Symbolism in the novels of Ernest Hemingway

Earnest Hemingway is remembered as a writer and legend. He has been and continues to be widely read. No wonder he wrote such great works of fiction as The Sun Also Rises, A Farewell to Arms, For Whom the Bell Tolls, and The Old Man and the Sea.

Despite his austere and sober style, his novels contain hidden meanings and his images function as symbols of an inner world. Mark Spilka says “sands attitudes so that a clear account of superficial action reproduces these attitudes in the reader”. with Hemingway, the outdoors is primarily a state of mind, a moral and emotional projection.

Some of the most important symbols of Hemingway are the symbol of the rain, of the dust, of the fallen and fallen leaves, of the river, of the wooden trunk, full of ants, above the fire and some of the main images are the image of the a game of chess and bridge, the image of a bitch in heat, the image of arrival after a long journey, the image of the cemetery and the worn carpet, the image of empty cans and saucers, the image of the inquisition and the image of a statue__ contribute substantially to the symbolic composition of A Farewell to Arms.

A Farewell to Arms is indeed a highly symbolic novel, and we must consider it as such. Indeed, in his deft combination of realism and symbolism that explains this novel’s success as a work of art, in his comments on For Whom the Bell Tolls, Carlos Baker identifies the ‘elements of epic matter that Hemingway adapts to his needs in this novel. In addition, Baker also refers to the “Intentionally Intensified Language” that Hemingway adopts in the present novel.

To have and not to have has very little imagery and symbolism. Although part 1 of this novel gives us beautiful descriptions of fish and fishing and part 3 some beautiful descriptions of nature, the only symbol we find in it is that of the sun. In Chapter III of Part 1 To Have and Have Not, Hemingway presents an image of the setting sun:

It was a beautiful sunset and there was a nice soft breeze, and when the sun got pretty good I started the engine and slowly steered it towards land.

Hemingway draws the first set of symbols in Across the River and into the Trees from Nature, and it is only right that early in this novel he presents a charming description of a frozen pond:
It was all ice, freshly frozen during the windless cold of the night. It was rubbery and flexed against the push of the boatman’s oar.

Canals with bridges over them, the gondolas gliding over their surface, and the wind blowing over the water, all this, in addition to adding to the beauty of the landscape, symbolizes Cantwell’s journey towards death. In Hemingway’s novels, wind and water function as symbols of a peculiar kind of transformation. In the present novel, in addition to representing Cantwell’s purging through confession. The wind is also associated with darkness, with cold and high tides and symbolizes the final cleansing, that is, death. Likewise, the water of the different canals that Cantwell crosses, reinforces the case of the wind as a symbol and the gondola moving on the surface of the water of the canal accentuates the idea of ​​Cantwell passing to death.

Whatever symbols there are in Islands in the Stream, all they do or pretend to do is highlight the unpredictability of the sea, the real life-giving movement of the Gulf Stream, and the principles of life and death, creation and destruction, the good and evil that govern the course of what is known as the manifest universe.

We notice a clear preponderance of symbols and images in the next two of Hemingway’s major novels, For Whom the Bell Tolls and The Old Man and the Sea. It seems that Hemingway patiently cultivated the art of introducing symbols and images into his novels. Much of these symbols and images can be traced back to nature; quite a few of them have been borrowed from one religion while the rest owe their origin to other fields of human activity. We cannot help but remember the fact that while on the one hand Hemingway is a realist, on the other he is a symbolist, and that both realism and symbolism coexist and reinforce each other in his novels. In any case, the symbolism adds a very refreshing and rich dimension to his novels that makes them very interesting.

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