|
ESL Forum:
Techniques and methods
in Language Teaching
Games, activities
and teaching ideas
Grammar and
Linguistics
Teaching material
Concerning
worksheets
Concerning
powerpoints
Concerning online
exercises
Make suggestions,
report errors
Ask for help
Message board
|
ESL forum >
Message board > Farewell to the Arms
Farewell to the Arms
|
ueslteacher
|
Farewell to the Arms
|
I �ve posted this question in someone else �s post today, but there was no answer (I �ve checked). I �ve decided to ask again:
I read Farewell to the Arms a couple of times as a student at the University. But it could be because my father liked Hamingway a lot and I always felt that I had to read his works just to see why my father said I was too young to understand things he wrote. BTW a questions to native speakers: is it a farewell to the guns so to speak or a farewell to the hugs? As it �s translated into Russian as a farewell to the guns (I don �t mean the exact "gun" word but a collective noun like "arms"), so I was wondering if there �s a chance they got it wrong. Or was it the authors intention to put some dubiousness into the title? Sophia |
13 Sep 2010
|
|
|
|
serene
|
Hi Sophia,
I �m not a native speaker but I studied Farewell to the Arms when I was a student, too. I �ve always felt Arms referred to war (the weapons used in a war) but take a look at this.
|
13 Sep 2010
|
|
|
arlissa
|
|
The title means farewell to the "weapons". Arms is another term for weapons, which includes guns but is not limited to guns. Weapons can be anything that is used to cause physical harm to others (i.e. knives, guns, batons, bombs, etc.).
|
13 Sep 2010
|
|
|
yanogator
|
|
Actually, "the" isn �t in the English title. It �s A Farewell to Arms (weapons).
Bruce |
13 Sep 2010
|
|
|
ueslteacher
|
|
Hi everyone, Serene, thanks a lot for the link! That was exactly what I was thinking. 2 arlissa: I know the term and the definition of arms. I was just speculating... You know that the main character �s love (Catherine) dies at the end of the novel, so I was thinking what if Hamingway meant both: saying goodbye to war and weapons, and saying goodbye to the one who the main character loved... arms=embrace 2 Bruce Sorry for the article Haven �t seen the book for a while, ya know Sophia
|
13 Sep 2010
|
|
|
lshorton99
|
As posted above, �arms � refers to weapons. While I like the idea of a double meaning, with arms refering to an embrace, we don �t use the word in that sense in English so it couldn �t be construed as a reference to the loss of a love!
Lindsey
|
14 Sep 2010
|
|
|
Olindalima ( F )
|
Sophia
Thanks for enlightening my reading
Arms, for me, a latin reader have always been =guns ( latin = armas ).
I feel I have just discovered a new way to read Farewell to ARMS
Why have I always think of arms as latin word in an American text?
Why have i never thought of ARMS as ArMs ( british )? Don�t as k me, don�t know the answer.
Hemingway has ln lived in Spain, may be a point to take in an approach. What ARMS was he reffreing to?
Thanks, for your ARMS. I �ll tke them as they are - British, so meaning arms and not guns.
God, never, ever had that idea.........
And, for me, the main point is that the title is
Farewell to arms , not to the arms
This can compltely change my reading......... Dam, don �t where I have the book, have to reread iti
Thanks Sophia
( forgibve my mistakes, got some problems.)
Linda
|
14 Sep 2010
|
|
|
Sonn
|
Arms also has a meaning of "war".
BTW, Tolstoy �s "Voina i mir" is translated into English like "War and Peace". But many years ago (in the XIX th century) in Russian language the word "mir" meant not only "the world", "harmony" or "peace" but also "community, beau-monde" and some critics think that Tolstoy �s "mir" in the novel is actually "(beau-)monde" but not "peace" only i.e. it is a pun. That �s why I prefer to read books in the original so that no to lose anything.
So maybe there is something in ueslteacher �s "arms" 
|
14 Sep 2010
|
|
|
yanogator
|
|
As Lindsey said, in English "arms" doesn �t mean embrace or hugs. It might mean that in other languages, though.
Bruce |
14 Sep 2010
|
|
|
Sonn
|
|
My dictionary says hugs=arms. But maybe it is because of the expression "with open arms" where the word "arms" is translated into Russian as "embrace, hugs". Anyway, native speakers know it better.
|
14 Sep 2010
|
|
|
yanogator
|
|
There are expressions such as "I held her in my arms", where the entire expression has a meaning similar to "hug", but not the word "arms" alone.
Bruce |
14 Sep 2010
|
|
1
2
Next >
|
