Frederic Henry: A Brave, Alert, and Loyal Lieutenant
Hemingway's novel A Farewell To Arms takes place during World War I in various parts of Italy. Frederic Henry is an American second-lieutenant volunteering in the ambulance corps of the Italian army, his lover, Catherine Barkley, is a British nurse who falls in love with Henry following the death of her fiancé. This novel conveys Henry’s struggle of his fate as a Code Hero. The ideal Code Hero will continuously face death and measure themselves by how well they handle the difficult situations that life throws at him. Henry displays many traits throughout the novel, the most significant are how he is brave, alert, and loyal.
A characteristic of a Code Hero is being brave in the face of danger. Henry had just returned from the dressing station, he was fetching some wine and cheese for his men. While eating, Henry’s hut was struck by a trench mortar shell. Henry had been knocked unconscious by the impact, when he became conscious, he immediately checked on his men. Henry tried to put a tourniquet on Passini, but he couldn’t move. Henry continued to try and help Passini, unfortunately by the time Henry was able to undo his puttee Passini was dead. Even after Passinis death, Henry continued to look for his men, it wasn’t until Henry sat up straight that he felt the pain of his injuries. By the time Henry was rescued and taken to the dressing station, he had located the rest of his men. When the doctor tried to attend to Henry’s wounds, he refused medical treatment. He
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Hemingway’s idea of a Code Hero plays a part in depicting these characteristics of Henry. Henry displays his bravery as a Code Hero through being perceptive and dedicated to the war. The idea of Henry being allegiant to the war shifts to Henry only being true to Catherine. For the duration of the novel, Frederic Henry is consistently brave, alert, and loyal, even in the face of
Though some, an example being Holden Caulfield, may seem to be code heroes at first, they don’t have the fundamental qualities that distinguish a hero from a spoiled rich kid. In his case, Caulfield does not showcase courage and endurance, but rather cowardice and idleness when he comes across even the slightest of problems. However, others may fit Hemingway’s definition of a code hero so well that Hemingway himself would be impressed. Harry from “The Snows of Kilimanjaro”, Tony Stark, and Chris McCandless all retain the characteristics of Hemingway code heroes. These characteristics, as stated in Hemingway’s definition, are honor, courage, and endurance in the face of chaos, stress, and pain. Harry shows these qualities by remaining stoic and calm even when facing death. When Tony Stark is captured and tortured, he shows that he is a man of honor by staying true to himself and his moral code. Moreover, Chris McCandless endured through all of the suffering he was subject to throughout his life and showing tenacity until the very end. All of these men represent what it truly means to be a code
The Code Hero is present in the majority of Hemingway's novels. Even the young man in Hills Like White Elephants contained many of the characteristics of the Code Hero such as free-willed, individualist, and travel. The individualism comes out in his desire to not have a child.
In the early portion of the book, Crane offers his readers several chances to examine the protagonist’s personality. Henry seems to be largely narcissistic and self-centered, and appears deeply unconcerned with the concept of duty. Henry’s only concern is glory, and he has seemingly no drive to do what it takes to earn this glory. A good example of this is when he fears that he may be outed as a coward, but not because his lack of bravery is indicative of being a bad soldier, but because such exposure would ultimately deny him of the renown he longs for.
At the beginning, Henry Fleming has an undeveloped identity because his inexperience limits his understanding of heroism, manhood, and courage. For example, on the way to war, “The regiment was fed and caressed at station after station until the youth [Henry] had believed that he must be a hero” (Crane 13). Since he has yet to fight in war, Henry believes a hero is defined by what others think of him and not what he actually does. The most heroic thing he has done so far is enlist, but even that was with ulterior motives; he assumes fighting in the war will bring him glory, yet another object of others’ opinions. At this point, what he thinks of himself is much less important than how the public perceives him. As a result of not understanding
Henry becomes bored and unhappy. For time he begins to question his bravery and he
"After a while I went out and left the hospital and walked back to the hotel in the rain" (332). This last line of the novel gives an understanding of Ernest Hemingway's style and tone. The overall tone of the book is much different than that of The Sun Also Rises. The characters in the book are propelled by outside forces, in this case WWI, where the characters in The Sun Also Rises seemed to have no direction. Frederick's actions are determined by his position until he deserts the army. Floating down the river with barely a hold on a piece of wood his life, he abandons everything except Catherine and lets the river take him to a new life that becomes increasing difficult to understand. Nevertheless, Hemingway's style and tone make A Farewell to Arms one of the great American novels. Critics usually describe Hemingway's style as simple, spare, and journalistic. These are all good words they all apply. Perhaps because of his training as a newspaperman, Hemingway is a master of the declarative, subject-verb-object sentence. His writing has been likened to a boxer's punches--combinations of lefts and rights coming at us without pause. As illustrated on page 145 "She went down the hall. The porter carried the sack. He knew what was in it," one can see that Hemingway's style is to-the-point and easy to understand. The simplicity and the sensory richness flow directly from Hemingway's and his characters' beliefs. The punchy, vivid language has the immediacy of a news bulletin: these are facts, Hemingway is telling us, and they can't be ignored. And just as Frederic Henry comes to distrust abstractions like "patriotism," so does Hemingway distrust them. Instead he seeks the concrete and the tangible. A simple "good" becomes higher praise than another writer's string of decorative adjectives. Hemingway's style changes, too, when it reflects his characters' changing states of mind. Writing from Frederic Henry's point of view, he sometimes uses a modified stream-of-consciousness technique, a method for spilling out on paper the inner thoughts of a character. Usually Henry's thoughts are choppy, staccato, but when he becomes drunk the language does too, as in the passage on page 13, "I had gone to no such place but to the smoke of cafes and nights when the room whirled and you
Throughout this novel, Frederick Henry's behavior matures to the code hero in which Hemingway desires to be.
We all have them, men and women we know who have served in the military. They are people we admire, look up to, and respect for the sacrifices they made and their courage in the face of adversity on and off the battlefield. For hundreds of years, our military troops have sacrificed their lives for America’s freedom. They have never stopped giving of themselves day after day, week after week, month after month, and year after year. Whether it’s on the grounds of Iraq or the mountains in Afghanistan, people are fighting for our freedom. Adam Koopmann, Military Police Officer, has consistently achieved these accomplishments on a daily basis in order to fight for our country. He has improved the lives of hundreds of people making him a hero.
When the United States entered World War 1, Hemingway joined the Red Cross medical service. He served on the Italian front as a medic. He performed an act of heroisms during a mortar bombardment. Hemingway was badly injured in the knee from shrapnel, but he managed to carry a wounded soldier to an aid station. Afterwards he was decorated for his bravery and rejoined the Italian army as a soldier. He also served in World War 2 in a division that captured Paris, his favorite city. It is said that the first ...
"All fiction is autobiographical, no matter how obscure from the author's experience it may be, marks of their life can be detected in any of their tales"(Bell, 17). A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway is based largely on Hemingway's own personal experiences. The main character of the novel, Frederic Henry, experiences many of the same situations that Hemingway lived. Some of these similarities are exact, while some are less similar, and some events have a completely different outcome.
Stewart, Matthew C. "Ernest Hemingway and World War I: Combatting Recent Psychobiographical Reassessments, Restoring the War." Papers on Language & Literature 36.2 (2000): 198-221.
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.
Hemingway characterizes his heroes as people with strength, courage, and bravery, but even heroes have their flaws. For example, Frederic Henry, the protagonist of A Farewell to Arms, survives an artillery bombardment that kills one of his own men and badly injures him. Hemingway shows the strength of this character through his survival of the bombardment and full recovery of his wounds. Hemingway portrays Frederic as a hero through this strength. In addition, Fredric, being fully aware of the dangers from both the enemy and the Italian's, who mistake him and his drivers for German's, kill one of them, and then threaten to execute Frederic, who escapes. In this daring escape, Frederic presents his courage and bravery in a dangerous situation. Hemingway demonstrates that although one of Frederic's men dies, he is still courageous in that his escape was successful. Frederic Henry's potential as a hero is shown by Hemingway's illustration of events that depict Frederic's use of his strength, his courage, and his bravery (Lewis 46).
While Frederic Henry may be the main focus of the novel, we cannot forget that Catherine Barkley is the original Hemingway Code Hero that helped Henry mature to the hero he is at the end of the novel. Without Catherine’s heroism, Frederic Henry would still be an immature ambulance driver that frequents brothels without much meaning to his life. Catherine forces him to grow up and face the world, and that is why she deserves her title as a Hemingway Code Hero.
The state of affairs and the grim reality of the war lead Henry towards an ardent desire for a peaceful life, and as a result Henry repudiates his fellow soldiers at the warfront. Henry’s desertion of the war is also related to his passionate love for Catherine. Henry’s love for Catherine is progressive and ironic. This love develops gradually in “stages”: Henry’s attempt at pretending love for Catherine towards the beginning of the novel, his gradually developing love for her, and finally, Henry’s impas... ...