A Farewell to Arms1

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Recommended: After twenty years of literary analysis

A Farewell to Arms1

Love is impossible to explain or fully understand; it is enfable and war is merely an outcome of disputes between ignorant aristocrats. A Farewell to Arms, by Ernest Hemingway, is a novel about love and war. The narrator, Fredrick Henry is a war-time ambulance driver, and Catherine Barkley is an English nurse, who find themselves in a love affair which must maneuver itself around the restrictions of World War I.

The novel begins in Gorizia, Italy the center of operations for Fredrick’s troop, World War I. Fredrick is an American volunteer and in the Ambulance Corps for the Italian Army. He meets a English nurse Catherine named Barkley and does not truly fall in love with her until he gets badly wounded and is put in a hospital. They begin to have alove affair and Catherine becomes impregnated. With a baby on the way Fredrick feels a real sense of responsibility towards Catherine. When he finaly recovers from from his lengthy stay in the hospital he returns to front. When the two part it is very rainy, cloudy, and gloomy. Hemingway makes good use of weather in pursuit of verisimilitude. There is so much violence and death in the war Fredrick no longer wants to be a apart of it and deserts the army to return to Catherine. When they reunite the rain stops and there is light. They then escape to Switzerland by boat and begin to live happily. When Catherine goes into labor there is complications. The baby dies and later Catherine dies from hemorrhaging.

What is love? Love is difficult to explain but, it involves a deep affection for a person or thing. At the beginning of the novel, lieutenant Frederick Henry lacks a sense of value and order in his life. He chooses to intoxicate himself and make visits to prostitutes frequently. During this time of intense stress and pressure this lifestyle is common amongst his fellow comrades. It provides them with an escape from a hostile and undesirable reality of war. Lieutenant Rinaldi, Fredricks enthusiastic surgeon friend soon introduces him to an English nurse, Catherine Barkley. Their relationship brings some order and value into his life.

This new form of order which Fredrick discovers is love. He can no longer remain apart of something that is so disorderly and consequently deserts the Italian army out of love: “When you love you wish to do things for.

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