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单击此处编辑母版标题样式,单击此处编辑母版文本样式,第二级,第三级,第四级,第五级,*,rnest,Hemingwa,1899-1961,A brief biography (1),He started his career as a writer in a newspaper office at the age of seventeen. After the United States entered the,First World War, he joined a volunteer ambulance unit in the Italian army. Serving at the front, he was wounded, was decorated by the Italian Government, and spent considerable time in hospitals. After his return to the United States, he became a,reporter,for Canadian and American newspapers and was soon sent back to Europe to cover such events as the Greek Revolution.,A brief biography (2),During the twenties, He became a member of the group of expatriate Americans in Paris, which he described in his first novel,The Sun Also Rises,(1926).,Equally successful was,A Farewell to Arms,(1929),the study of an American ambulance officers disillusionment in the war and his role as a deserter. Hemingway used his experiences as a reporter during the civil war in Spain as the background for his most ambitious novel,For Whom the Bell Tolls,(1940).,Among his later works, the most outstanding is the short novel,The Old Man and the Sea,(1952),the story of an old fishermans journey, his long and lonely struggle with a fish and the sea, and his victory in defeat.,Hemingway - himself a great sportsman - liked to portray soldiers, hunters, bullfighters - tough, at times primitive people whose courage and honesty are set against the brutal ways of modern society, and who in this confrontation lose hope and faith.,His straightforward prose, his spare dialogue, and his predilection for understatement,are particularly effective in his short stories, some of which are collected in,Men Without Women,(1927),and,The Fifth Column and the First Forty-Nine Stories,(1938).,Hemingway died in 1961.,Influence,One of the most famous American novelist, short-story writer and essayist, whose deceptively simple prose style have influenced wide range of writers. Hemingway was awarded the 1954,Nobel Prize,for Literature.,For a true writer each book should be a new beginning where he tries again for something that is beyond attainment. He should always try for something that has never been done or that others have tired and failed. Then sometimes, with great luck, he will succeed.,-Hemingway upon receiving the Novel Prize in literature,1954,Ernest Hemingway Home, Key West, Florida,Main works,The Sun Also Rises,(1926),A Farewell to Arms,(1929),For Whom the Bell Tolls,(1940),The Old Man and the Sea,(1952),The Lost Generation,The term “lost generation” was coined by,Gertrude Stein, a lost generation writer herself, after World War I. It was between the first and second World Wars. Speaking to Ernest Hemingway, she said,you are all a lost generation.,The Lost Generation is a term used to describe a group of American writers who were,rebelling,against what America had become by the 1900s. Seeking the,bohemian lifestyle,and rejecting the values of American materialism, a number of intellectuals, poets, artists and writers fled to France in the post World War I years.,Paris,was the center of it all. The term stuck and the mystique surrounding these individuals continues to fascinate us. Full of youthful idealism, these individuals sought the meaning of life, drank excessively, had love affairs and created some of the finest American literature to date.,Who are involved in the Lost Generation?,F. Scott Fitzgerald,T. S. Eliot,Ezra Pound,Gertrude Stein,Ernest Hemingway,John Dos,Passos,T. S. Eliot,Ezra Pound,Gertrude Stein,Ernest Hemingway,A Clean, Well-Lighted Place,Ernest Hemingway,INTRODUCTION,“,A Clean, Well-Lighted Place” is considered a prime example of Hemingways craftsmanship and insight into the human condition. In this brief story, which was initially published in,Scribners Magazine,in 1933, he evokes an atmosphere of,despair and loneliness,almost entirely with dialogue and interior monologue.,Through these stylistic techniques Hemingway renders a complex series of interactions between an old waiter and his young colleague as the two men reflect on the,ephemeral nature of happiness and the inevitability of death.,Much of the critical commentary on the short story focuses on a series of unattributed lines of dialogue.,Plot and Major Characters,Rendered almost completely in dialogue, the main action of “A Clean, Well-Lighted Place” is set in a small caf in Spain, as two waiters prepare to close the establishment for the night. The place is empty except for a regular customer, a deaf old man drinking alone at one of the tables. Realizing that the old man is drunk, one of the waiters informs the other that the customer attempted suicide the week before. After the waiters watch a young man and woman pass on the street, the young waiter serves the old customer another brandy and voices his impatience to the old waiter, complaining that the old man is keeping him from his warm bed and the comfort of his wife.,They discuss the old mans suicide attempt and his possible reasons for such a desperate act. When the old man gestures for another brandy, the young waiter tells him that it is closing time. After the old man pays his bill and leaves, the old waiter chides the young waiter for his,lack of patience and empathy,for the old man. He compares himself to the man, saying he understands the need for a clean, well-lighted place to be at night. After the caf closes, the old waiter stops at a bar for a drink before he goes home, dreading his return to an empty room.,CHARACTERS,The old man:,rich, life was meaningless for him, committed suicide, drank excessively.,The middle-aged waiter:,sympathetic, realized that youth, love and passion must be followed by aging, despair and nothing. He also looked for order and meaning by staying in the clean, well-lighted cage, experiencing nothing.,The young waiter:,eager to go back home, confident and ignorant of truth of life.,Major Themes,In his short fiction Hemingway depicted a disillusioning environment in which his protagonists address the,precariousness of existence,the evanescence of happiness, and,the universality of suffering,. This is certainly true in “A Clean, Well-Lighted Place,” as the old waiter shows a sensitivity to and understanding of both the young waiters impatience to get home and the old mans utter hopelessness. Critics have noted a series of contrasts in the story:,light and dark,clean and dirty,noisy and quiet,youth and age, and,nihilism and religious idealism,.,In fact, many believe that the major thematic concern of the story is,the conflict between generations.,This is illustrated by the contrast between the two major characters:,for many critics, the young waiter represents materialism and the callousness of youth,and,the old waiter symbolizes the perspective and wisdom of age,which is illustrated by his empathy for the old mans profound despair and alleged suicide attempt.,Some critics have suggested that the old waiters repetitive use of the term,“nada”,(translated as “nothing” or “nothingness”) suggests his nihilistic tendencies because he faces loneliness and advancing death like the old man. A few commentators have viewed the three main characters in the story as an implied progression from youth through middle age to old age.,Naturalism,in this novel is in agreement with its,symbolism,. The light, order and being are in sharp contrast to the night, chaos and nothing.,Nothing (nada),through the old mans unsuccessful suicide and the middle-aged mans soliloquy.,The End.,Thank you!,
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