Hemingway's concept of code hero .A farewell to arms

Fredrick Henry: Hemingway’s Code Hero

A farewell to Arms: 

Concept of code hero. 

Hemingway's hero 

 Lt. Fredric Henry, the protagonist in A Farewell to Arms, exemplifies Hemingway's code hero in several ways. Like a typical Hemingway’s hero he is a wounded man not only physically but also psychologically. He is a man who engages in life, rather than observing it as a bystander. He maintains self-control in the face of overwhelming adversity, and he does not demonstrate self-pity. Like  Hemingway’s other code heroes, Lt. Henry is existentially removed from the world. He possesses personal integrity, often feels isolated and remains stoic for most of the time. He is a rationalist and pragmatist who brings everything to the test of experience. Most of all, Lt. Henry functions as a Hemingway code hero because he faces life with courage, and he endures life with dignity.

The character of Lt. Henry is a prime example of a Hemingway hero. He shows a general loss of faith in conventional morality. Henry respects the priest, but he says flat out that he does not believe in God.   In the start of the novel, Henry immerses himself into the sensual pleasures that surround  him.

In the beginning, his views on life and the war are extremely naive, innocent, and idealistic. "Only seven thousand have died" of war and cholera, he comments early on.  This illustrates his innocent perception of the war because he doesn't acknowledge how many people have actually died. Like a typical Hemingway’s hero, he enjoys much of drinking and love-making in the beginning but undergoes tremendous development during the course of the novel.

“American Tenete” Fredrick Henry is stoic under duress or pain; he is unflappable under fire, he does his work. He is “man’s man” in that his thoughts revolve on women and drink. He is an American who enlists in the Italian army during World War I, a dangerous role he assumes by choice. As an officer who commands an ambulance unit, he serves on the front lines, exposing himself to the greatest danger. Henry endures a lot of pain, but always understates his condition. Even When he is severely wounded in the battle, he does not let his suffering show.

"I...leaned over and put my hand on my knee.  My knee wasn't there."

  He does not freak out and complain, he just realizes it is what it is.

Indigenous to nearly all of Ernest Hemingway’s novels, the “Hemingway man” lives by one simple rule: “Man the player is born; life the game will kill him”. Frederic’s development is enhanced by his relationship with the English nurse, Catherine Barkley. Originally, Catherine is nothing more than an object of sensual desire, but as the novel progresses, Catherine becomes symbolic of Frederic’s final resolution. Having discovered the value of his relationship with Catherine, Frederic returns to the front, only to find the army in complete and utter chaos. Frederic is welcomed by his old friends but is greatly disturbed by their low morale.

As the novel continues, Lt. Henry eventually deserts the army, but this is not as an act of cowardice. Caught up in the chaos and carnage of a military retreat, he leaves the army to save his own life. Frederic no longer feels obligated to serve a country to which he does not belong. His allegiance is shattered when he witnesses Italian officials shooting their own men. He will not sacrifice his life to a senseless death. He no longer feels a part of the war; he feels isolated from it. He declares an individual separate peace and acts decisively to make his way back to Catherine.

Despite the cruelty of the world, Henry is able to find some moments of solace. Reunited with Catherine, and far away from the decimated Italian countryside Lt. Henry enjoys a period of peace and happiness with her as they await the birth of their baby. When she dies in childbirth and the baby dies, also, Lt. Henry is truly alone. Catherine’s untimely death has driven Frederic into a senseless cesspool of babbling thoughts. 

“Get away hell! It would have been the same if we had been married fifty times. And what if she should die? She won’t die. People don’t die in childbirth nowadays. … It’s just nature giving her hell”.

These words show Frederic’s scattered train of thought. He attempts to shield himself from death with these cliches. Frederic even begins to pray to God in one last futile attempt but in vain. Nolan remarks:

“What Hemingway portrays, in fact, is a good, albeit a disappointed and disillusioned man trying to fulfill his various obligations.”
 After Catherine’s “murder” by the Biological Trap, Henry’s disillusionment is revealed in his last tragic note:

“But after I had got them out and shut the door and turned off the lights it wasn't any good. It was like saying good-by to a statue.”

 He walks away, in the rain. He is isolated in his grief, but he will endure this greatest of all his losses.

 To conclude, by the end of the novel Henry’s metamorphosis is complete and he is fitting into the definition of Hemingway’s code hero because he has progressed so much from the beginning to the end.

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Joseph Andrews : concept o f morality

Concept of Morality in Joseph Andrews

Henry Fielding undoubtedly holds moral views far-ahead of his times. Morality is an approval or adherence to principles that govern ethical and virtuous conduct.

Fielding was accused of being immoral in his novels. Dr. Johnson called his novels “vicious and corrupting”. Richardson echoed the “charge of immorality” against him. Modern critics, however, has justified Fielding and gave him a credit of “an estimable ethical code”. Strachey declared him a “deep, accurate, scientific moralist”. Indeed neither “Joseph Andrews” nor “Tom Jones” strikes the modern sensibility as ‘low’ or ‘immoral’ either in purpose or in narration. Behind the truthful portrait of life, lies his broad moral vision. His aim was to correct mankind by pointing out their blunders.
“I have endeavored to laugh at mankind, out to their follies and vices.”
Fielding reacted sharply against the code of ethics as incited by Richardson in “Pamela”. He feels that Pamela’s virtue is an affectation and a commodity, exchangeable for material benefits. Virtue cannot and should not be to chastity alone. Mere external respectability is not morality. For Fielding:
“Chastity without goodness of heart is without value.”
A truly virtuous man is disregardful of material benefits. He is devoid of an affectation.
He finds:
“A delight in the happiness of mankind and a concern at their misery, with a desire, as much as possible, to procure the former and avert the latter …”
Fielding’s moral vision is much wider that Richardson’s. Morality is no longer equated with chastity or outward decorum. It is broad enough to include every aspect of human behaviour. One’s intentions, instincts, motives are equally important in judging a man.

In “Joseph Andrews” we are confronted with a chameleonic society that quickly changes its appearance to gratify personal lusts. Fielding’s  aim was to show human beings camuoflaged in various shades of vanity and hypocrisy and it is done ruthlessly and wittily in “Joseph Andrews”.

The stage-coach scene is perhaps the best illustration of Fielding’s concept of morality. In it we are confronted the haughty passengers which are all models of hypocrisy. The coachman simply bids the postillion to "Go on, Sirrah, we are confounded late”. The lady reacts in a contemptible manner: "O Jesus, a naked Man! Dear Coachman, drive on". The old gentleman deems: "Let us make all the haste imaginable, or we shall be robbed too".In addition there a lawyer who “wished they had past by without taking any notice",  although his final advice is “to save the poor creature's life, for their own sakes”. At last, it is the postillion, " who hath been since transported for robbing a hen-roost,  voluntarily strips off a great coat, his only garment" and swears that he would rather remain in a shirt than "suffer a fellow-creature to lie in so miserable a condition". Here Fielding shows the contrast between the attitude of the rich passengers and that of the poor Postillion. What sets him apart is not his class, but the fact that he alone dismisses his own comfort and he is the only person who considers Joseph a "fellow-creature" worthy of such rescue. Fielding emphatically declares: "High People" are "People of Fashion", but that they are not "higher in their Dimensions" nor in "their Characters"  The journey undertaken by Joseph and Parson Adams reveals vanity or hypocrisy at every stage.

It is significant that Parson Adams jumps with joy at the reunion of Fanny and Joseph. It reflects an ability to sympathize with other’s feelings. Simple, kind, generous and courageous, Adams is the epitome of true feeling and goodness of heart which is a vital aspect of Fielding’s concept of morality. Adams’ impulses always prompt him to help anyone in distress. He saves Fanny’s virginity two times.
“He is an innocent … so completely sincere in his beliefs and actions that he can’t imagine insincerity in other; he takes everyone he meets at face-value”.
Kindness achieved supreme importance in Fielding’s moral code. A good and a moral man takes joy in helping others. Fielding says:
“I don’t know a better definition of virtue, than it is a delight in doing good.”
Fielding is as liberal in ridiculing affectation as he is hard on the lack of charity. Adams’ definition:
“A generously disposition to receive the poor”,
  is the simple test employed  to men by Fielding to  check the capability of charity. When Parson Adams asks for some shillings to Parson Trulliber, he declares in frenzy:
“I know what charity is better than to give it to vagabonds.”
This shows 18th century’s clergy’s degeneracy, who is reluctant to give some shillings. The rich Parson Tulliber, Mrs. Tow-wouse, Lady Booby and Peter Pounce lacks natural kindness whereas the poor postilion, Betty and Pedler are true Christians, for they are ready to help other man in distress asking nothing in return. But Mrs. Tow-wouse scornfully declares:
“Common charity my foot.”
Fielding is against the prudish morality which considers sex as an unhealthy and dangerous for human life. He favours a healthy attitude towards sex. But he does not approve of Lady Booby’s desire for Joseph nor does he favour Mr. Slipslop’s extreme whims. But Betty’s desires spring from a natural heart and feeling. It is worth noticing that Betty is free of hypocrisy. She acts as ordered by her nature.
“She is good-natured generosity and composition.”
Summing up, Fielding’s concept of morality is realistic, tolerant, broad and fairly flexible. Modern opinion has vindicated the moral vision of Fielding as healthy, wide and practical.

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Joseph Andrews: Title

                              Joseph Andrews: A Picaresque

The title page of Henry Fielding’s first novel reads as, “The history of the adventures of Joseph Andrews and of his friend Mr. Abraham Adams, Written in imitation of the Manner of Cervantes, Author of Don Quixote.” The allusion to Cervantes and his masterpiece Don Quixote is significant as it shows Fielding’s indebtedness to Cervantes . Parson Adams is indeed a truly Quixotic figure, and the structure of the book also follows Cervantes’ picaresque model. Joseph Andrews is a novel of adventures met while travelling on the road. Joseph loses his employment in Lady Booby’s service in London, on his way home to the country to his sweetheart Fanny, he meets Parson Adams. Together they run all kinds of adventures meeting a host of characters from low and middle-class layers of society: innkeepers, chambermaids, country squires and clergymen.

The picaresque tradition belongs to Spain and derived from the word “picaro”, meaning a rogue or a villain. The picaresque originally involved the misadventure of the rogue-hero, mainly on the highway. Soon, however, the rogue was replaced by a conventional hero – gallant and chivalric. The comic element lay in the nature of the hero’s adventures, through which, generally, society was satirized.

Fielding’s affinity with picaresque model appears first of all in the representation of rogue and villainous; secondly, in the humorous style which often takes a mock-heroic turn, and in the geniality of temperament; thirdly, in the portrait of characters of certain lower classes of men and women; and finally, in the humorous or satiric descriptions of the contents of the chapters and the introduction of side stories or episodes into the main narrative.

Thus, the journey in Joseph Andrews is not a mere picaresque rambling, a device solely for the purpose of introducing new adventures such as we find in the classic picaresque story, , but an allegorical journey, a moral pilgrimage, from the vanity and corruption of the city-life to the relative naturalness and simplicity of the country. The picaresque motif helps Fielding to fulfill his aim of ridiculing the affectations of human beings. The different strata of society can be represented through the picaresque mode. The travelers meet squires, innkeepers, landladies, persons, philosophers, lawyers and surgeons, beggars, pedlars and robbers and rogues. Fielding’s satire is pungent as he presents the worldly and crafty priests and the callous, vicious and inhuman country squires. Malice, selfishness, vanities, hypocrisies, lack of charity, all are ridiculed as human follies.

The Picaresque novel is the loosest in plot – the hero is literally let loose on the high road for his adventures. The hero wanders from place to place encountering thieves and rogues, rescuing damsels in distress, fighting duels, falling in love, being thrown in prison, and meeting a vast section of society. As the hero meets a gamut of characters from the country squire to the haughty aristocrat, from hypocrite to ill-tempered soldiers, the writer is able to introduce with the least possible incongruity, the saint and the sinner, the virtuous and the vicious. The writer has a chance to present the life, culture and morality prevalent in his time, and to satirize the evils.

Fielding acknowledged his debt to Cervantes, whose Don Quixote is the best known picaresque novel in Spanish.

Like the Don Quixote and Panza, Parson Adams and Joseph set out on a journey which involves them in a series of adventures, some of them burlesque, at several country inns or rural houses. Like the Don, Parson Adams is a dreamy idealist. But there are differences, too, between Joseph Andrews and the picaresque tradition, vital enough to consider Fielding’s novel as belonging to the genre of its own.

The central journey in Joseph Andrews is not mainly a quest for adventure as it is in the picaresque tradition. It is a sober return journey homewards. Joseph and Lady Booby are taken to London and the reader is given a glimpse of society’s ways in that great city.

It is in Chapter 10 of Book I that the picaresque element enters the novel, with Joseph setting out in a borrowed coat towards home. The picaresque tradition is maintained uptil the end of Book III. Joseph meets with the first misadventure when he is set upon by robbers, beaten, stripped and thrown unconscious into a ditch. A passing stage-coach and its passengers very reluctantly convey Joseph to an inn. The incident gives ample scope to Fielding for satirizing the pretences and affectations of an essentially inhuman society.

The Tow-wouse Inn provides a grim picture of callous human beings – the vain and ignorant surgeon and the drinking parson. Once again kindness and generosity come from an apparently immoral girl, Betty the chambermaid. With the arrival of Parson Adams, the picaresque journey takes on a more humorous tone, with plenty of farce. The encounter with the “Patriot” who would like to see all cowards banged but who turns tail at the first sight of danger, leads to the meeting with Fanny. She is rescued by Adams in proper picaresque-romance style with hero. Several odd characters are met on the way – such as the hunting squire – the squire who makes false promises. Then comes the abduction of Fanny – and the reintroduction of something more serious.

We also have the interpolated stories, which belong to the picaresque tradition. In his use of this device, Fielding shows how far he has come from the picaresque school.

To conclude, Joseph Andrews has a rather rambling and discursive narrative, which makes us to believe that it is a picaresque novel. But, on the whole, it is not a picaresque novel rather the picaresque mode has helped him in the development of his comic theory – that of ridiculing the affectations of human beings.

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Chance and Coincidence in the return of Native

There is a discord in the nature of existence. Man is working to one end, Destiny to another. These ends may coincide or they may not. Either way it is Destiny who decides what shall happen. Discuss with reference to Return of the Native

 

Role of Chance and Coincidence in The Return of the Native

Chances and coincidences play a vital role in all the novels of Hardy. In the work of no other novelist do chances and coincidences exercise such a conspicuous influence on the course of events. The unexpected often happens and always it is the undesirable and unwanted. Such chance events are heavy blows aimed at the head of Hardy's protagonists and they send them to their doom.

         While a character is certainly responsible to a large extent, chances and coincidences often operate as the deciding factor. Hardy believed that there is some malignant power that controls the universe, and which is out to thwart and defeat men in their plans. It is especially hostile to them who try to assert themselves and have their own way. He couldn’t believe in a benevolent Providence; events were too plainly ironical so they must have been contrived by a supernatural power. He found it difficult, if not impossible, to reconcile the idea of a beneficent and benevolent, omnipotent, and omniscient deity with the fact of omnipresent evil and the persistent tendency of circumstances toward unhappiness.

          Hardy shows a persistent and bitter preoccupation with the sorrow of life. We certainly cannot deny the littleness and sordidness of human life. He attributes the tragedy to an “Unsympathetic First Cause”. The Return of the Native shows man as the helpless plaything of invisible powers, ruthless and indifferent. The characters have no such thing as free will.              

     The whole plot of The Return of the Native is tinged with fateful incidents and accidents. 

1-  Johnny Nunsuch has overheard the conversation between Eustacia and Wildeve. Johnny then meets the reddleman Diggory Venn purely by chance. The reddleman learns from the boy the emotional attachment of Eustacia with Wildeve. The reddleman decides to serve Thomasin’s interests by dissuading Eustacia from Wildeve. But he is scolded by her and feeling dejected and failed, goes to Mrs. Yeobright to renew his offer of marriage to Thomasin. Mrs. Yeobright uses this offer to threaten Wildeve to marry Thomasin. This whole series of events are caused by chance and fate only started by Johnny, the boy.

2- Just as Eustacia’s affection for Wildeve begins to wane, an exciting prospect, Clym Yeobright, diamond merchant in Paris, returns to Egdon. His visit prompts Eustacia to facilitate a meeting between them, which eventually results in a mutual attraction. Eustacia makes her disinterest known to Wildeve who finally marries Thomasin. Eustacia is disappointed to discover that Clym has rejected his cosmopolitan lifestyle, however, hopeful that she can change his mind, agrees to marry him. Mrs. Yeobright disapproves both these marriages.

3- By a sheer accident, Christian Cantle who is carrying Mrs. Yeobright’s money meets a group of village folk who take him to a raffle where, by a sheer stroke of luck, he wins a prize and encouraged by his good fortune plays a game of dice with Wildeve. Cantle first loses his own money and later stakes Mrs. Yeobright’s and loses the entire amount. The reddleman appears and invites Wildeve for another bout. This time luck favors the reddleman and he wins all the money from Wildeve. He delivers the whole money to Thomasin, not aware of the fact, that half the money was to be handed to Clym. Mrs. Yeobright fails to receive any acknowledgement from Clym and becomes dejected.

4- That Clym becomes semi-blind when he was hoping to launch his educational project, is a sheer accident which leads to disastrous results. Clym is compelled to become a furze-cutter. The humble occupation chosen by Clym is regarded by Eustacia as humiliating. When Wildeve asks her if her marriage has proved a misfortune for her, her reply is “The marriage is not a misfortune in itself. It is simply the accident which has happened since that has been the cause of my ruin.” 

5- When Eustacia goes to a village festival in order to relieve the tedium of her life, she meets Wildeve purely by chance and this leads to their dancing together. She contemptuously describes herself as a furze cutter’s wife. Later he escorts her on her homeward journey, but slips away at the sight of Clym.

6- Again it is purely by chance that Wildeve visits Eustacia at home exactly at the moment Mrs. Yeobright knocks at the door; she has come hoping for a reconciliation with the couple. Eustacia, however, in her confusion and fear at being discovered with Wildeve, does not allow Mrs. Yeobright to enter the house: heart-broken and feeling rejected by her son, she succumbs to heat and snakebite on the walk home, and dies.

7-It is by sheer chance that Wildeve becomes the recipient of a legacy which makes him rich, and this leads to the renewal of Eustacia’s love for him.

 8-It is just a chance that Johnny repeats the dying words of Mrs. Yeobright, exactly at the moment that Clym reaches the cottage. Thus he comes to know the role played by Eustacia in Mrs Yeobright’s death. This leads to the separation of Clym and Eustacia after a violent quarrel.

9- It is just a chance that Clym's letter of reconciliation does not reach Eustacia in time.

10- It is by chance the Charley, in order to please the despondent Eustacia, thinks of lighting a bonfire. She had nothing to do with bonfire. Wildeve seeing the fire comes to Eustacia and she plans to fly away from the Heath.

11- Finally, it so happens that on the night of Eustacia’s escape, the weather assumes a menacing aspect. The night becomes dreadful because of rain and storm. Eustacia seems to drown herself and Wildeve dies in the rescue attempt. Thus Eustacia laments over her  fortune in the words:

       “How I have tried and tried to be a splendid woman, and how destiny has been against me. I do not deserve my lot…I have been injured and blighted and crushed by things beyond my control.”

Conclusion: Hardy certainly makes his story implausible by his excessive use of chance and coincidence. He is intent to show that the stars in their courses fight against the aspiring. The Return of the Native is certainly marred by an exorbitant use of this device. Rightly does a critic say, “The plot of the novel lacks the terrific and terrifying logic of cause and effect that marks the plots of the greatest tragedies.”

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