A Farewell To Arms Essay

A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway is a book about love and war set in Italy during WWI. The book begins with Lieutenant Frederick Henry working as an ambulance driver along the front lines. He soon meets Catherine and they begin to have feelings for each other. Soon after Frederick is injured by an artillery shell and sent to a hospital in Milan. Catherine who is a nurse in the English army transfers to the hospital to be with him. Throughout their time in Milan they begin to fall in love, and Catherine soon becomes pregnant with Frederick's child. Frederic eventually becomes healthy again and is sent back to the front lines of northern Italy. Shortly after he arrives the Austrians break the Italians front lines at the Battle of Caporetto and the Italians are forced to retreat. During the retreat many of the soldiers refuse to fight again, and the Italian battle police start executing

     There is great power in being an author; you can make things happen which do not necessarily occur in real life. Hemingway felt throughout his life, powerless, and so to escape this, he created alternative lives by writing stories. Hemingway, who fell in love with Agnes, an American nurse, seven years older than he, while wounded in Milan, was deeply hurt after she didn't return his affections. While the beginning of A Farewell to Arms, up until this point is similar, this is where the story changes. In the book, Frederic and Catherine are both in love with each other. Hemingway continued his affair with Agnes through Frederic and Catherine. He put his dreams of what his faded love affair would have been like in the love scenes between Catherine and Frederic:

Ernest Hemingway’s novel of A Farewell to Arms depicts the harsh veracities of World War 1, based on Hemingway’s personal accounts. His novel, written with simplicity and sensory detail, develops a zealous affair between an injured ambulance driver and his nurse. Hemingway’s illustration of lovers amidst a war allows readers to create their own interpretation of how the story evolves. His writing entails the reader to examine the chaotic circumstances throughout the novel. For example, on page 172, Hemingway writes, “Well, we were in it. Everyone was caught in it and the small rain would not quiet it. ‘Goodnight, Catherine,’ I said out loud. ‘I hope you sleep well. If it’s too uncomfortable, darling, lie on the other side,’ I said. ‘I’ll get you some cold water. In a little while it will be morning and then it won’t be so bad. I’m sorry he makes you so uncomfortable. Try and go to sleep, sweet!’ I was asleep all the time, she said. You’ve been talking in your sleep.” Hemingway collaborates all the lovers’ troubles into a simple understanding. He allows the reader to acknowledge frustration and concern in daily life and plan how to overcome such obstacles. On page 169 he writes, “When we were out past the tanneries onto the main road the troops, the motor trucks, the horse-drawn carts and the guns were in one wide slow-moving column. We moved slowly but steadily in the rain, the radiator cap of our car almost against the tailboard of a truck that was loaded high, the load

    There are two major themes in A Farewell to Arms that Hemingway clearly conveys: war and love. The war theme is obvious because the book is set during the World War. The theme of love is less obvious, it begins faintly because of the uncertainty between Frederick Henry and Catherine Barkley. Neither desire love or commitment to anyone, but act upon their desires of passion. As the story progresses, so does their love. The strength of their love is enforced by various understandings and agreements. Love is the theme that closes the book, leaving a final allusion of what their love is about.

   A classic literary work has been defined as a work "that lasts through generations because of its universality of theme, ageless symbolism, word choice and the ordering of detail."  A Farewell to Arms, by Ernest Hemingway should be considered a classic literary work due to the universal themes, ageless symbolism, word choice, and story detail.

When people are in love they feel warmth or fondness. When people are in love they hear the wind sing a melody when their lover walks past. When people are in love the moon appears to them as a huge red jewel waiting to be taken and given to their lover. In Ernest Hemingway's A Farewell To Arms, this is not the case. In this fictional novel, Frederic Henry is a lieutenant in the Italian army in World War I. He falls in love with an English nurse Catherine Barkley. Together, they have an adventurous and hectic life. They claim to both love each other; however, it does not seem pure. It almost seems fake. The couple claims to be playing games with each other. They also have times of grief and sadness. To distance themselves from their pain, they stay with each other feeling consolation. The centering principle of A Farewell To Arms is not love, it is pretence of showing affection, playing a game, and masking pain with love.

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.

Ernest Hemingway wrote A Farewell to Arms, a celebrated historical fiction, amidst a time of war and personal suffering. Hemingway believed at this time that “life is a tragedy that can only have one end” (Hemingway, VIII). He continues further, calling war a “constant, bullying, murderous, slovenly crime” (Hemingway, IX). Hemingway also suffered at home, in addition to his issues regarding the state of the world. His wife had just endured a difficult pregnancy and delivery, which contributed to the last bitter chapter of his story. Keeping in mind the tortured and surly mental state of Hemingway, it is difficult to swallow the idea that he would write a wholesome, well founded love story that attracts people. To some readers, A Farewell to Arms tells of a whirlwind romance between an ambulance driver and a nurse that is based on an unbreakable foundation of love, trust, magnetism, and compassion. Anxious modernists, like Trevor Dodman who are cited in Joel Armstrong’s nonfiction text, will come up with a remarkably different outlook on this tragedy. With aid from “‘A Powerful Beacon’ Love Illuminating Human Attachment in Hemingway’s A Farewell to Arms”, the loveless relationship between Frederic Henry and Catherine Barkley will be seen as rushed, meaningless, and mentally destructive to the parties involved.

Love is an unexplainable emotion that exceeds the boundaries of all. In Earnest Hemingway 's "A Farewell to Arms" two character 's share a climactic endeavor through pain and suffrage finding their way back to each other no matter what. Hemingway expresses love as a necessity in one 's life, and even through gruesome terror and war it can never be broken. The story resonates with it 's readers on a personal and realistic level, being that it is written with some truth behind it; Hemingway 's style of writing portrays the definition of unexpected reality.

Having left the war behind, Frederic is finally ready for peace and quiet. Hemingway, however, has other plans for his character. Catherine dies during childbirth, as does the baby. Thus, Frederic is confronted again with death. This time, however, he is unable to detach himself emotionally as he did with the deaths he witnessed in war. His neat and happy world is collapsing and there is nothing that he can do about it.

Novels published after a major war are often the most deeply emotional, profound ruminations on human nature. The authors of these novels were once soldiers, living in fear and enduring sleepless nights. These authors channel their experiences and emotions into their work, often creating masterpieces of literature. A Farewell to Arms is one such novel. Its author, Ernest Hemingway, was in the Italian ambulance corps in World War I, much like the protagonist of A Farewell to Arms, Frederic Henry. The themes in A Farewell to Arms reflect his mentality and the typical soldier’s disillusionment in the institutions and values he had always held close. A Farewell to Arms explores the far-reaching disillusionment that seems to plague Frederic. The theme of Frederic Henry’s disillusionment of all that he believes in appears through his desertion of the war, the deterioration of his relationship with Catherine, and his thoughts on life.

Ernest Hemingway’s novel A Farewell to Arms covers a romance that takes place during World War I. The novel itself came out shortly after the war, and was the first of Hemingway’s books to become a best-seller. Essentially, the novel contrasts the horrors of war with the romance of Henry and Catherine. Throughout the plot, Hemingway, a World War I veteran himself, uses the events of the book to make a statement about his thoughts on war. The core message of Hemingway’s A Farewell to Arms is that war damages the soldiers who fight in it both physically and emotionally, which is primarily illustrated by the number of deaths caused directly and indirectly by the war, the actions Henry is forced to take over the course of the book, and Henry’s growing cynicism towards war.

This was a game, like bridge, in which you said things instead of playing cards.” (Hemingway, 30) Later in the novel Frederic does realize he does love Catherine in Chapter 14. He shows this by saying “When I saw her I was in love with her. Everything turned over inside of me.” (Hemingway, 91)

Ernest Hemingway's WWI classic, A Farewell to Arms is a story of initiation in which the growth of the protagonist, Frederic Henry, is recounted. Frederic is initially a naïve and unreflective boy who cannot grasp the meaning of the war in which he is so dedicated, nor the significance of his lover's predictions about his future. He cannot place himself amidst the turmoil that surrounds him and therefore, is unable to fully justify a world of death and destruction. Ultimately, his distinction between his failed relationship with Catherine Barkley and the devastation of the war allows him to mature and arrive at the resolution that the only thing one can be sure of in the course of life is death

Ernest Hemingway’s A Farewell to Arms tells the tale of two young, star-crossed lovers in the midst of World War I. A powerful romance and stirring history of the war, this semi autobiographical novel meshes the contrasting worlds of love and war, setting war as the backdrop of love. The novel’s portrayal of love is an issue that has attracted critical debate, prompting many academics to reflect on its existence, form, and role in the plot. Joel Armstrong is one such academic. His literary criticism entitled, “‘A Powerful Beacon’ Love Illuminating Human Attachment in Hemingway’s A Farewell to Arms,” asserts that love is the centering principle of the novel, and that the narrative’s world is one in which “love illuminates all of life” (Armstrong 79). As Armstrong asserts, love is the centering principle of A Farewell to Arms because it serves as an anchor for Frederic Henry and Catherine Barkley during the tumultuous events of war, motivates them to go through significant struggles, and works along with loss to lend more meaning to significant events in the plot.