Frederick Henry Discovered
In A Farewell to Arms, Ernest Hemingway uses his idea of the code hero to introduce us to an amazing character. Hemingway takes his own ideas and conveys them through Frederic Henry. During World War I Frederic Henry proves to us that war and lost love can change a strong and willing man. Most men are not willing to change and Frederic Henry realized that in order for him to survive the many problems he was faced with, he would have to become a more mature man, love and solider.
Hemingway’s code hero is portrayed in most every novel that Hemingway wrote. He takes his main character and makes him someone that is hard to change and even harder to make realize the situations around him. His code heroes are attractive, but not too attractive. They are very masculine and strong-minded. They stand for “what is right.” The code hero always believes in doing his job completely and putting it first, no matter what. Hemingway’s code hero consists of one very strong, willful man that is willing to do what he needs to do in order to get the job done. The main focus of Frederic Henry as a code hero is serving to his greatest extent in the war (Hemingway, A Farewell to Arms 124).
Fredric Henry was injured while in the war, but as soon as he was healed he went back to the front. Henry returns to the front because he believes in finishing something that he was involved with in the first place. These actions are heroic because although he wasn’t forced to go back to the front he felt an obligation to the war. This reflects an aspect of Hemingway’s code hero because Henry wasn’t going to walk away and take the easy was out of the situation. “He was serving in a war and he gave absolute loyalty and as ...
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...trong courageous and strong-willed. Frederic Henry is the type of man that Hemingway has developed to be throughout the writing of this novel.
Bibliography:
Hemingway, Ernest. A Farewell to Arms. U.S.: Simon & Schuster Inc. 1929.
For Whom the Bell Tolls. U.S.: Simon & Schuster Inc. 1940.
Nagel, Gwen. “A Tessera For Frederic Henry: Imagery And Recurrence in A Farewell To Arms.” Ernest Hemingway Six Decades of Criticism. Ed. Michigan State Press : 1987. 187-193.
Nolan, Charles. “Shooting the Sergeant-Frederic Henry’s Puzzling Action.” Westchester State College. III (1984): 269-275.
Phelan, James. “Narrative Discourse, Literary Character, and Ideology.” Reading Narrative. 20 (1989) 132-146.
Phelan, James. “The Concept of Voice, the Voices of Frederic Henry, and the Structure of A Farewell to Arms.” Oxford University Press. 10 (1991) 214-232.
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.
World War I began in 1914 and lasted until the end of 1918. In that time young men had to go to the front and fight for their country. It is also the time when Ernest Hemingway’s novel A Farewell to Arms takes place. It talks about Frederic Henry, a young American who is an ambulance driver for the Italian army. He is also the novel’s narrative and protagonist. He falls in love with an English nurse, Catherine Barkley. She is the main woman character in the novel and it is noticeable how she is shown as a stereotypical female during World War I. Throughout the novel we can see how women are shown in a stereotypical way and how they were mistreated by men. The purpose of this essay is firstly to analyze how Hemingway describes women in his novel A Farewell to Arms and finally to discuss Catherine’s attitude towards Frederic.
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
Ernest Hemingway used an abundant amount of imagery in his War World I novel, A Farewell to Arms. In the five books that the novel is composed of, the mind is a witness to the senses of sight, touch, smell, hearing, and taste. All of the these senses in a way connects to the themes that run through the novel. We get to view Hemingway’s writing style in a greater depth and almost feel, or mentally view World War I and the affects it generates through Lieutenant Henry’s eyes.
In The Heath Anthology of American Literature, Volume II. Edited by Paul Lauter et al. Lexington, MA: D.C. Heath and Company, 1991: 1208-1209. Hemingway, Ernest. A.
Frederick Henry grew up in America and in his early twenties, he decided to go to Europe and fight in the Italian army. Henry’s decision in the first place, showed courage and bravery. Fighting for another country over making a living in your own goes above and beyond what is remotely asked for. Even in my wildest dreams, I would probably not even think about fighting for my own country, let alone a foreign country. Times were tough, especially when the start of the winter came. With that winter came “permanent rain and with the rain came the cholera. But it was checked and in the end and only seven thousand died of it in the army.” (4) In the army, people die, and it is not the nicest place. Frederick Henry chose to enter this world and this portrays bravery.
"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
Ernest Hemingway’s code hero can be defined as “a man who lives correctly, following the ideals of honor, courage and endurance in a world that is sometimes chaotic, often stressful, and always painful." The Hemingway Code Hero embodies specific traits shown throughout the plot of a story. In the series of short stories “The Nick Adams Stories” by Ernest Hemingway, the protagonist Nick Adams, slowly begins to develop as a code hero throughout the transversal of the plot. Adams is able to demonstrate courage, honor, and stoicism, while tolerating the chaos and stress of his crazy world.
Ernest Hemingway once stated that “Courage is grace under pressure.”. This can be interpreted as meaning that one who is courageous yet constantly on edge maintains his/her composure within a world where harm and death are frequent occurrences. Throughout Hemingway’s various writings, such as “A Farewell to Arms”, the Hemingway Code Hero acted as a prime example of this principle, for Frederic Henry measured his self-worth solely on his ability to cope with the many difficult situations that presented themselves without revealing his emotions to those around him, including the people most dear to him.
Hemingway takes care to spin a perfectly developed plot and then suddenly in a single page, a few strokes of the pen, he sends it tumbling down. Why? Hemingway writes,” ‘Halt,’ I said. they kept on down the muddy road, the hedge on either side. ‘I order you to halt,’ I called. They went a little faster. I opened my holster, took the pistol, aimed at the one who talked the most, and fired.” (Hemingway 177) Frederic Henry, the book’s ever changing main character, who throughout the book is distant from the war and who grows to detest it has suddenly become firmly embroiled in it. He killed a man for no reason at all and has furthered the war which he seemed to oppose. Hemingway does this in order to bring the war to the forefront of the novel.
Ernest Hemingway's fascinating work of tragic fiction also known as Farwell to Arms, continues to be a controversial topic amongst many critics of wither or not it is truly a tragedy. The main argument for it being a tragedy is Federick Henry has no control over his fate and his life is meant to be a tragedy. The author of this article, Merrill believes this to be true and even quotes Ernest's own words: "The fact that the book was a tragic one did not make me unhappy since I believed that life was tragedy and know it could only have on end"
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.
...cause the Hemingway Hero does not speak about his beliefs often, he just shows them. He does not glamorize death with hopes of an after life. Frederic Henry just takes death for what it is. While Henry is fearful of the unknown, he is not afraid of the process of death because he has lived his life exactly the way a Hemingway Code Hero would want to.
SparkNotes Editors. “SparkNotes on A Farewell to Arms.” SparkNotes.com. SparkNotes LLC. 2002. Web. 30 Apr. 2014.