A Farewell to Arms

I. So What?

A. Important Characters
1. Lt. Frederic Henry: Henry is an American driving ambulances for the Italian army during WWI. The novel’s protagonist and narrator, Henry consistently demonstrates stoicism and grace under pressure. A man’s man, Henry detaches from himself emotionally, reacting to nearly all situations tepidly and with indifference. He chooses to drink, fight, drink, enjoy women, and then drink more. While Henry never does reveal his full pallet of sentiment, it is arguable that by the novel’s end, he has developed true feelings for Catherine.
2. Catherine Barkley: The beautiful English nurse with whom Henry falls in love. She was engaged, but her fiancé was killed in battle. She begins to rely on Henry to escape from the war and fill the hole left by her dead fiancé. Catherine is depicted as a submissive character and fully devotes herself to Henry. “She is a loving, dedicated woman whose desire and capacity for a redemptive, otherworldly love makes her the inevitable victim of tragedy,” for in the end she dies during childbirth.

B. Essential Plot Elements
1. Introduction- Henry and Catherine are casually introduced, and at once begin playing their love game. In his narration, Henry also introduces scenes of war. During an attack, Henry is severely wounded in the leg and transported to the hospital. Here, he and Catherine are reunited.
2. Rising Action- Henry and Catherine continue to spend time with one another and develop their relationship before he must return to the front.
3. Climax- Henry is captured and nearly executed by the Italian police following the retreat and Italian defeat. Henry escapes by jumping into a river.
4. Falling Action- Henry deserts the Italian army, says farewell to arms, and flees to Switzerland with Catherine.
5. Denouncement- Catherine dies giving birth to a stillborn son. Henry walks back to his hotel in the rain.

C. Setting
· 1916-1918
· World War I
· Italy and Switzerland

D. Central Conflicts
There is no clear conflict that can be drawn from the novel. Frederic Henry is the novel’s protagonist, and arguably he is at conflict with all that surrounds him. All of Henry’s conflicts are internal, as he is always at odds with himself: what he can achieve vs. what he cannot achieve. Henry’s principle desire is to find respite (which he does artificially with Catherine) amidst the destruction he sees.
Certainly the war has negatively impacted him, and therefore he disavows all former abstracts of war: glory, honor, and courage. By the novel’s end, Henry has left the army and Catherine has died, leaving Henry alone. While Henry has in some part escaped, he never fully extracts his inner turmoil, and therefore cannot reach where the true conflict lies: in himself.

E. Major Themes
· Illusion vs. reality
· Devastation of war eludes to the meaninglessness in life
· The relationship between love and pain

F. Emotional Response
Dear Ernesto is the man. I love Ernest Hemingway and I love this book. Although many feminists have argued that Catherine is underdeveloped and an object of sorts for Henry, I disagree. I find Catherine to be stoic herself, especially during her miserably botched childbirth. Throughout the novel, she cares for Henry, but I don’t view her actions as subservient-- I see her as a person in love with another person and doing what a person in love does: putting him/her first.

II. How?

A. Diction/ Structure

Hemingway’s choice of words and distinctive style helps to convey the “So What’s?” listed above. Most notable is the characterization and theme development that surfaces from the diction. Although the novel is a war novel, the descriptions of action are detached, while the verb and noun usage is simple. Hemingway does not go into great detail to describe his characters’ emotions—rather, he provides the “reader with the raw material of an experience, eliminating the authorial viewpoint and having the text reproduce the actual experience as closely as possible.” Frederic Henry’s narration of A Farewell to Arms, then, becomes more reliable, as Hemingway’s writing has removed the clout of emotion.

B. Imagery

The imagery in A Farewell to Arms also helps to establish the themes of the novel, especially the discord characters face while judging between illusion and reality.