Disillusionment With War

Paper Summary:

The paper highlights Hemingway's theme of disillusionment that is best articulated in his short story "Soldier's Home," but also present in his novels "A Farewell to Arms" and "The Sun Also Rises". The paper shows how in each of these stories, the effects of war play a large part in the main character's inability to assimilate into society, remain happy or pursue a meaningful existence after the war.

From the Paper:

"Like contemporaries William Faulkner and John Steinbeck, Ernest Hemingway was a member of what Gertrude Stein termed "the lost generation"--disillusioned, young men returning from World War I. Pulled out of a 1900s United States populated with patriotic, naive families and young men and women with delusions of heroism, American soldiers came back to the United States haunted by visions of war and unable to reassemble with their contemporaries. Hemingway was no different. Although he was unable to join the United States Army because of vision problems, the young author served in the Red Cross Ambulance core after leaving a short newspaper career. (He served as a journalist again before pursuing fiction after the war.) But the ambulance core was not much milder than active combat. The shocks Hemingway received from seeing the wounds and remains of fallen soldiers never left him."

Sample of Sources Used:

• Hemingway, Ernest. "Soldier's Home." Literature: An Introduction to Reading and Writing. Eds. Edgar V. Roberts and Henry E. Jacobs. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1998. 294-299.
• Hemingway, Ernest. A Farewell to Arms. New York: Charles Scribner, 1929.
• Hemingway, Ernest. The Sun Also Rises. New York: Scribner, 1995.

More papers on Disillusionment With War:

• Analytical Essay # 65026 : "Vietnam War Literature"
• Analytical Essay # 7788 : "A Rumor Of War"
• Comparison Essay # 60606 : "Commercialism and Idealism in Post-War American Writing"

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