Literature
When reading a text, look for;
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Representations of particular groups (gender, race, ethnicity, age)
Social commentary
Interpersonal relationship ‘human experience, emotions or traits
Power relationships
Endeavour or struggle
WHO – are people in text, who might they represent in real world
WHAT – events are taking place in the text and what might they represent in the real world
WHERE and WHEN – is the text set and what context does it represent in the real world
WHY – has the writer represented these aspects in this way and what purpose might this
serve in the real world
HOW – has the writer used language and generic conventions to aid this understanding
Close reading scaffold
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Scaffold – way of supporting / structuring your argument
Close reading essay format
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Introduction
o 4 – 5 sentences
o Strategic focus + ideas in details + techniques (How) (just be vague; say literary
techniques and generic devices) + outcomes (why)
 General statements – three types
 Are strategic statements; have to be very specific
o What is going to open up your discussion
 1. Genre – make use of the gear and how that genre applies; e.g.
australian short story;
o More for techniques analysis for language and techiniques
o E.g. australian contemporary prose aims to shape the
readers / has the power to shape thee readers impression of
australian contemporary identity
o E.g. Ancient greek tragedy often taps into the hearts of
human nature; our strengths and our falls
o E.g. gothic literature borrows elements from southern and
English gothic lit to subvert and reveal the darkest
underbelly of australian society
o Modernist war time literature was reactionary to the
romantic war lit that glorified the hero and death and war,
instead modernist lit subverted these assumptions and
sheds a new light on the atrocities and death.
 2. Context –
o More for ideas, history
o E.g. Australia in the 19th century was a harsh and
unforgiving place, a place where a man would fight to
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Ideas
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How
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survive against nature and woman would fight to survive
against men.
3. Mode – 3 modes; written (books, literature), audible (poetry and
sound), audio visual / handwritten (drama)
o For a specific technical driven essays
o E.g. language has the power to invoke strong connections
between landscape and identity/ written language has the
power to transport readers into a world outside their own.
Ideological – talking about the topic itself
o E.g. Australia has a long and dark history of dispossession
and marginalisation of indigenous people
o Like a context statement but bringing in a issue to the front
of the essay
o E.g. the Great War has always been glorified as a
instrumental part of a nations identity; it’s victories, its
hero’s, it’s romances and stories have formed a large part of
pro-war literature, however modernist writer such as Ernest
Hemingway have sought to subvert and challenge these
romanticism of war, by representing a pacifist version of
these experiences
More than just a single word;
o Australian lit aims to / has the power to / can work to/
functions as
o Flesh out your ideas; more than just one word, describe it
 Make the literature do something
 E.g. australian literature aims to transport readers
into the natural landscapes that are iconic and
integral to the australian cultural identity/ the
extract from Danny howlers turn to dust, represents
the australian landscape as a aincent, evolving work
of art; a powerful space that shifts and move
overtime; a landscape that forms a fundamental
part of a individual indentity, where they both feel
like they belong to it but are not apart of it.
 E.g. Henry lawson’s rough shed construct the
landscape as an unforgiving space, unforgiving place
where the harsh environment forces men to survive
and battle against the elements. It shows how the
landscape is a barren space that not only destroy life
but hopes and dreams and identity. Ultimately it is a
place that transcends time, as it seems to go on and
on forever
Always mention this!
Generic conventions –
o Australian prose
 construction of setting
 Construction of characters
 Generic conventions – setting, plot, characters
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Literary devices – techniques associated with
language – similes, metaphors
Language – specific word ; colloquial, specific
connotations, discourse
Stylistic choices – what does the text look like, how
is the text stylised to achieve the purpose (more
apparent in poetry)
 Structure and manipulation of it structure
and layout
 E.g. stylistically it is repetitive
Aesthetic – the way the text feels; tone, images;
associated with the type of pictures it construct –
symbols
 More to do with the image
 E.g. henry lawsons text is a gritty text, it
conjures images of death and barrenness
Why?
 What work is this text performing and why was it produced?
o A rough shed performs cultural work; bringing people into
the Australian origin story; placing itself amongst the
cannon of australian literature; conjuring up images that
make up australian literature; normalising archetypes that
live in australian culture
Body paragraphs
o Topic sentences
 Are crucial
 Make them specific and active – needs to be doing something
 Also gives you your concluding sentence
 E.g. the short story reveals a fundamental character within the
Australian cultural narrative; that of the nurturing and protective
mother
 E.g. the text construct the nurturing, protective mothers and allows
her to dies to amplify both her significance and vulnerability
 E.g. the rough shed construct a harsh unforgiving landscape or insert
this imagery into the popular consciousness of australian
geographical identity; constructs the desert and outback as a crucial
part of australian landscape
o Macro evidence & Micro evidence
 State the macro evidence and then use the micro to explain the macro
 Macro – is the big stuff
 Start with the most obvious things in the text
 Repetition,
 Micro – is the small, scattered stuff or the effects of it
 The tone of the narrator
 Aim to have one quote; with both a macro and micro evidence
 E.g. “dirty, dusty and a devils den” Macro - those words are literal that
connote discomfort and negativity, micro -9 it also alliteration to connect
them together
 E.g. “from the sky is a country is a sea,, a swirling petrified sea…” Macro –
literal image of the ocean (visual imagery) Micro – Syballance (create a
rhythm of endless motion)
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E.g. the text says this word / this motif is stated/ the sentence starts with an
image of this and continues for x amount of words – To show how one idea
is constant when you have little to no proof (micro)
 Henry Lawson invests an entire/ half of the story establishing the
landscape to show
The idea
The implications
Conclusions
o What is the implications of this text
 E.g. Henry Lawson is painting a picture of the rough aust landscape,
establishing the aust archetypes as fundamental characters of the australian
story
 Ernest Hemingway’s text challenges the dominant. Expectations and
perceptions of war, which are abeing felt today; there are no longer
countries and people fighting for war after. He has shown us the
implications of war. Ultimately Ernest Hemingway uses literature to orevent
war from happening in the future
Personal considerations
o This text has changed my values and beliefs; makes me see the common connection
of how we value our land so much
Landscape, identity, family, masculinity, gender
How do australian text operate
They are image reliant ; rely a lot on visual, allusions, connections (=they main mention
colloquial spaces; “I’m driving down to busso”
Characters are a signify of a part of australian identity (one aspect)
o Use characters as vessels; vehicles; mediators; representatives of a specific identity
Look at a lot of vernacular aust language
Sport celebrity; love especially those who have fallen from grace
Australian stories – returning home, going to the bush, finding your sense of self, realigning
yourself with the wilderness,
Making full use of evidence
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For every single point that you have;
Example
o Subversion of the archetypal hero’s journal and the masculine identity associated
with the hero’s journey
o Macro - what situation / scene / part of the novel does this happen
 In chapter 4 or. R or 10
 The hero’s narrative often starts with a call to adv entire and a
clearly defined purpose. Fredricks position in the army is
questioned.
 When he rips of the stars on his jacket, hen the nurse asks him why
are you here
 The characterisation of fredric starts with them questioning his
identity in the army
o When the nurse asks him why he is in the Italian war
o All the fake hints people are doing
o Micro evidence
 I the conversation, the interrogative question,
questions his purpose in the military, when the
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ambulance is doing fine without him. Through the
narritative perspective of fredric, the war continues
without him
Fredric keeps on escaping, defecting; the war
continues around him
Repeated motif that diminish his hero’s purpose is
his escapism
 Removed from action through injury
 Escape too Swiss lakes, cafes, bar , through
brothels and alcoholism
 He rips off the stars on his uniform; this is
not a hero called to action, this is a hero
who accidentally fell into action, thus
subverting the general idea of the hero’s
journey
How literature represents / orchestrates Australian identity
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This texts construct, represents identity, cultural narrative, myths, traditions, stomps,habits,
archetypes, canonises, reinforces poplar ways of thinking, may challenge popular ways f
thinking, establishes countries way of thinking
Done - through generic conventions, literary, language syntax structure
Allows a nature / culture to identify itself, sheds new light on our historical past, frames aust
history in a Eurocentric manner, private’s a Eurocentric version of the Australian cultural
narrative
Think of aust text as doing work for aust
How to make argument against text and people
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Where you live changes who you are and what you become
o E.g rough and hard land makes rough and hard men who have to battle
o Barren landscape = people become barren and destroys hopes and dreams and
religious identity
o Harsh environment creates men who must survive
o Henry uses th landscape to mediates the identity of Australian men
Establishes
o Australian story
o We are a battling nation as we are a nation that works hard, toils, because it is in our
blood
o In absurd circumstances we can turn to our hardships and laugh
How do Aussie texts represent Aussie’s
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Look at representation of culture support ideologies
How language represents the ideas
How representation of past allows a nation or culture to represent itself in todays
society
How Australian literature constructs the Australian landscape
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Literature construct sociology-cultural and geographical landscapes
Australian landscape is associated with the rural and pastoral scape
Australian landscape is represented in rural or country or suburban in literature
Australian texts shape the cultural narrative or collective understanding / counciousness by
repeating the image; barren, hot, dry, brutal, fierce, isolated, outcast
CLOSE READING – Australian text and discourse: the magical art of
decrypting scrolls reform Terran nullius
Australian history and its myths and laws
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(Google important pivotal moments of colonisation – when aust was first invaded or when it
was first settled)
o This tells us that anything written about aust is written in a post-colonial context – it
is Eurocentric / Anglo centric
o Offers us the Eurocentric / angle centric version of aust – white version
o Comes with a bunch of ideal values ‘ attitudes that stem from our precolonial past
 People who came to aust – convicts, people who sought a new home,
refugees, asylum seekers
 Shows that aust is a country full of rejects and defects and a country
of outsiders
o Everything was about man vs nature, human vs self, human
vs human and human with human (collective space; work
together to survive)
o You find people struggling about identity, sense of
belonging, trying to figure out ho they are
The Great War
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Brought about the digger – quintessential aust soldier
o Come from miners, gold mines
Aust cultural narrative – rags to riches
Aust is a country trying to find itself
o Despite aust losing at Gallipoli, they managed to signify their identity as a nation by
participating in war
There was a sudden influx of Europeans after war – 1980’s
Aust cultural narrative shifts with history —> aust texts shift and change and move with
history
Literary movements
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writers were realist – Henry Lawson, arbors Bryson -> they were not shy about the harsh
landscape and bushes
o show harsh reality of living in Australia to a British audience
Writers who tried to beautify Australia
1970’s – 1980’s there were more post modern texts -> texts that challenged, offers
alternative voice, ideas —> aim to dig deeper into the soul of Australia
What does literature do for us as a nation?
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Lit helps form identity and identity helps form literature
How does a country create an identity when it comes from nothing?
 They create archetypes;
 The digger
 Aussie battler t
 The ranger
 The laricun
 These are all masculine identities
Aust archetype hero is masculine -> masculine space (nature, out door cooking, chopping
wood) (exploration if what it means to be an Aussie man
Literature + Australia
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People who created the party – the British
o E.g. drovers wife – came from a Victorian family and has forgotten who her family is
The local aussies
The new Aussie
The native; indignous – welcomed by some, shunned by many
Working class person
Internationalist – friends with the family but is there by association
Immigrant – Irish, Italian, Asian
Different characters can rep difference parts of Australia; race, class, context
 What happens to them tells you the rules and stuff that exist in Australia
society
 E.g. the tyrannical father in jasper jojnes, his house burns down and
he is escorted into this shame.
o This tells you Australia has no place for these tyrannical,a
bus I’ve characters
 Jeffrey woo at his victory at the end of the cricket match, shows how
immigrants are finally being accepted into Australia
 Charlie represents a modern new Australia, has lost its innocence
but has gained a new identity
 Ruth, a skank who runs off – represents a repressed part of
australian feminine identity that is now finding her own self of
agency in this world.
o Done by transgressing the traditional ideals that are forced
upon her —> a new women
Landscape –
Person – tell you about the person and parts of aust that person may represent; class, event
in history, archetype
Plot – could signify the motions that have happened in Australia
o E.g. Death of Laura wishart signals the loss of Australia’s innnonce, releasing to the
death of people -> she is the poster child for domestic violence, rape, abuse (hidden
underbelly secret of Australia)
A farewell to arms
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Form of historical fiction
Form of historical fiction
Fiction isn’t fact – based upon fact
o Farewell to act, acts as a standing for fact
Hyperfiction and hyperarchetypal of characters
Work ti performs is just as significant as history because;
o It emotionalally bond you to a text
During the time, if he didn’t go to war, you would be shamed
o Boys would go to prove themselves
o Propaganda —> go to war, become a boy, bang a chick and come back home
How does Ernest Hemingway portray that to us
o Portrays in modernist sense -> bleak
o Uses comedy —> making fun of the priest
Characters in the story become symbols of groups of people in history
o Pripest – rep the church and people who believe god
o Soldiers – rep new generation of people who disregard religion; mock the priest
o Satirical tone shows this
o Ernest Hemingway subverts the importance of religion during the world war;
diminishing the significance of religion in modern world through the mockery of the
priest.
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Modernism
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n 1800s authors and poets and singer writer often expressed ideas in romantic style
Would accentuate the beauty of life and society
Towards the ends of 1800 and early 1900, society progressed through industrial revolution
and war occurred and so authors were trying to present these experiences in a modern light
Romanticism and war – ancient stories of war (David and Goliath) Is romanticised, shows
how war build a man and turns them into a hero, war is for the Valor and victory of your
country and your people, war is something to be held up as something important for the
preservation of your nation.
Modernist think war is destructive, sad, pointless, destroys you, turns men into boys,
displaces you, is futile, takes you to hell
Expects traditional assumptions to be subverted, in each chapter; what is being shown and
what is being challenged in relation to traditional and romantic narrative of war
Modernist writer aim to present a fresh take on ideas
o Romantic – boy goes to war comes back as a man
o Modernism – man goes to war comes back as a baby, a boy, in aspirated
Modernist texts shed a new light on ways to think about war
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Romanticised texts - they are militaristic, propagandist, they were nationalist, they were
ideas of upholding your sense of identity and heroism -. Connected to hedigmonistic
masculinity
Reading – text has a pssisifictic reading (anti war)
Has a subversive outcome – has modernism and anti-war
Religion
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War + Europe
o Religion is important
o God, was thbe reason why civil war was fought
o In many parts of Europe, religion wa seaport of their identity; faith was apart;
Catholic Church; Protestant
o In Ernest Hemingway, he was apart of the lost generation —> experienced the
ravages of war
 How is thee a god in such an atrocity area; with cholera, war,
 Was questions about faith and religion
 A priest gets mocked -> he is a symbol of the church and religion
 The attitudes that the soldiers have towards the priest signifies a
new generation of people who uphold religion to a very low state
 They all simultaneously respect the priest but disregard the priest;
they simultaneously have a mutual bond with the priest but they
mock him
 Fredrick is the at his most vulnerable and calm self when he is
talking to the priest; moments when he understands religion but
then loses that understanding
 Ernest Hemingway is saying this is the story of the modern world;
after all these atrocities, they turned to hedonists; woman, win, sex,
alcohol
Analysing a farewell to arms
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General idea one
o Establishing patterns in story
 How I treat my characters, says a lot about the groups that they belong to
 Priest is getting picked on; every single night it’s the priest against
the soldiers
 Implies that christians and priest are done – “all thinking men are
aetheist”
 Juxtaposition between all of them shouting over the priest, main
character trying to listen to the priest but also being dragged to go
to the whore house (end of ch2)
o Fredrick Henry rep th e men that are lost and trying to figure
out their identity; regards religion as an important part of
identity but also wants to go out and have fun
o Images of fertility and vitality.
o CH3 opens up in a romantic style
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Image of ch3 is beautiful but is accentuated with guns and war; Showa grow
you can’t avoid the real world
o I didn’t lose his virginity at the whorehoue; he lost it in Rome at the Cova (end of ch2
to start of ch3)
 “that was because it was first”
o Inserts real historical places to make the story real
o Didn’t go to Abruzzi 0 because sometimes you make plans, but stuff comes up
o Rinaldi – is gay?
o Satire – “since you are gone we have nothing but frostbites, chillblains, jaundice,
gonorrhea, self-inflected wounds, pneumonia and hard and soft chancreas”
o Goes to war and is trying to escape – a boy not ready for war; doesn’t go to Abruzzi
because hunting is like war, instead goes to café, and prosititues and a warm bed
 Speaks about the romanticism of sleeping with woman; intoxicating and
euphoric
o Europeans – flamboyant and drunk
Chapter 4 ending
o The ending is funny; very casual like your hanging out with your blokes; trying to pick
up girls at a bar
Chapter 5
o “there’s a war on you know” -> reminds you of the war; constantly reminding
readers that there is a war going on
o Micro – head nurse I questioning why he joined the army; he is trying to be Italian
but Italian beliefs, attitudes do not seem natural to him; thus questioning his
identity; makes reader realise he is fighting for a team he doesn’t fit in to
o Ernest spends a lot of time giving readers visual imagery of the war; describing it is a
structural aspect
o Typical romance novel -> would say romantic things and kiss but instead they talk
about the war
o The Mc and Catherine fight and make love; to escape from the war -> they get into a
relationship for mutual benefits -> he uses her for a physical benefit (sex) -> she uses
him for her psychological benefits to escape war and reminisce her ex.
o Mc thinks he can go into war and get any girl he wants but he gets a slap in the face
(literally)
o She kisses him while crying -> she knows their relationship is going to be weird
 Tears foreshadow the relationship and the future
 She is predicting the sadness of the relationship; motif of tears
means sadness and death
Chapter 9
o Destroys hero narrative
 Hero is injured by facing the beast, injured just before triumph
o Subvert hero, stoicism, masculinity, super heroic strength
o Hero’s fight for their life holding swords, rings -> Fredrick is holding cheese, risking
his life for cheese (literary irony). Hero defending the cheese
o Fredrick got blown up ad he felt his soul leave his body; the hero would normally
die, see themselves die and then go to heaven but the main character went back
into his body; you don’t escape the war even through death – metaphorical
o Masculinity – men become babies “..i heard somebody cry”, “mama Mia! Oh, mama
Mia”
o Syntax – makes war feel tense through short, direct sentences
o Uses the cheese as foreshadowing; shows them eating macaroni and cheese; the
cheese stretching represents the bones ad blood stretching, being broken
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The wine tasted like rust; blood taste like rust cause it has iron in it.
Subversion of Bildungsroman narrative
 Performing religion; wearing the Saint Anthony
 Go from fantasy romantic war love story that is punctuated by extreme
long verses, long streams fo councikousness of war
 Stylistic features -> short, sparse, fleeting
 Description of war -> Hemingway shows it is long and heavy and dense
 Romance is very fast and fleeting
 “There aren’t enough troops here for a real attack
Chapter 21
 Hemingway establishes the motif of autumn “the day were cool and the leaves on the
trees int the park began to colour and we knew the summer was gone”
 Metonim – uses names of places as substitutes for war; “they could not take it”
 Connotative metonim – “the horses were gone to Rome and there was no more racing “
– show the festival has ended; war has begun
 Idioms and suggestive language
 “ we were all cooked” – we are screwed -> shows sentiment of how the soldier felt
about the war
 Death escalates; beginning only 7,000 die, in chapter 21 one hundred and fifty thousand
have died -> shows how death is just a number, setting the rules
 Oxymoronic description -> “…delicate and refined distaste”
 Doctor is a thin man and is disgusted by war; even as a doctor he can’t deal with the
wounds from war
 Even medical institutions are poked at
 “…the foreign bodies were ugly, nasty and brutal” – schnarpal from bullets
 Performing the war hero narritive by lying about how many he killed – “…how many had
I killed? I had not killed any but I was anxious to please – and I said I has killed plenty”
 Jibe at medical institute – “three doctors came into the room. I have noticed that
doctors who fail in the practice of medicine have a tendency to seek one another
company and aid in consultation”
 Hemingway incorporates a lot of mockery and satire –
 CHAPTER 15 is a subversion or satirical representation of identity. In this chapter
Fredric Henry fakes his war heroics “state he has killed many Austrians”. The
doctors and the way they are described makes them seem cariotric, they are
bearded, skinny, Guant. It’s about doctors playing, putting on a show,
pretending to be doctors, this questioning the reliability of institutions and
certainty at war
 Body part are a motif -> use for people, places
 Why?
 “A farewell to arms” – loss of body part
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What are the idea’s / skills
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Literature does this —> it constructs —> representations of —> history, culture, identity,
landscape } these are macro evidence —> experience —> attitudes —> ideologies } micro
evidence
Mountains being destroyed is the destructive force war has on that area creating an
experience that war is bleak, destructive, harmful } micro evidence
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War is a space of hyper masculinity -> men go to war to prove their manliness through
comadry, machismo, -> they then go to the brothels (these characters represent the old
literature stereotypes; Hemingway brings these soldiers and juxtaposes these soldiers
against the foreigner (Frederick) who Is passive —> he is like a diminished masculine figure
‘soldier’; reduced to that of a baby (looking at nurse as a mother and a girlfriend)
Rinaldi is also juxtaposed against the sterotypical soldiers; is affectionate, is caring, isn’t
crude, —> he is trying to perform masculinity
o What reason does the author destroy the mountain -> to visualise the destruction of
war -> this is done to show Ernest pessimistic attitudes towards war
How does the text stylistically do this? How does the art support the
idea?
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Hemingway knows what he is writing -> is using it to prove a purpose
o Hemingway iceberg theory quote
 “if a writer of a prose knows enough about what he is writing about, he may
omit things that he knows and the reader, if the writer is writing truly
enough, will have a feeling of those things strongly as though the writer had
stated them. The diginity of the movement
o Life of Hemingway
 Joined war as a photographer, then as an ambulance, wash in the Spanish
war, flew to Africa on a safari got into a plane crash and survived, lived in
Cuba and convinced the military to give him a fishing boat and machine
guns, would get into fights for fun, would hang out with Fitzgerald in Paris,
he was in. Poverty nd mooched of a rich French woman, married four times
/ in four different relationships, in the end he committed suicide (shot
himself) because he wanted to control his own end.
Topic sentence —> example for texts —> macro + micro evidence —> stylistic choices /
techniques and howl they enhance / support ideas —> contextual consideration (not
necessary —> reader response —> ideological outcome.
o Ernest Hemingway’s depiction of the European Alan escape subvert the eurpean war
as a place of culture, heroism. Macro -> smashed up homes, injured people,
destroyed mountains. Micro —> motifs (winter), what people say (enhancing idea
that war sucks). Contextual –[> propaganda of war was based on heroism, and
romanticises. Ernest hemming way critics the romanticise notions that exists around
war leading to an anti war ideology.
More possible ideas
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What are we looking for
o Syllabus point – lit is a product that performs the work of representations and
explorations and construction
 Modernist lit was a reaction to romantic lit
 Ernest lived a rich life full of experience, his writing was about capturing a
feeling in humanity
 Ernest Hemingway was trying to capture an fessence of experience; it all
sucks in the end -> Nihilism
 He approaches from the perspective “ all life Is meaningless so just have
fun” – hedonism
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It is pacifistic – anti war, negative
Modernist believed forms and institutions should be deconstructed,
critiqued and broken down
 Products
 Helps us to frame our world view amongst the chaos and despair of
life. Helps us understand the world amongst the chaise and despair;
in which our chaos and despair is not faced alone
 This novel acts as a juxtaposition / cautionary tale / consequential
tale to show us a pathway that leads to despair, destruction, nihilism
Modernism – everything sucks -> life is a meaningless, we cannot / individuals
cannot rely on grand narratives, archetypal identity, assumptions to guide their life.
We are all haphazardly living our life. This is also seen in other texts (e.g. mice and
men)
 Life is unpredictable and for this character it sucks
What doesn’t make sense in begging
 Nature sucks and is vulnerable and weak and can be destroyed by
colonisation and war . It can be destroyed by war
 Indenting nature without own bombshells
 A mountain -> seen as great and indestructible -> is destroyed to show how
weak nature is in the face of humanity
 Is brought back briefly but it is quickly destroyed again
 Ideological love / romance / relationship
 Love sucks -> you will find love in the most ideological places; your
damsel in distress is not a virginal innocent women but instead a
widowed woman with baggage and psychological trauma and a
strange complex about relationships.
o Hemingway does this by;
 Irony of rinaldi not ending up with ms Barkley
 Setting up rules of book; things you plan /
hope for don’t always come to pass
 Romance at war doesn’t happen in a fairy tale story;
set amongst death, cholera, diseases and
destruction
 Character profiles -> old British woman and a young
American boy; her experienced in love, him has no
experience; her thinking about marriage, him not
thinking about marriage; she wants a idealic picture
of a relationship -> using him to recapture past
relationship she lost
 They know their relationship is doomed from the
beginning;
 Never have an honest conversation with each other;
talking about war or their relationship; conversation
is awkward
 He is focused on physical attraction not emotional
 She dies, the baby dies
 If he died, their love would be redeeming
and sacrificial
 If she dies and the baby lives, their love
would still be redeeming and sacrificial
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If Catherine dies and baby dies, then love
sucks; further shows how war leaves you
with nothing; sucks everything out of you;
makes the story bleak.
Conclusion gives ideological fullstop.
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Religion
 Priest is mocked
 Priest want him to meet his father, and that his father will take care
of him – metaphor (for the father in heaven)
o Priest wants him to go someplace where you can be
introspective, where he can search for his soul, to become a
Christian, find god
o Abruzzi is a beautiful mountain space, it is a plac e of
salvation
o Father Is a hunter; hunt for men to save them
o Instead he went to go and get laid
 Priest has organisation in life, even when he is mocked he still hangs
out with the bullies, but Fredrick is not organised or anything
 Even god can’t save Fredrick Henry
 When a soldier’s leg is blown off, he screams “of god help me help
me, of Mary”
o Shows at the essence of mankind, only in the face of death
can they truly find god (page 52)
Masculinity and masculine identity6
 Guys who try to be macho but end up dying
 Fredrick ending up like a man child, pleading for kisses
o Asks for a little baby bottle; asks for alcohol
 Rinaldi – not sure if he is gay or European
o Shows men at war are not only macho, can be sensitive,
 Other soldiers who are macho but also die
o The ones who want to go and fight end up getting blown up
in the end
Ne redeeming female characters
 All women are either prostitues, grumpy or broken vessels
 No homing mother figure
 No virgin maiden
 No idealic princess character
 Catherine doesn’t get the motherhood or the wife hat
Patriotism, identity, belonging
 Fredrick feels like he doesn’t fit in, can’t speak the language properly
 Goes looking for comaddery but finds himself isolated
 Joins Italian ambulance but doesn’t have any patriotic is of war
Literature and art
 Modernism deconstructing art forms
 Expresses love the beauty of t
Readings
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Gender – masculine, female, performance of relationship
Context – subversion of war, subversion of men t hat go to war, subversion of institutes,
mocks military industrial complex (a company run haphazardly; meaningless)
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Ideological romance – honeymoon, marriage, baby, family are all destroyed therefor you
cannot hope for romance to carry you through
How – more ideas / readings
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Tell me everything you know about the destruction of nature, what techniques are use and
and what ideological impacts are there
o I notice Hemingway portrays nature in a romantic way but also litters it with
destruction and death
o Beautiful aspects of nature; sunset, snow, greenery -> is only there to serve on
purpose -> be destroyed and act as a contrast to make the death and decay more
stronger
Heroism, patriotism, the loss of limbs, emasculation -> subverts masculinity
Physical landscape is destroyed, the individual (masculinity), love (family is
destroyed)(ideological systems we hold on to; hope is destroyed in religion, family) ->
destruction of war
Hope -> hope in family, in religion, in nature; all destroyed
Shows and faking it – idea
 This is the first time Catherine refers to life as a show; fiction; theatrical piece
o Show becomes a metonim for life
o Hemingway sees everything as performs; when country goes to war its to show their
patrioticism, their power, strength
o She Catherine didn’t have a way to show her grief -> wanted to cut her hair
o The more experience in life you go through, the more desensitised you become
o By describing the front as picturesque, it further shows it as a show; a painting
o Fantasy vs reality; noble death is death by sword at the sword
 “he didn’t have a sabre cut. They blew him all to bits”
 Shows devastation of war; break down of mythical hero
o Chapter 5
o He is acting Italian; very difficult for him to salute
o Chapter 6 – the show of war; show of manhood or masculinity
o In a play you have a setting, you have a character who has to clothe themselves in
constumes
 She wears the nurse constume
 He wears the soldiers costume
o Marble busts – part of the show
o “…too bloody theatrical” , “we were supposed to wear steel helmets…but they were
uncomfortable….in a town where th civilian inhabitants had not been evacuated”
o “…they were a real mask” – shows the masks they had before was just for show
o “Rinaldi carried a holster pistol stuffed with toilet paper” – shows how he doesn’t
care about war, how it is a theatrical; like a show, they have props
o Guns and masculinity
 Gun is seen as the prop of masculinity
 Gun facilitates your masculinity
 Fredrick is trying perform masculinity through mastery of a weapon
 Expectation of hero – ma war hero is a master of a weapon
 “Ridiculous short barrel” -> ridiculous is ridicule, a joke, comedic in how bad
it was
 “The orderly of some sort looked at me disapprovingly from behind a desk
while I looked at the marble floor” -> disapproving at his fail of masculinity
o Romance with Cath
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Fredrick is performing love, playing the game, the love is all an act
He expects to fall in lovel, but he doesn’t.
 He falls in love because he doesn’t want to feel lonely.
Putting on a show
“And you do love me?” “Yes” “you did say yo9u love me , didn’t you?”, “yes I
lied I lovee ou
 Fredricks admission of saying I lied immediately. After saying I love
yo reveals the internal truth that juxtaposes the external act oh love
 The internal. Monologue or thoughts evealed of “I lied, I have not
said it befor?”
She is giving him line to say
 Catherine demands “say I come back to Catherine tonight “ and
Fredrick says it shows how this. Act of romance is all scripted
 “He eyes were shut” -> shows how she was probably at dreaming
 He compares her to a brothel;
 Prosititues are all putting on a show; acting love
Fredrick is a reliable narrator
 He could be an unreliable narrator
o Talk about the difference between the internal and external
actoions and thought
o How he could be lying to us through his internal acts
“This is a rotten game we play” shows how everything is a game
“This was a game, like a bridge, in which you said things instead of playing
cards” – everything is a game
“I wish there was some place we could go, I was experiencing masculine
difficulty of making love very long standing up” -> he was trying to move to
the next base; he Is trying to have sex
“There isn’t any place she said she came back from wherever she had been”
Contrast between ho they spoke when pretending and real life -> she is
more cold
“I had a very fine little show”
“She looked down at the grass, this is a rotten game we play, what game?
Don’t be dull? I’m not on purpose”
“Not always, but I do with you. You don’t have to pretend you lov me. That s
over for the vending, is there anything you’d like to talk about?”
Comparing Fredrick to er ex –> “you don’t pronounce it very much alike. But
your very nice. You’re a very good boy”
The show is over (romantic) and now we come back to another show; the
war -> “I went on home…there was a good delay going on up in the
mountains”