"A Farewell To Arms" By Earnest Hemmingway

1751 words - 8 pages

A Farewell to ArmsI had mixed feelings while reading Ernest Hemingway's A Farewell to Arms. Initially, I disliked the book intensely, but I continued to read, and eventually I began to appreciate the style he used to write the book. Toward the end of the book I was certain Hemingway was some kind of genius. Finally, I finished the book and, though I disliked the last chapter intensely, I liked A Farewell to Arms very much as a whole.A Farewell to Arms is broken into five sections. In the first, we meet most of the main characters. The first is the narrator, an American officer in the Italian army who drives ambulances. His full name is mentioned once throughout the entire book, and that is in section two, but for structure's sake, we'll include it here. The narrator's name is Frederic Henry. There is also Rinaldi, one of the narrator's friends and his roommate. We also meet the priest, whose name we are never allowed to know. The narrator seems to like the priest very much, and they have conversations throughout the book. Finally, and in fact most importantly, we meet Catherine Barkley, and English nurse with whom the narrator falls in love.During the first section, we learn that the story takes place in Italy during the First World War. Most of this section is used to introduce characters and assure the reader that every male character in the book is a raging alcoholic. Toward the end of the section, the division of the army that the narrator is in launches an offensive. In the early part of the battle, the narrator is injured in a trench while eating cheese and is sent to a new hospital in Milan for treatment and recovery.There were a few subtle points of humor in this chapter, including my favorite, which occurred during a conversation between Miss Barkley and the narrator:"Let's drop the war.""It's very hard. There's no place to drop it."The second section of the book describes the narrator's arrival at the hospital in Milan. He was not expected to come, because the hospital was not yet entirely completed, but they took him in and eventually healed his wounds. The nurse he loves is transferred to this hospital and their affair continues, with the nurse becoming pregnant. Eventually, however, the narrator's recovery is complete, and he goes back to the front.Included within this section are several humorous jabs at bureaucracy and medical doctors, such as in Chapter 15:I have noticed that doctors who fail in the practice of medicine have a tendency to seek one another's company and aid in consultation. A doctor who cannot take out your appendix properly will recommend you to a doctor who will be unable to remove your tonsils with success. These were three such doctors.The doctors in question decided to wait six months for the wound to heal before performing surgery. Another doctor, coming in later, looked at the injury and chose to operate the nest morning with complete success.The third section details the narrator's return to his previous command at the front where things have become very bad. Indeed, the latter half of the section is devoted to describing the army's general retreat. During the retreat, all of the narrator's ambulances are abandoned, as they are all stuck in the mud. Then the group with the narrator finds itself behind enemy lines, and one of the people is shot and killed. Later, when they finally join back up with the rest of the retreating army, and encounter occurs between the narrator and a group of soldiers whose job it is to discover and eliminate German agitators within the retreating line. The narrator is picked out to be questioned, and explains his situation thusly:I was obviously a German in Italian uniform. I saw how their minds worked; if they had minds and if they worked. They were all young men and they were saving their country.Shortly after this, he fled by jumping into a river and swimming away. The section ends as he steals a ride on a train into Milan and plans to meet Catherine Barkley there.In section four, the narrator is in Milan. He sneaks around the city, purchasing new clothing and reuniting himself with his lover. He stays in a hotel for a few days until a man tells him that he will soon be arrested and offers a boat for the couple to escape to Switzerland. They do so, and by the end of the section they have been approved by the police and are checking into a hotel in Switzerland.There was one statement in this section that caught me completely off guard. Throughout the entire book, every questionable word has been edited out with dash marks. I was very accustomed to a pure, wholesome book (besides the references to "bawdy houses" or should we call them "whore houses" for Dr. Ross's sake). Then I come upon this passage:"Othello with his occupation gone," she teased."Othello was a nigger," I said.I suppose at the time the book takes place, and even when it was written, the "n" word was still commonplace and even acceptable, but it caught me off guard no less.The fifth and final section of the book describes the winter the couple lived through in a hotel in Switzerland and the final stages of Catherine's pregnancy. The narrator takes her to the hospital and she is in labor for several hours when the doctor decides to perform a Cesarean section. It seems to go fine, except that the doctor cannot get the baby to begin breathing after it was asphyxiated by the umbilical cord. Then, when Catherine is recovering in another room, she begins to hemorrhage severely. Eventually, she loses consciousness and dies.I didn't really like the ending. Not only for the obvious reason that Catherine and the baby died, but also because the ending didn't seem to flow as well as the rest of the book. It didn't seem to fit. It seemed out of place. Perhaps that is what Hemingway intended when he wrote it, but I still don't like it very much.When looking at the work as a whole, there are a few things I noticed overall. The first is that Rinaldi seemed to be the comic relief for most of the story. He constantly calls the narrator "baby" when talking to him, and often makes clever remarks. A few that I especially liked are these:"I am the snake. I am the snake of reason." (Rinaldi, explaining why some people don't like him.)"You're getting it mixed. The apple was reason." (Narrator, responding.)"No, it was the snake." (Rinaldi again.)and:"To your girl," Rinaldi said. He held out his glass."All right." (Narrator)"I'll never say a dirty thing about her.""Don't strain yourself."and finally:"You have a lovely, pure mind," I said."Haven't I? That's why they call me Rinaldo Purissimo."There are many others, as well.I also noticed that Hemingway's portrayal of Catherine was rather odd. She seemed to have little personality of her own, and little ambition. Throughout the entire book, there was very little conversation of any substance attributed to her, almost as if she was very simple, and her purpose in life was to keep the narrator content.Finally, the style in which the book was written was the main factor in determining whether I appreciated the book at a certain part or not. For example, at the beginning of the book, the style caught me off guard. The sentences were short, forward, and to the point, with very little relevant detail given to each situation. It seemed as if the author had written the book in a single sitting and not gone back to beautify it and complicate it the way so many other books are. Toward the middle of the book, however, I grew accustomed to the style and enjoyed the relief of not having to toil through vast amounts of unimportant details such as in Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter.The last section of the book seems to have changed a bit in style. It seems that Hemingway gave up writing the book in one sitting and tried to perfect it. The content of the last section simply does not seem as spur-of-the-moment as the rest of the book. The change is part of the reason I did not appreciate the ending as much as I did the rest of the book.Dialogue seemed very unrealistic as well. To say that, however, is a bit pessimistic, because what I found to be the least believable, the most out of the ordinary, was the direct way in which people spoke. In the book, people said what they had to say, without deception (for the most part) or trickery or reserve. The speakers went right to the point, said what they had to say and then were done with it.I still have mixed feelings about A Farewell to Arms, but as I look back on the book, I definitely appreciate the change in style from so many other authors (though Hawthorne was an extreme example). The plot line could have been developed a bit more, and more detail thrown in, but then the book would be right back there with all the others, and I think I would like it more the way it is now. I definitely like this book.

More like "A Farewell To Arms" By Earnest Hemmingway

A Farewell To Arms Assignment

1174 words - 5 pages ... A Farewell to Arms process paper A Farewell to Arms, by Ernest Hemingway, is a typical love story. A Romeo and his Juliet placed against the odds. Frederick and Catherine's love affair must survive the obstacles of World War I. The background of war-torn Italy adds to the tragedy of the love story. The war affects the emotions and values of each character. The love between Catherine and Frederick must outlast long separations, life-threatening ...

Sethe, A Slave To Her Past Beloved By Toni Morrison

417 words - 2 pages ... Sethe , a Slave to Her PastBeloved by Toni Morrison is a vivid picture of the crueltiy of slavery. It is a novel that depicts the horrifying practicies of enslavement in the early Nineteenth Century in the United States of America. It is a depiction of the horrible conditions under slavery and the dehumanization suffered by human beings when they are owned by other human beings. Beloved is a story of a black woman's struggle to overcome her past ...

To Kill A Mockingbird By John Grisham, Speaks Of Racism

1046 words - 5 pages ... broke from the norm, and acted unlike most others in his community, can be compared to the motive of the central character in the novel, A Time To Kill, written by John Grisham. The comparative character, a lawyer named Jake, also endangers not only his own life but his family's, by defending a Negro. He is compelled to undergo such a risk as he believes he is protecting an innocent man. Despite the fact that he is black. Jake could not live with ...

"to Kill A Mocking Bird" By Harper Lee

1703 words - 7 pages ... Prejudice Through A Child's EyesChildren are the keepers of all that is good and innocent. If they came into this world with the experiences and mindset that most adults have, the world would not be the same as it is. In the classic novel To Kill A Mockingbird, by Harper Lee, the main characters show many moments of innocence. Growing up in a small Alabama town, during the nineteen-thirties, these three children have adventures which help them ...

"to Kill A Mocking Bird" By Harper Lee

410 words - 2 pages ... Atticus Finch describes courage as "knowing licked before you begin but you begin anyway and you see it through no matter what." There are two people in Macomb that I believe fulfill Atticuses description of courage. The two people are Miss Maudie and Mrs. Dubose.I believe that Miss Maudie has revealed a tremendous amount of courage. This is exposed when her house, garden, and most of her belongings are burnt to the ground and she shows no sign ...

A Christmas Carol, By Charles Dickens -challenges In Adapting The Book To A Film

575 words - 3 pages ... vagabonds of every description add to the colorful multitude.How would I portray this city in a film?Inside the problem is not much better. Personal cleanliness is not a big priority, nor is clean laundry. In close, crowded rooms the smell of unwashed bodies is stifling. It is unbearably hot by the fire, numbingly cold away from it.At night the major streets are lit with feeble gas lamps. Side and secondary streets may not be lit at all and link bearers ...

Essay For "all The King's Men" By Robert Penn Warren. Man As A Slave To Knowledge

1423 words - 6 pages ... characters of Willie Stark, Adam Stanton and Jack Burden.Willie Stark is a character that attempts to conquer knowledge, even though in the end, he is overcome by the forces of knowledge. Willie did not want to be a slave to knowledge, but rather, its keeper. Stark uses information about people for blackmail, to achieve his goals. His goals for political offices ranged from Mason County Treasurer to state governor, senator, and most likely ...

To What Extent Was Diocletian’s Tetrarchy Characterised By A Rejection Of Dynastic Principles? - Univeristy - Essay

1926 words - 8 pages Free ... To what extent was Diocletian’s Tetrarchy characterised by a rejection of dynastic principles? The notions of dynasty and hereditary rights were some of the cornerstones of Roman society from the earliest times. The view that clients, property and influence (among a great deal of other things) were inherited via your family was central to life in the empire. Since the initiating of the principate with Augustus in 27 BC, the emperors were ...

A Response To "of Studies" - An Essay By Sir Francis Bacon

545 words - 3 pages ... correspondence between three scenarios of the one's intemperance in studies when he says, "To spend too much ... humor of a scholar." (Bacon). He again uses parallelism by drawing correspondence in what studies are to different types of people when he says, "Crafty men contemn studies ... wise men use them" (Bacon). He makes use of climax in two instances. One is when explains his view on how and what books should be read, and says, "Some books ...

Atticus’ Role In To Kill A Mokingbird, A Novel By Harper Lee - What Is Atticus’ Role In To Kill A Mockingbird - Essay

1880 words - 8 pages ... tolerance to the reader, by creating the character Atticus, who teaches his children about tolerance, and displays it through his words and actions. An example of Atticus’ tolerance is the way he treats Mrs Dubose. Mrs Dubose call Atticus filthy names, and detests his many views about equality and justice. Her tongue is acidic, and she is quick to insult any of the Finches. Atticus, however, treats her like a fine Southern lady and sees past her ...

Arguing A Position- What It's Like To Be A Man By Phil Christman - English 112 Writing And Research - Research Paper

711 words - 3 pages ... What Is It Like to Be a Man? By: Phil Christman English: 112-806 12/7/2018 2 Vega Cordero What defines a man in the 21st century? How they are handling new expectations? Is it possible to bring up a healthy generation without a father figure? What it’s like to be a man: The Male role in Modern day society A few decades ago, men were providers and protectors; today, a lot of discussions are centered around gender equality, and nowadays women ...

To Kill A Mockingbird By Harper Lee. Describe How The Title Relates To The Narrative? Describe How The Title Relates To Adversity And Challenge? What Adversities Befall Scout?

340 words - 2 pages ... A mockingbird is a symbol of innocence. IN the title to kill a mockingbird, the mockingbird represents the black man who is wrongly charged with rape. He was innocent. He is murdered in this book, which relates specifically to this title. He was the mockingbird and he was killed.This title also relates to the area of adversity and challenge because it is an adversity to kill a something innocent, which is what a mockingbird represents, innocence ...

Charles From “A Visit To Grandmother” By William Melvin Kelley - High School Senior English Course - Character Analysis

601 words - 3 pages ... English Couse “A Visit to Grandmother” by William Melvin Kelley Character Analysis: Charles Childhood. For most, this word brings happy memories of a time where life was simple and without worry. Though for some, this word has a negative connotation that reminds them of their long, hard struggle to finally be able to leave and support yourself. A childhood is the basis of a person's thoughts, actions, and words. It shapes them into the person ...

English Class Essay, About A Play "tartuffe" Written By Moliere In 1664, - Intro To Theatre - Paper On Tartuffe Moliere

932 words - 4 pages Free ... 1 [Last Name] 2 Introduction to Theatre May 01, 2017 In this vigorous play, “Tartuffe” written by Molière in 1664, can undoubtedly be understood as an attack on religion because the main character is portrayed as a corrupted holy man breaking all the religious laws in order to gain power. The clergy banned the performance of this play because they considered that it condemned religious beliefs. During the 17th century France, the Catholic Church ...

"living Like Weasels" Choose A Poet And Completely Analyze One Of Their Essays. From The Book, "teaching A Stone To Talk" By Annie Dilliard

486 words - 2 pages ... Teaching a Stone to talk. (Living like weasels; by Annie DilliardComing upon a wild weasel, Annie Dillard and the weasel shared something she often still thinks about. Weasels live with necessity, while humans live in choice. She gives you a different approach in life, in the eyes of a common animal. Living in choice is something we all would like to do, like the way all weasels should. A weasel is unpredictable, but obedient to his instinct ...