The Dangers of a Feminist Perspective of A Farewell to Arms
Hemingway's portrayal of Catherine Barkley in A Farewell to Arms is a subject of many debates. I do not agree with Judith Fetterly that Catherine is "too idealistic, too selflessly loving and giving. Catherine's death was the most fitting end to the story. Hemingway's Catherine Barkley may be stereotypical on the surface, but is a much more knowledgeable and strong character underneath.
In the early encounter with Henry, Hemingway sets up Catherine's major faults. She is shown to us as not being emotionally stable. She says to Henry, "We're going to have a strange life"(27). This sounds crazy to us, who typically don't believe that you can know you will have
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She knows that he realizes they are playing a game and makes him work for it. Then she throws a guilt trip on him, saying "You will be good to me, won't you?"(27). This forces him to think about it, and make a decision. If she had never asked this it would have been morally easier for him to treat her badly. He realizes this and in his mind resigns himself to it, thinking "what the hell" (27).
She continues to use this method when they meet again. She makes him say "I've come back to Catherine in the night"(30). Although this is silly, it forces him to realize that he has in fact come back to Catherine. He thinks to himself that "she was probably a little crazy ... I did not love Catherine Barkley and had no idea of loving her. This was a game, like bridge, in which you said thins instead of playing cards"(31). It is in this little scene that she pulls his card, and shows us that she is not entirely crazy She then calls him on this belief by telling him "You're a nice boy, and you play it as well as you know how. But it's a rotten game." She is perfectly aware of his beliefs, and of the seeming insanity of her own actions. She has no intentions of letting him believe that he has fooled her in anyway. She does not say that he plays it well, she says he plays it as well as he knows how. This indicates that she knows that she knows more about the whole thing than he does. This behavior is not weak, and shows her
At the conclusion of World War II, those involved in the war looked for serious reforms to either rebuild themselves if they were destroyed, or prevent this destruction from happening again, if they came out still intact. The world was split between communism and capitalism post World War II, the main difference between the two is who controls production, with it being privately owned in capitalism and government owned in communist society. After the war, a nuclear power struggle between the capitalist United States and the communist USSR resulted in The Cold War which not only affected the two primary countries involved but it resulted in Cuba being a key player too. Then, through a series of events lead to the fall of the Berlin Wall, signifying
His decision to "desert [..] the army" exhibits how the atrocities he faces during war makes him want to leave it behind so that he can be fully devoted to Catherine (Hemingway 251). As a result, the war, with all its melancholy, brings the couple close together. The importance of the title of book, A Farewell to Arms, is demonstrated when Henry willingly gives up fighting in the army so that he can be with Catherine all his life. He faces many terrors in the war such as getting injured, being sent back to the front, and most importantly almost getting arrested. As a result, Henry and Catherine distract each other from these brutal things in the world by living in their own world away from people. Henry, rashly, regards Catherine as an escape from the hopeless war. However, Henry's dependence on Catherine to take his mind away from the war makes him vulnerable at the end of the novel when she dies, demonstrating that relying on someone excessively can be harmful. In the midst of the horrors in the world, love is a shining light of hope that both Henry and Catherine turn to in order to get through the hard
In chapter 41 Henry’s love caused him to be fearful that Catherine might die in labor. Henry is at the hospital checking on Catherine.Catherine keeps on having complications during her surgery. When the baby is delivered Henry knows something is seriously wrong because the baby is dead.Then Catherine has a hemorrhage and Henry is very upset. “ Please,please,please dear God, don’t let her die.”(Hemingway 330) Catherine Barkley dies from her labor. Henry’s love for Catherine and care for her made him very fearful for the outcome of death.
In the beginning of their relationship, the couple admits, “‘we’re going to have a strange life’” (Ch. V) but the couple accepts their abnormal relationship and continue to grow closer as the novel develops. Henry shows his affection for Catharine when he thinks, “Catherine was in bed now between two sheets... Maybe she was lying thinking about me.”
When the two first meet, Catherine is still dealing with the death of her fiancé in
This is a primary source-discussing women in ww2. This source is an article by Helen Crisp called “women in munitions”. This article was placed in the Australian Quarterly in September 1941.
Right away, she has him thinking, asking him questions that he’d never before thought to ask. For example, she really gets him upset when she asks him one very simple thing, “Are you happy?” (page 7). And initially, Guy thinks of it as a nonsensical inquiry. Until he begins to wonder and think, and eventually, there is much more wondering and thinking than there had
During World War II Hitler was skulking around Europe pretending to save Germany, military minds in Washington were stonewalling women's organizations, patriotic pressures, and anyone who had the temerity to suggest that women should be in the military. The politicians, in typical gerrymandering fashion, made flimsy promises of considering an auxiliary of sorts while quietly hoping it would all go away and secretly trying to figure out how to stop it. Fortunately Congresswoman Edith Nourse Rogers and Eleanor Roosevelt thought otherwise.
The Great War 1914 – 1918 enabled women a greater opportunity in the workforce. This was primarily due to the majority of the men serving the Mother Country during the war. However, when the war ended, the returning veterans sought to return to their old jobs. For, the working women this meant their employment in the workforce would be compromised. Primarily because the male employees were put before the women, with both employment opportunity and pay. Henceforth, the majority of the female workforce would get the sack to make the way for the returning employees.
Having mandatory conscription supported by the industrialization of transportation and machinery, empires and world powers were able to mobilize vast amounts of men in a short amount of time. Although men sacrificed themselves on the battlefield, women and others left at home played an equal role in supporting the war efforts. The food grown, the products manufactured, and the jobs left vacant were taken on by the women of the time. The Woman’s role in the war would lead to their right to vote and work.
Trying to hold the homefront together while there was a war waging abroad was not an
She had been warned that prisoners often tried to con visitors. He appeared to realize this, subsequently telling her, “I am just a simple man. Nothing else. And to most other people a convicted killer looking for someone to manipulate.”
Catherine is so wrapped up in her fictional world of reading that she becomes ignorant of her real life issues with Henry Tilney, for whom she has been love-struck since their introduction. She entertains herself with wild imaginings about his life and family. Catherine's imaginings foreshadow her eager desire for mischief as Austen's story develops. Catherine is endowed with a vivid imagination, but she has not yet learned to use it in concert with her perception, especially in understanding the interactions between people.
the play and keeps her within his own game, as if he was playing with
Through this written piece of work, I want to examine the ways in which the dominant ideas of gender and war, from a Feminist perspective. I will be contributing an understanding to the role of the Kurdish female fighters in the field of war and politics, that have broken the taboos of gender roles within the community, and the national movement. The concept of gender, war, and conflict has lightened the issue of women in war. The image of war is associated to masculinity, and in many cases women are not welcomes in the field of war, as “she is exposed as a victim of war by drawing the idea of women being helpless (Sjoberg, 2014, p. 10).” Laura Sjoberg; Gender, War, and Conflict, states that “war-making and war-fighting have been traditionally