Today's session addressed analyzing and writing on the symbolic significance of the river as well the author's shifting the novel's point of view from the first person to the second person in certain passages . Joshua did well identifying the river as both a geographical and metaphorical dividing line between the war and its indiscriminate violence and a life without death and war. I then addressed Lt Henry's escape in the river as a symbolic baptism where Lt Henry emerges with a new identify clean of the sins of war and the murders he has committed in its name. I then assisted Joshua in constructing a paragraph on the symbolism of the river using a topic sentence, quotes from the novel, and commentary explaining how the quote relates to and supports the topic sentence. We further tied the significance of the river to Lt Henry's discarding his uniform as he sheds his former identity as a soldier .

Hemingway as a vanguard of Modernism: We studied the strikingly similar syntactic and symbolic similarities between certain passages in the novel and ee Cumming's poem," anyone lived in A Pretty how town." As Cummings abandons all of the traditional techniques of conventional grammar and syntax, I explained the poem's structure and meaning line by line as Joshua noted the textual and diction similarities that Hemingway 's novel incorporated 10 years before the poem was written. We further noted the critical role symbolism plays in the novel to fill in the emotional context that Hemingway stylistically and intentionally removes from his prose.

As last night's reading contained a reference to a few phrases from Shelleys' "Ode to the West Wind", we today addressed the relationship between the poem and Lt. Henry's dream sequence that incorporates a few iconic words from the poem. We noted the overlapping rain imagery as well as Shelley's call for a new world order as similar to Lt.Henry's hope for a separate new world for him and Catherine outside of the war. However, we noted that Shelley's optimism at the end of the poem starkly contrasts with Hemingway's implicit fatalism and his association of rain with death ,not rebirth. We further reviewed Joshua's written analyses of passages from the text. I provided suggestions and edits to eliminate superfluous phrases and to clarify his interpretations.

We explored Hemingway's complicated attitude and unique definition of what constitutes "defeat." After examining the terse dialogue between Lt Henry and the priest, we discussed Lt Henry's observation that the Christian virtue of forgiveness is only held by the defeated, not the victors. But loss is not defeat as Lt Henry paradoxically expresses that victory can be worse than defeat. We discussed this paradox and in what way defeat gives one the opportunity to show true courage and "grace under pressure" while victory does not truly test a man. We further analyzed fatalistic passages wherein Lt Henry expresses that peasants are wise because they realize that they are defeated by their poverty and class status even before they experience actual defeat on the battlefield . I provided instruction on how to prepare an analysis of this passage to assist Joshua in completing tonight's homework .

Today's session addressed writing a paragraph that interprets a significant passage from the novel. I reviewed a format- context, paraphrase, and significance- and we then discussed how the identified context should be related to text's significance. After I provided the passage , we examined why Rinaldi has become cynical about life and the war and how the passage's pessimism borders on fatalism. Joshua drafted the beginning of a paragraph, and we then reviewed ways to make his analysis more specific . To conclude the exercise, I then discussed how to write a character analysis of Rinaldi by contrasting Lt Henry with Rinaldi. We completed the exercise during the session by revising the focus of the paragraph to include additional information about the role of the war and death in shaping the characters' outlook.

We continued to study the stylistic significance of Hemingway's terse prose and dialogue within the analytical framework of external vs internal forces. Joshua did well with an exercise wherein he offered the unspoken subtext of conversations between Lt Henry and Catherine noting how they speak of the prosaic to avoid confronting the reality of the war. We next explored how the war has altered Rinaldi from the light hearted companion of Lt Henry into a fatalistic cynic . In this regard, his STD mirrors his deteriorating outlook on life. As Joshua will be completing a passage analysis tonight, I reviewed how to approach the analysis and how to expand on its significance by addressing Rinaldi's character change as a manifestation of the fatalism inherent in the Naturalist genre.

We continued yesterday's lesson developing an analytical framework for the novel by examining opposing forces: external beyond control and free will resistance to these forces . In this regard, we reviewed last night's homework which required Joshua to prepare a textual analysis of certain passages illustrating these conflicting forces. I provided an instructional format for preparing a textual analysis and we worked on revising Joshua's written work to include the broader significance of the passages such as tying them to the elements of the Naturalist genre. Likewise, we revised the analysis on the internal forces of individualism, such as love and courage ,and noted how the novel raises the question as to whether Man can ever successfully challenge the external forces that seem destined to "break" us. Last, we studied earlier drafts of certain dialogue passages in the novel wherein the narrator in early drafts perfectly describes Hemingway's terse writing style noting,"if you want to keep anything it is best not to talk about it."

Today's session addressed the novel's theme within the Naturalist genre of Man's free will in the face of external factors ,such as war, death, old age , government that control outcomes . I placed quotes from the novel on the board that contained the words," trapped, and cooked" and discussed their fatalistic implication . We further explored the symbolism of the rain and quotes associating rain with death and the inevitable lack of control over destiny. We discussed other quotes from the novel wherein the characters suggest they can challenge destiny with courage . In this regard, Lt Henry alludes to the famous quote from Shakespeare's "Julius Caesar" that cowards die many times before their death/the valiant taste of death but once." We analyzed Catherine's disagreement with this assessment of bravery and the relevance of this allusion to the novel's theme of the role of courage and bravery in the face of the inevitable .

We outlined the characteristics of the Hemingway male protagonist-brave, unemotional , morally independent- and linked these traits to events in the novel. We specifically focused on how Lt Henry and Catherine form their own moral code and religion which Catherine describes as their "faithful" and devoted relationship with each other, not with God. We further explored the novel's depiction of Catherine as totally self-negating and submissive and pondered whether she represents Hemingway's ideal woman(he was married 4x) or a psychological victim of the war. Last, we noted how Lt Henry's relationship with Catherine offers the protagonist an opportunity to redefine male bravery outside the context of the war or the encountering a life and death dilemma.

We have studied Hemingway's style known as the iceberg theory since so much lies beneath the surface of the terse dialogue and descriptions. I first thematically noted on the board the role of courage, bravery, love, and God in the novel. We discussed Hemingway's apparent agnosticism and the symbolic role of the priest in this analysis. We then worked on the following analytical writing exercise :We studied a very terse and facially inconsequential dialogue between Lt Henry and Catherine and composed the unwritten emotional or subconscious subtext or what is beneath the tip of the iceberg. As Joshua had some difficulty with the exercise, I provided an example he used as a model. Through this exercise ,we were able to plainly discern the emotional vibrancy of Hemingway's silences.