The War Novels
Ernest Hemingway A Farewell to Arms
Stephen Crane The Red Badge of Courage
Both Crane and Hemingway are stylists. Yet their writing styles are dramatically different. Crane is an author who puts language to poetic use, using it reflexively and symbolically. His presentation of Henry Fleming as an "everyman" shows us his less than exacting use of words and more his style of literary impressionism. The reader feels, hears and sees while examining this novel. Yet, above all else, Crane is a modern author from the school of Naturalism. Simply put, his examination of life gives you, the reader, his take on the frim, dehumanizing aspects of war.
Hemingway, on the other hand, presents a novel with war as a backdrop for a love affair that quickly takes center stage. His realistic style of writing is terse, honest, and powerful. His focus on war and the effects it has on the people involved bring a sense of desperation to this novel. From the ants on the log, to the foreshadowing of death, to the final existential scene there is a sense of death that pervades this novel.
Please compare these two novels in a five page typed essay. You may use one or all of the following criteria for your comparison:
1. Author's writing style
2. The Civil War and World War I
3. The protagonist's maturation process through the war experience
4. The novel's endings
In your comparison please use quotations from the novel to prove your points and please avoid plot summaries.
Assignment II
Steinbeck presents to the reader both a microcosmic and macrocosmic view of "The Great Depression" in which the Joad family represents the average "Okies" displaced by the economic and environmental forces of the time period. In the novel he gives us the Joad's experience (microcosm) and the experience of the rest of the society (macrocosm) in alternating chapters. The overall effect for the reader is the epiphany, at some point in the reading experience, that sacrifice and unity either led to salvation or destruction.
In a five page typed essay I want you to examine this question:
Tom Joad, while on the lam towards the end of the novel, meets furtively with Ma in the thicket. While discussing what h has been thinking about while in hiding he keeps coming back to Casy and his scripture. He says:
Two are better than one, because they have a good reward for their labor.
For it they fall, the one will lif' his his fellow, but woe to him that is alone
when he falleth, for he hath now another to help him up.
Is Tom Joad the author's mouthpiece in this scene? Is Steinbeck's basic arguement wrapped up in this scripture? If it is, please detail and support with examples from the book, what the author is trying to argue in this polemic called The Grapes of Wrath.
If you feel it is not a good indication of his intentions as an author, argue what he did intend to say with this novel. Please use examples!
Assignment III
Please read Edith Wharton's Ethan Frome. You will have a test the first day back.
**The first essay is due on the first day back, and the second essay is due seven days later**
