This paper mainly analyzes Hemingway's short story through structuralism theory, and criticizes its objective, fair and impartial expression style. In fact, every sentence in his article is full of contempt and prejudice against women.
A very short story is a short story written by ernest hemingway. Like most of his works, the story is set during the First World War. The hero "He" was injured and hospitalized. The heroine "Luz" is a nurse in this field hospital. They fell in love and wanted to start a family, but failed to get married for one reason or another. Soon he recovered from his injury and went to the front again. After the war, after discussion, they decided that "he" would go back to China to find a good job and wait until everything was stable before getting married. She stayed in Pordonone and opened a clinic. During this period, an Italian major stationed here proposed to Luz. So "Luz" wrote to disown "him", but in the end the major didn't marry her. "He" was infected with gonorrhea because of a salesgirl.
Literally, the narrator is impartial, without any personal opinions and comments, presenting a simple and clear context for readers: a woman in easy virtue, a woman who is not worthy of the love of infatuated men at all. "He" expressed deep sympathy: as a man, both love failed. His beautiful pursuit of love ended in gonorrhea, which was both sad and ridiculous in the face of fate. Hemingway firmly believes that man is not born defeated, but can only be destroyed. However, the "he" in the story was not only destroyed, but also defeated. In this way, a war hero was defeated by the war and also by a woman with physical and mental disabilities. This is probably what the author wants to interpret. However, through further analysis of the text, we get a completely different explanation.
Men and women meet, fall in love and are ready to get married, but the invisible hand of war separates them, and then because of various coincidences, they finally fly apart. This is a typical Hemingway model. The whole story is expressed in an objective third person, and the narrator only presents the story to the reader, without the preference of the hero and heroine. So, is the author really fair and objective in the narrative of the whole story?
When analyzing narrative texts, we should distinguish between stories and words. The story is a narrative written text, while the discourse is a persuasive oral discourse. The story is the past, talking about him and her, while the words are the present, involving you and me. In fictional texts, we can always find some characteristics of the story: such as the narrative of events, time and place; You can always find the shadow of some words: evaluation, reflection, language to convince readers as authors or narrators.
A short story, told in the third person, the hero doesn't even have a name. Hemingway tried to tell only stories and eliminate any didactic color. In a short story, there are only a few key words, such as Padua, Tuo, Searchlight, Duty, Operation, Frontline and Armistice, which provide readers with some basic concepts to understand the story, such as battlefield hospitals, nurses, soldiers and the First World War. But there are few words to express the feelings and opinions of the author or narrator. Why does the author write stories like this? Obviously, he tried to hide some emotions. He was afraid to reveal his true thoughts, but did he do it?
He is a typical male image in Hemingway's works: strong-willed, self-controlled, taciturn and very masculine. At the beginning of the story, he was seriously injured and underwent surgery, but he "held on to him" instead of "saying nothing". After a little recovery, when she could walk with crutches, she kindly helped Luz take the patient's temperature to avoid the pain of getting up in the middle of the night. After the armistice, he returned to America. In order to please the woman he loves, he gave up all enjoyment and just wanted to find a job and get married. But he was cheated. Lutz betrayed him. However, from beginning to end, we never heard a word from him. He didn't complain, didn't blame, and silently suffered all the injuries, whether physical or mental. From the article, we can't seem to find any other clues to expose his feelings, except that Luz "quarreled" with her when he didn't want to go home with him right away, and said goodbye a little "sadly" in the quarrel!
But from the author's wording, we can perceive the emotional trajectory of "he". In the first paragraph, "she is cool and fresh on a hot night" does not mean that Luz thinks it is "cool and fresh". If so, "was" should be changed to "felt". So this sentence means that Luz looks "cool and fresh", and "he" is deeply attracted by Luz's coolness and vitality. After he went to the front again, Lutz kept writing to him, reliving the good times in the hospital and her love for him. Ironically, he only received these enthusiastic letters after the war. The author did not describe his instinctive reaction when he received these letters. In my opinion, these letters full of happiness and love should have been his spiritual pillar in wartime. If he had received these letters in time, he might have had less pain and despair on the battlefield. However, the author deliberately prevented him from receiving these letters, which made him hate women. After all the pain and suffering, receiving these letters made him feel that women are still lovely and reliable. But this feeling was only temporary, and soon his expectations fell through. Lutz doesn't want to go home with him and get married right away. Obviously, he felt disappointed and annoyed. Finally, Lutz's breakup letter arrived, and the author told him to keep silent. In fact, his heart is full of hatred and revenge, because he "never" replied that he had sex with a "sales girl".
In addition, roland barthes believes that all languages are self-closed systems based on binary, and their meanings are realized through differences. Text is just a piece of information (parrot-like), which must be interpreted by appropriate symbols that form the basis of the whole system (language). Barthes believes that only by recognizing the symbols or binary system in the text can the information to be expressed in the text be interpreted. In a very short story,
The most important binary opposition is "He" and Lutz. He is quiet, but Luz is not. He certainly didn't want to "leak", but they wanted "everyone to know" about their relationship. Obviously, that means Lutz wants others to know about their relationship. When he went to the front again, Lutz wrote him a letter. But the article didn't mention whether he wrote to her. Lutz's letter is long and exaggerated: "It's all about the hospital, how much she loves him, how can she live without him, and how terrible it is to miss him at night." . Why does the author adopt such a narrative style that he rarely uses: how to repeat, exaggerate the impossible and terrible, and so many sums? In the last letter, Lutz just repeatedly said that their relationship was just "the love of a boy and a girl" and said "love him as always", but their breakup was "the best choice". Similarly, Lutz also used very exaggerated "absolute" and "unexpected". Hemingway himself said, "If you talk about it, you lose it." . Lutz said so much that he had to expose himself to the readers without reservation. In his or the author's mind, all descriptions of Luz show that women are unreliable, irresponsible, indifferent and hypocritical, and like to sing high-profile songs.
Although Luz's "cool and fresh" brought him some temporary happiness, she forced him to give up drinking and making friends. ("This is Underwood. He can't drink. He doesn't want to see his friends or anyone in America." Obviously, it is not that he doesn't want to, but that he is forced, because as a man, he must find a decent job to support his family. Lutz finally abandoned him. It was because Luz hurt him that he tried to get revenge. He had sex with a salesgirl but got gonorrhea. He completely collapsed. All this is caused by Luz and the salesgirl. A strong man is not defeated by war, but destroyed by a woman.
So what happened to Luz? That officer didn't marry her! The author did not mention the reason why the major refused the marriage, but made it clear that the major "had sex with Luz". Could the major be another "he"? Did he get gonorrhea and have to give up this marriage? Maybe. Then the major becomes a victim of women.
As can be seen from the above analysis, the female characters in this article are in an extremely unfavorable position. The text is full of the protagonist's anger and revenge. All this shows that ernest hemingway, who is generally recognized as objective and fair, is also a biased and flawed person, just like us ordinary people.