The uncovered sarcasm

王文杰

    To be honest, from the title to the background of the story, I had a sense of this book being covered by various war scenarios. However, it seems to me that the book's portrayal of the war itself is very indirect. What's more interesting is that Henry's leg injury was injured by an explosion while he was inexplicably eating cheese - 'I was blown up while we were eating cheese.', and Rinaldi, a friend who came to see him at the hospital bed, was still excited to tell him that he was a glorious warrior and a brave warrior! He also received a silver medal, and even told him that he could hold this medal and brag to others about how heroic he was on the battlefield. Also, when another officer, Ettore, is injured in the book, he is asked how he was injured, and he says he was injured by a potato churner. And when wondering why the other party was smashing the potato crusher, Ettore guessed: 'I don't know why he threw it. I guess he always wanted to throw one. He never saw any real fighting probably.' When I saw this, I couldn't help but write a comment on the side: "Why do I feel that the war is described as a 'farce' until now." And after I read some comments, I realized that Hemingway really wanted to satirize the absurdity of war. One reader used the word 'wry' (sarcasm), which I found very appropriate. Perhaps the reason why the book was banned before was also because it exposed this ridiculous false "heroism" in war.
     In mainstream terms, the title of this novel has two meanings. The novel was originally called 'A Farewell To Arms' in English. First, this arms means weapons. The moment the male protagonist fled to Switzerland with Catherine, he said goodbye to weapons or war. And I think that this does not mean that the male protagonist is saying goodbye to "anti-war" sentiment, but a negative "escape". Throughout the novel, I did not read the author's anti-war ideas, but saw the irony of the war and the involuntary presence of the coming war. Yes, who can decide if the war does not start, or when? This issue is also repeatedly discussed in the novel. So saying goodbye to weapons here is an emotion that you don't want to face, but you can't help yourself, so you have to escape. This is consistent with the scene I said before that the male protagonist and Catherine are in the hotel, both constitute a spiritual utopia.

    Second, this arms refers to Catherine's arms. When the male protagonist said goodbye to the battlefield, another arms-Catherine's embrace opened to the male protagonist. Unfortunately, Catherine's embrace did not last long and disappeared. The only thing left is the male protagonist walking alone in the rain to the fate of the hotel. However, let's not forget that the hotel is also a scene where the male protagonist and Catherine build a utopia. So in the end, the male protagonist walked to the hotel alone, does it mean that the male protagonist has changed his heart, and without Catherine's help, he can also form his own utopia by a strong person, so as to complete his strong response to the fact that the objective existence of war cannot be changed?