Monday, September 17, 2012
Will war ever end?
As I was reading the assignment for tomm, the only thing that I kept thinking was... Can Hemingway address the question of whether or not the war will end one more time? Almost every chapter includes the characters commenting on how the Austrians will attack/not attack, and whether they will attack or not attack and how they're all "so tired" of war in general. But yet the entire time, not one person actually gives the reader a sense of WHEN the war will ACTUALLY END. The fact that the characters have no idea of the war's end and basically in their eyes war will go on almost forever it seems, reiterates the essential theme in the novel that war is a "circle" and is "never-ending".
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I definitely agree with you Caitlin. I just wanted to say that I feel like Frederic is really upset that he doesn't know when the war is going to end, and he feels like it is a waste of time. On page 161 he goes on explaining how worlds like sacred, glorious, and sacrifice can no longer be trusted and aren't genuine. He then said that only names and specific dates were the only things that had dignity and could be trusted. Overall, I took this as a metaphor for his feelings of the war, and how he doesn't see how it can be dignified, but needs a specific date/time/place to end it completely.
ReplyDeleteI mean I kinda thinks that it all goes back to if defeat is worse than war. If, in fact, it is, then I can understand why no one will stop fighting, because no one wants to be defeated. If you think about it, there have been so few years that we have been without war, so its understandable where they are coming from. Then again, they are always talking about how they want the war to be over, but wouldn't that mean they are accepting defeat? Unless they win, which is unlikely.
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