Playwright John Guare once said, “We live in a world where amnesia is the most wished-for state.When did history become a bad word?” This relates to Ernest Hemingway’s A Farewell to Arms, due to its main characters’ goal of suppressing memory and their breaking of traditional archetypes. This novel tells the story of Catherine Barkley, a British army nurse, and Frederic Henry, an American ambulance driver (in the Italian army), in World War I. When they embark on a relationship that they seem committed to, Catherine suffers from the death of her to be husband and Henry looks for a break from the war. After their relationship stabilizes, Henry deserts the army, and he and Catherine elope to Switzerland. Catherine soon dies bearing a stillborn …show more content…
In A Farewell to Arms, Hemingway depicts love as an escape from the horrors of war and challenges the pertaining gender conventions with Catherine and Henry’s respective uses of their relationship and consequent breakings of the aforementioned conventions. Catherine uses Henry to fill in the pain caused by the death of her fiance, breaking the convention that only males treat their partners as mere utilities. At the beginning of her relationship with Henry, she makes him role play as her former lover, with her saying “Say ‘I’ve come back to Catherine in the night,’” to which Henry obediently responds, “I’ve come back to Catherine in the night,” and Catherine rejoices, “Oh darling, you have come back, haven’t you?” (Hemingway 30). Catherine demonstrates that she does not possess true love for Henry. To her, Henry’s role playing is but a Nepenthe for the death of her late fiance. Later in the novel, when she seems to truly love Henry, she betrays her true intentions: “‘Don’t touch me,’she said. I let go of her hand. …show more content…
At first, Henry only lusts for Catherine, saying, “I know I did not love Catherine Barkley nor had any idea of loving her. This was a game” (Hemingway 30). To Henry, his relationship with Catherine a farce, in his words, “a game,” by which he could have sex with Catherine. Henry endeavors to woo Catherine, a long term investment of emotion, instead of hiring a prostitute like his fellow soldiers, a short term foray into sexual pleasure, to further distract him from the war he is fighting. Henry reveals more when Catherine dies. “It was like saying goodbye to a statue. After a while, I went out and left the hospital and walked back to the hotel in the rain”(Hemingway 332). Immediately after Catherine dies, Henry continues pretending that he is in love with her, out of habit, as evidenced by his description of her as a “statue.” Catherine, to Henry is more useful as a static vehicle in the narrative of his life, rather than as a person he should truly care about. Therefore, he leaves in the very next sentence of the same paragraph, since he has no need for a dead woman to feel sorrow for--he already has a war with millions of casualties to serve that end. The novel further portrays Henry’s apathy for Catherine by “[ending] with [Henry’s] surrender of narration”(Herndl). This sheds light on how Henry lacks enough care for Catherine to express his grief for
After a few days of grieving, Editha went to George’s mother’s house. During a tragic even in a love-war story, both sides of the family would come together and overcome the obstacle. However, in Editha when she went to George’s parent’s house the mother gave more guilt to Editha saying, “He told me he had asked you to come if he got killed. You did not expect that, I suppose, when you sent him” (1499). The mother continues to say, “When they give their men up to their country, they think they will come marching back, somehow, just as gay as they went...and they are so much the prouder of them” (1500). This comment is reffering to the typical type of love-war stories that have been written, undercutting the romantic plots.
Catherine Barkley is Frederick’s true love. “I felt damned lonely and was glad when the train got to Stresa…I was expecting my wife…” (Hemingway 243-244). This quote shows the physical and emotional yearning that Catherine inspires in Frederic. This desire for her is what helps him through the war. Eliezer’s love, on the other hand, is directed towards his father.
Assadnassab, Sara. "Hemingway´s Depiction of Women in A Farewell to Arms.”. http://epubl.ltu.se/1402-1773/2005/117/LTU-CUPP-05117-SE.pdf (accessed April 17, 2013).
Since the men Catherine’s father always tried to arrange were not appealing, Catherine claimed, “ I would not wed the fat and flabby Fulk and would probably set him afire again” (74). Catherine was willing to do almost anything to get of a marriage, even if it got her into trouble. She did these kinds of pranks because she prefered to marry who she loved when she was ready. Catherine also feels, “Marriage seems to me to be but spinning, bearing children, and weeping” (97). Marriage, to Catherine seemed like the worst lady-tasks of them all. It was almost like acting like a slave doing work for your husband and kids, according to Catherine. Going against these marriages was a big risk for her especially with Lord Rollo’s and Morwenna’s strict rules. Catherine was a determined fourteen year old who always tried her hardest to escape all arranged marriages her father had set up, which took much courage from her
Escape from Reality in A Farewell to Arms & nbsp; In Ernest Hemingway's A Farewell to Arms, Fredric Henry gets involved with Catherine Barkley to escape the insanity of war. Frederic loves Catherine. Catherine loves Frederic. The extreme situation of war and fate allowed both of them to be thrown together and fall in love.
A contrast in personalities is presented in the ways Frederic and Catherine are playing opposite roles in the relationship in the relationship. In a “normal” relationship between a man and a woman, the man is the one who takes care of the women and all that, but in this relationship it is reversed. Frederic is an ambulance officer for the Italian Army and Catherine is his nurse. Any time Frederic is injured, Catherine is there to help him out and care for him. Not only does Catherine take care of his physical state, but she also takes care of his emotional state. Whenever Frederic is feeling down, Catherine is there to cheer him up. Catherine maturely decides to make a commitment, to love someone who she knows does not love her back, and to take full reponsibility for her actions throughout, including the pregnancy that occurs (Hays-55).
Penn Warren, Robert. "Ernest Hemingway," Introduction to Modern Standard Authors edition of A Farewell to Arms. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1949.
The world contains many recurring events that remind humans of morals or things that are important. In the novel “A Farewell to Arms” many events come again and again. Usually, these events that repeat or come again have a deeper message inscribed in the text. This is not unlike the novel “The Great Gatsby” which has weather that unfailingly matches up with the tone and mood of the text. Author Ernest Hemingway has created “A Farewell to Arms” with a motif that is very precise.
Ernest Hemingway used his experiences from World War I to enhance the plot of A Farewell to Arms. Parallels can be drawn throughout the entire novel between Henry's and Hemingway's experiences. Both were Americans serving in the Italian army; both were wounded and went to Milan; both fell in love with a nurse. These many similarities, however, also contain slight differences. There is no real question that Hemingway based events in the novel off of his real experiences, but A Farewell to Arms is by no means an autobiography. The book does not focus on the experience of war. Instead, it is more focused on the after-effects. Minor changes to the events themselves make the novel unique, while the factual basis strengthens the plot with authentic feeling.
A Farewell to Arms, by Ernest Hemingway, is a story about love and war. Frederic Henry, a young American, works as an ambulance driver for the Italian army in World War I. He falls tragically in love with a beautiful English nurse, Miss Catherine Barkley. This tragedy is reflected by water. Throughout the novel Ernest Hemingway uses water as metaphors. Rivers are used as symbols of rebirth and escape and rain as tragedy and disaster, which show how water plays an important role in the story.
The first, most obvious trait of Catherine’s heroism is that she values human relationships above materialism. Nothing is more important to Catherine than her lover, Henry, and as the novel goes on, her baby. When Henry is injured and sent to Milan, she has no trouble transferring to the new hospital there. Catherine loves Henry and would drop anything to be with him. Nothing material holds her back from being with him. Even when they live in Switzerland, they don’t have many material possessions. They live very simple lives because all the couple really needs is each other. In chapter forty, Henry describes their time together with this quote, "When there was a good day we had a splendid time and we never had a bad time. We knew the baby was very close now and it gave us both a feeling as though something were hurrying us and we could not lose any time together." Catherine obviously values her time with Henry more than anyone else, but it isn’t the physical aspect of getting out and doing things that satisfies her. What satisfies Catherine is the extra time she gets to spend with the love of her life b...
Hemingway shows that events such as love and war can easily remove the thin coat of masculinity that many people associate manhood with. Moreover, Hemingway displays that once an individual has someone or something to live for, he becomes prudent to the point where outside appearance and people’s judgement does not matter. In Henry’s case, he strives to live for Catherine and their future, therefore, he starts to lose his aggressiveness and audacity in exchange for a caring and responsible
Frederic is involved in multiple struggles over the course of the novel. One of those deals with his love for Catherine. From the moment Frederic meets Catherine Barkley his physical lust for her is extremely potent. After he is transported to the hospital in Milan, that love and lust becomes insatiable. Every moment each can spare they spend together. However, when Catherine is delivering the baby, Frederic regrets sleeping with her constantly. He even goes so far as to call their midnight rendezvous a trap (320). He is upset with himself for causing her to endure all the pain and agony of childbirth. Torn between his enjoyment of having Catherine and his desire to protect her from harm, Fredric finds himself conflicted. Although he did love Catherine, loved her enough to desert the army, he did not realize the consequences of actually loving her.
In Book I, the army is still waiting for action, and the world is one of boredom with men drinking to make time go by and whoring to get women. War itself is a male game; ”no more dangerous to me myself than war in the movies” (34). Love is also a game. When Henry meets and makes his sexual approach to Catherine Barkley he is only trying to relieve war’s boredom; ”I knew I did not love Catherine Barkley or had any idea of loving her. This was a game, like bridge, in which you said things instead of playing cards” (28).
middle of paper ... ... so provided the reader with realistic descriptions of the warfront. Ernest Hemingway’s A Farewell to Arms realistically explores the inglorious and brutal truths of war, and idealistically analyzes the power of true love. Works Cited “A Farewell to Arms Essay – A Farewell to Arms, Ernest Hemingway.”