Self-Absorption in Hemingway’s A Farewell to Arms Essay

Gender roles exist all throughout history and prevail in present day. In Farewell to Arms, Hemingway brings to light to society's standards of men and during World War I through the character, Frederick Henry. He is an American soldier touring over in Italy. He follows the typical stereotype of a man, fitting into the war through fighting for his country. He changes his internal ways after a tragic incident happens to a loved one.

    "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.

Earnest Hemingway’s novel, A Farewell to Arms, explores the unfathomable love towards a singular character used as protection. Hemingway primarily presents the concept of comfort during some of the most exciting and shocking events in his main character’s life but introduces desperation exclusively in the closing chapter of his novel. Desperation, a state of total distress, is used wittily by Hemingway to describe the reliance that Fredric Henry has on Catherine. Fredric Henry, an ambulance driver for the Italian Army during World War I, experiences multiple exhilarating moments in the novel but seems to remain well composed and feels immune to the war. Hemingway uses the concept of desperation exclusively when Catherine is the subject to describe

    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.

It is truly a gripping story, told in a lean hard athletic narrative. Mr. Hemingway shows uncanny skill at implementing his own masculine beliefs and values into a theme of immense emotion”(essortment2). Seeing through the masculinity in the story Justin Day writes: “Mr. Hemingway has such a hold on his values that he makes an absorbing, beautifully and tenderly absurd, heartbreaking narrative of it, when on the surface, it seems as if it is going to be one of his infamous “Man Stories”(day3). Speaking of “A Farewell to Arms” which is a highly reviewed Hemingway story, Arthur Waldhorn writes that: “The chief result is of enamel luster imparted to the story as a whole, not precisely and iridescence, but a white light, rather, that pales and flashes, but never warms. Which is Hemingway’s way of thinking, it is apparent that he has soft spots in his work and in his thoughts, but he refuses to let them show”(Waldhorn2). Reviewing the same story Jeff Marx states that “a Victorian telling the story of Henry and Catherine would have waxed sentimental; he would have sought the tears of his reader. And he would surely himself shed tears as he wrote”(jackson73). Many believe that Hemingway wrote about fictional characters that had the life that Ernest Hemingway himself tried to lead. Brian Dennis speaking of the story “To Have and Have Not” states: “Henry was a big bruiser of a man, hard as

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.

Hemingway was with a woman even while he was injured and in the hospital from World War I. That is where he met his first attempt at marriage and a wife. Her name was Agnes von Kurowsky and she was a nurse at the hospital where he stayed in Milan. He proposed to her and she eventually accepted his proposal, but not very long later she left because she found a new man. This was devastating to Hemingway, but providing a great vision for some of his other renowned works. These stories include A Very Short Story and A Farewell to Arms. He met someone who was going to be his first actual wife in Chicago after returning home from the war. He was working at the Toronto Star at the time. Her name was Hadley Richardson. Once they were married they went to Paris for a while and continued working for the Toronto Star. Hemingway’s first child was born in 1923 to Hadley and Ernest. His name was John Hadley Nicanor Hemingway. Hemingway’s second wife Pauline Pfeiffer would be closely following Hadley because Hemingway and Pauline had an affair. This is why Hadley and Hemingway divorced, but Hemingway didn’t take long to marry again. Once his first divorce was finalized he was already married. He was working on a book of short stories at this time called, Men Without Women. Pauline became pregnant and they moved back to America. Their first son together was named Patrick Hemingway. In 1928, they settled in Key West, Florida. This was when Hemingway finally finished his World War I novel

Setting: Post World War I era, 1919. In Howard’s (Kreb’s) quaint home town in Oklahoma. All who have returned from the harsh war are welcomed; their stories as well. All except for Krebs.

In Hemingway’s writing, he is always searching for truth, although, he often looks at the world in a nihilistic way. When reading through the authors’ short-stories or novels, he often refers to nothingness and the meaninglessness of existence. However, he also uses a practical application to repair his existential nihilistic viewpoints. Hemingway’s work is often seen as a representation of himself, and I believe that he used pragmatism as a distraction from the meaninglessness of the world. With suicide being prevalent in his family, I firmly believe that Hemingway himself strived for meaning in life, but eventually opted out because life is chaotic and there are too many unknown answers in the world. Hemingway tried to establish values and morals through pragmatism, but in reality, values are constantly changing and everything is temporary. By looking through a philosophical lens, I will demonstrate how Hemingway uses absurdism, nihilism, and pragmatism as a way to understand and interpret the world. In order to do so, I will look through Hemingway’s short-stories and novels and analyze passages critically to showcase the theories that are present in his work. In order to undertake this grand idea, I will also incorporate biographical elements to display Hemingway’s family history of suicide and to showcase his personal struggle to find meaning in the world.

The protagonist in this story is Lt. Frederic Henry who happens to be the narrator is an American ambulance driver who is in the Italian army during WWI. Although he is courageous and heroic, Henry does not want any part in boasting about medals and such. Henry meets a girl named Catherine and it changes his aspect on love, and we see his character transform into new perspectives throughout the book. Henry is a good caregiver and leader among his peers also.

Ernest Hemingway pulled from his past present experiences to develop his own thoughts concerning death, relationships, and lies. He then mixed these ideas, along with a familiar setting, to create a masterpiece. One such masterpiece written early in Hemingway's career is the short story, "Indian Camp." "Indian Camp" was originally published in the collection of "in Our Time" in 1925. A brief summary reveals that the main character, a teenager by the name of Nick, travels across a lake to an Indian village. While at the village Nick observes his father, who is a doctor, deliver a baby to an Indian by caesarian section. As the story continues, Nick's father discovers that the newborn's father has committed

The period between World War I and World War II was a very turbulent time in America. Ernest Hemingway most represented this period with his unrestrained lifestyle. This lifestyle brought him many successes, but it eventually destroyed him in the end. His stories are read in classrooms across America, but his semi-autobiographical writings are horrible role models for the students who read them. Hemingway’s lifestyle greatly influenced his writings in many ways.

Louise’s husband, Richard, met Louise when she was skinny. Richard never saw the other saw of Louise before they got married, so Richard went into the marriage with the idea that Louise was going to remain thin and would never gain weight. After Louise gave birth to her son, the weight she had gained during the pregnancy stayed with her. It got to the point where Richard couldn’t handle it anymore. Richard would say that “I don’t want to touch you. Why should I? Have you looked at yourself?”(245). Richard’s brutal words towards his wife drive home the point that everyone in Louise’s life, her mother, Carrie, and her husband never carried if Louise was happy, they only carried about her image. Richard supposedly had a flawless life and wife, Louise gaining weight ruins that image about Richard’s life. Richard’s anger towards Louise reveals a lot about his character. Louis mentions that, “He truly believed they were arguing about her weight. She knew better: she knew that beneath the argument lay the question of who Richard was”. (246) Richard wants to leave her but he can’t, society would shun him if he left Louise with her newborn child. Richard is in a tough spot, he judges Louise based on society's expectations, but Richard him-self is afraid of what others would think of

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

“Hemingway’s greatness is in his short stories, which rival any other master of the form”(Bloom 1). The Old Man and the Sea is the most popular of his later works (1). The themes represented in this book are religion (Gurko 13-14), heroism (Brenner 31-32), and character symbolism (28). These themes combine to create a book that won Hemingway a Pulitzer Prize in 1953 and contributed to his Nobel Prize for literature in 1954 (3).