on their way. Henry and his drivers then decide to leave the column and take secondary roads, which they assume will be faster. When one of their vehicles bogs down in the mud, Henry orders the two engineers to help in the effort to free the vehicle. When they refuse, he shoots one of them. The drivers continue in the other trucks until they get stuck again. They send off the young girls and continue on foot toward Udine. As they march, one of the drivers is shot dead by the easily frightened rear guard of the Italian army. Another driver marches off to surrender himself, while Henry and the remaining driver seek refuge at a farmhouse. When they rejoin the retreat the following day, chaos has broken out: soldiers, angered by the Italian defeat, pull commanding officers from the melee and execute them on sight. The battle police seize Henry, who, at a crucial moment, breaks away and dives into the river. After swimming a safe distance downstream, Henry boards a train bound for Milan. He hides beneath a tarp that covers stockpiled artillery, thinking that his obligations to the war effort are over and dreaming of his return to Catherine.Henry reunites with Catherine in the town of Stresa. From there, the two escape to safety in Switzerland, rowing all night in a tiny borrowed boat. They settle happily in a lovely alpine town called Montreux and agree to put the war behind them forever. Although Henry is sometimes plagued by guilt for abandoning the men on the front, the two succeed in living a beautiful, peaceful life. When spring arrives, the couple moves to Lausanne so that they can be closer to the hospital. Early one morning, Catherine goes into labor. The delivery is exceptionally painful and complicated. Catherine delivers a stillborn baby boy and, later that night, dies of a hemorrhage. Henry stays at her side until she is gone. He attempts to say goodbye but cannot. He walks back to his hotel in the rain.III. Selected Reading19"It's raining hard.""And you'll always love me, won't you?""Yes.""And the rain won't make any difference?""No.""That's good. Because I'm afraid of the rain.""Why?" I was sleepy. Outside the rain was falling steadily."I don't know, darling. I've always been afraid of the rain.""I like it.""I like to walk in it. But it's very hard on loving.""I'll love you always.""I'll love you in the rain and in the snow and in the hail and- what else is there?""I don't know. I guess I'm sleepy.""Go to sleep, darling, and I'll love you no matter how it is.""You're not really afraid of the rain, are you?""Not when I'm with you.""Why are you afraid of it?""I don't know.""Tell me.""Don't make me.""Tell me.""No.""Tell me.""All right. I'm afraid of the rain because sometimes I see me dead in it.""No.""And sometimes I see you dead in it.""That's more likely.""No, it's not, darling. Because I can keep you safe. I know I can. But nobody can help themselves.""Please stop it. I don't want you to get Scotch and crazy tonight. We won't be together much longer.""No, but I am Scotch and crazy. But I'll stop it. It's all nonsense.""Yes it's all nonsense.""It's all nonsense. It's only nonsense. I'm not afraid of the rain. I'm not afraid of the rain. Oh, oh, God, I wish I wasn't." She was crying. I comforted her and she stopped crying. But outside it kept on raining.30They were executing officers of the rank of major and above who were separated from their troops. They were also dealing summarily with German agitators in Italian uniform. They wore steel helmets. Only two of us had steel helmets. Some of the carabinieri had them. The other carabinieri wore the wide hat. Airplanes we called them. We stood in the rain and were taken out one at a time to be questioned and shot. So far they had shot every one they had questioned. They were questioning a full colonel of a line regiment. Three more officers had just been put in with us."Where was his regiment?"I looked at the carabinieri. They were looking at the newcomers. The others were looking at the colonel. I ducked down, pushed between two men, and ran for the river, my head down. I tripped at the edge and went in with a splash. The water was very cold and I stayed under as long as I could. I could feel the current swirl me and I stayed under until I thought I could never come up. The minute I came up I took a breath and went down again. It was easy to stay under with so much clothing and my boots. When I came up the second time I saw a piece of timber ahead of me and reached it and held on with one hand. I kept my head behind it and did not even look over it. I did not want to see the bank. There were shots when I ran and shots when I came up the first time. I heard them when I was almost above water. There were no shots now. The piece of timber swung in the current and I held it with one hand. I looked at the bank. It seemed to be going by very fast. There was much wood in the stream. The water was very cold. We passed the brush of an island above the water. I held onto the timber with both hands and let it take me along. The shore was out of sight now.34"Don't you want the paper? You always wanted the paper in the hospital?""No," I said. "I don't want the paper now.""Was it so bad you don't want even to read about it?""I don't want to read about it.""I wish I had been with you so I would know about it too.""I'll tell you about it if I ever get it straight in my head.""But won't they arrest you if they catch you out of uniform?""They'll probably shoot me.""Then we'll not stay here. We'll get out of the country.""I'd thought something of that.""We'll get out. Darling, you shouldn't take silly chances. Tell me how did you come from Mestre to Milan?""I came on the train. I was in uniform then.""Weren't you in danger then?""Not much. I had an old order of movement. I fixed the dates on it in Mestre.""Darling, you're liable to be arrested here any time. I won't have it. It's silly to do something like that. Where would we be if they took you off?""Let's not think about it. I'm tired of thinking about it.""What would you do if they came to arrest you?""Shoot them.""You see how silly you are, I won't let you go out of the hotel until we leave here.""Where are we going to go?""Please don't be that way, darling. We'll go wherever you say. But please find some place to go right away.""Switzerland is down the lake, we can go there.""That will be lovely."It was clouding over outside and the lake was darkening."I wish we did not always have to live like criminals," I said."Darling, don't be that way. You haven't lived like a criminal very long. And we never live like criminals. We're going to have a fine time.""I feel like a criminal. I've deserted from the army.""Darling, please be sensible. It's not deserting from the army. It's only the Italian army."37They arrested us after breakfast. We took a little walk through the village then went down to the quay to get our bags. A soldier was standing guard over the boat."Is this your boat?""Yes.""Where do you come from?""Up the lake.""Then I have to ask you to come with me.""How about the bags?""You can carry the bags."I carried the bags and Catherine walked beside me and the soldier walked along behind us to the old custom house. In the custom house a lieutenant, very thin and military, questioned us."What nationality are you?""American and British.""Let me see your passports."I gave him mine and Catherine got hers out of her handbag.He examined them for a long time."Why do you enter Switzerland this way in a boat?""I am a sportsman," I said. "Rowing is my great sport. I always row when I get a chance.""Why do you come here?""For the winter sport. We are tourists and we want to do the winter sport.""This is no place for winter sport.""We know it. We want to go where they have the winter sport.""What have you been doing in Italy?""I have been stu