Sick and Wounded: A Comparative Study of the Novels of Ernest Hemingway and William Faulkner and Virginia Woolf

ABSTRACT

The conspicuous feature of the novels of Ernest Hemingway and William Faulkner is the presentation of sick and wounded characters. Both are war novelists and both belong to the new America of 1920s. Interestingly both Hemingway and Faulkner actually participated in the World War 1 and had seen the brutalities of the war and whole sale killing of soldiers. the horrible scenes of killings haunted Hemingway day and night. The soldiers who survived had sleepless nights; their condition was similar to that of the Holocaust survivors such as Primo Levis, Elie Wiesel and Charlotte Delbo. The survivors of the Holocaust didn’t want to live and most of them committed suicide. No wonder, Hemingway, William Faulkner also committed suicide because of frustration and desperation. Thousands of soldiers were the victims of war trauma and were “shell shocked” during the World War 1written in the post-World War era. The soldiers suffered physical and psychological ailments and showed the symptoms of trauma in their life. PTSD. Hemingway experienced struggle, sufferings and oppression and witnessed the cruelty of the war machine that killed millions of people.

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