著者

辻 秀雄

出版者

アメリカ学会

雑誌

アメリカ研究 (ISSN:03872815)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.43, pp.115-134, 2009

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<p>As American Studies begins to address such fundamental questions as how America can be defined spatially, culturally, and conceptually in the age of globalization, it has become apparent that more international and transnational approaches are needed. This essay shares that same awareness as it reinvestigates Ernest Hemingway's hardboiled style, which has been traditionally evaluated as quintessentially American. Through a careful rereading of <i>A Farewell to Arms</i>, it argues that this hardboiled style was born, by contrast, in a transnational and thus "extraterritorial" environment.</p><p>The essay begins by recontextualizing the oft-discussed passage in <i>A Farewell to Arms</i> where Frederic Henry denounces abstract words. There it becomes clear that his "hardboiled" denunciation of abstract words is connected at a deeper level to the transnational situation in which he finds himself. Prior to this interior monologue, he is talking with an Italian soldier, Gino. Although the novel is mostly written in English, including this scene depicting Henry's conversation with Gino, it should be noted that the conversation was actually held in Italian, evidenced by the fact that Italians with some exceptions do not speak foreign tongues in the novel and that Henry is fluent in Italian. This indicates Henry is switching languages: he has been using Italian when talking with Gino and hearing his patriotic diction, but then switches to English during his interior monologue. This language switching brings to the fore a new aspect of Henry's problem with abstract words: he feels much more separate, in English, from them. His problem, in other words, is augmented by translation.</p><p>The theory of translation explored by Walter Benjamin and his critics sheds new light on the structure of <i>A Farewell to Arms</i>, a novel consisting of two stories: 1) a war story in which the American Henry fights in an Italian army, and 2) a love story in which he escapes from war into a romantic relationship with an English nurse, Catherine Barkley. What becomes apparent is that, while in the war story Henry is in a transnational environment, retaining a sort of dual nationality, in the love story his relationship with Catherine becomes monolingual. The difference implies the superior quality of his affinity with Catherine relative to his extraterritorial status in the war story. Moreover, the affinity he feels toward Catherine has strong parallels to the relationship that exists between language and its native speaker. However, the irony of the novel reveals itself at the end with the death of both Catherine and the baby, making Henry keenly aware, once again, of the delusive nature of the sense of unity one feels with his/her native tongue.</p><p>By incorporating Benjamin's concept of "pure language," this essay explores the way these two stories in <i>A Farewell to Arms</i> supplement each other to connote a utopian horizon for literature where the representational function of language disappears and language becomes itself. The essay concludes that the hardboiled quality of Henry's language and attitude suggests a desire for this utopian horizon, despite its tough, individualistic appearance</p>