Analysis Of A Farewell To Arms By Ernest Hemingway

Author’s Tragedies Influence Characters and Theme

Ernest Hemingway was born on July 21, 1899, in Oak Park, Illinois. His mother, Grace Hall, was a trained opera singer and later on, a music teacher. His father, Clarence Hemingway, was a doctor and an avid naturalist ("Ernest Hemingway: An Inventory”). Just after graduating high school, at the age of eighteen, Hemingway enlisted in the army to fight in World War I ("The Big Read"). After being severely wounded in the war, he moved to Paris in 1921, and devoted himself to writing fiction (Baker). It is said that, “No American writer is more associated with writing about war in the early 20th century than Ernest Hemingway” (Putnam). Hemingway’s book A Farewell to Arms was published in 1929, and was based off of the events that happened to him in the war and what happened in his love life. Fredrick Henry, the protagonist, is an American ambulance driver fighting for the allies during World War I. He is introduced to a nurse named Catherine, who he later on falls in love with. Henry was hit by a trench mortar shell and was very badly injured. He is then sent to Milan, where Catherine later on comes to help nurse him to health. The two fall in love and Henry no longer is involved with the war, so they try and have a child, but both Catherine and the child die during labor, and Henry is left alone. Psychoanalytical approach views the psychological motivations of characters, which refer to the dynamics of personality development and behavior based on the unconscious motivations of a person ("Psychoanalytic Theory”). Hemingway’s writing was greatly impacted by his real life tragedies, which consist of witnessing the gruesomeness of war and his discovery and loss of love, this helps exhibi...

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... experiences of love with Agnes von Kurowsky. That being said, the two main characters of the text can be psychoanalytically depicted through the use of the id, the ego, and the superego, which helps uncover how complete happiness is unachievable. The protagonist, Fredric Henry could not obtain complete happiness due to the situations he encountered himself in. Catherine also could not acquire absolute happiness because of the loss of her fiancé. Lastly, the rain symbolizes tragedy and the dissolution of happiness, which can be seen through the soldiers on the battlefield. Hemingway was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1954 because of his ability to capture the art of narrative. Later on, Hemingway committed suicide on July 2, 1961 (“Ernest Hemingway- Biorgaphy”). “In order to write about life first you must live it” (Ernest Miller Hemingway, 1899 – 1961.”).