Ernest Hemingway's Writing Style

The classic love and war story, A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway, tells the story of Lieutenant Henry and his love, Catherine Barkley. Taking place in World War One and being published just a few years after, the book is loosely based on Hemingway's own personal experiences in the war. It explores the themes of love, war, hope, and grief. This book made waves when first released in the 1920s and had continued to remain a classic to this very day. Critics have both positive and negative things to say about this novel and seem split on their opinions, I too am relatively split on what I think. A hallmark of Hemingway's writing style is his minimal use of adverbs. He uses simple short sentences that are very easy to figure out and this sets him apart from other literary legends. Is this a good or a bad thing? William Faulkner once stated that Hemingway, “... has no courage, has never crawled out on a limb. He has never been known to use a word that might cause the reader to check with a dictionary to see if it is properly used” (Faulkner). So as you can tell, Faulkner does not think that Hemingway's short sentences and simple vocabulary are very negative things. However, other critics very well may disagree, arguing that this is an amazing writing

Specifically in the character that is Catherine Barkley. All throughout the book she constantly shows and says that Henry is her whole life and that she would do anything for him. She falls into the stereotype that women need a man to be complete and she is extremely fragile, another stereotype. Personally, I don't think that her portrayal is sexist by any means. I can see why people would think that about her character's development but, I personally think that the way she is developed is used a literary tool to show the way people cling to love and hope in the midst of a world being in the midst of constant