A Farewell to Arms

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A Farewell to Arms

• Ernest Hemingway

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BOOK I

• Type of Work Realistic novel
• Setting Mountainous battlefront of northern
  Italy during World War I Goriza, Isonzo River,
  Bainsizza Plateau
• American hospital in Milan
• Hotel at Stresa, Italy
• Montreux and Lausanne, Switzerland

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Time of Novel

• Three years 1915-1918
• Begins in August 1915
• Proceeds to spring of 1917 and Frederics
  wounding
• Summer of 1917 in Milan
• October 1917 in the Caporetto retreat and escape
  to Switzerland
• Winter of 1917-18 in Montreux.
• Ends March 1918 in Lausanne

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Book I

• Frederic meets Catherine
• Frederic is wounded and sent to the hospital
• Book I initiates a tragic note the death of the
  soldiersgigantic and impersonal
• Book I is a WAR STORY

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Book II

• Romance with war in the background
• Love develops between Catherine and Frederic
• Book II is a LOVE STORY.

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Book II

• NOTES
• Now that Frederic is as wounded and vulnerable as
  Catherine, he falls in love with her despite his
  decision to avoid such a relationship. They are
  now TWO war victims.
• Summer and early fall of 1917, Frederic slowly
  recuperates in Milan. He and Catherine live a
  carefree life.
• They cannot marry because of war regulations.
  Catherine would be forced to return to England if
  she married. THE WAR HAS TURNED ALL TRADITIONAL
  VALUES INSIDE OUT.

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NOTES CONTINUED

• The few Italians victories have come at a great
  cost of life.
• Italian civilians have begun to resent the blood
  and gore that appear endless.
• Catherine discovers that she is pregnant.
• October rain begins to fall.
• They part at a train station while the rain pours
  down.

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Compare and Contrast

• Miss Van Campen
• Superintendent of nurses
• Obeys rules and formulas
• No consideration for people
• Strict
• Cold
• Unpleasant

• Miss Gage
• Friend of Frederic and Catherine
• Ignores rules
• Responds directly to the individual person
• American nurse
• At ease
• Accepting

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COMPARE and CONTRAST

• Dr. Valentini
• Italian surgeon
• Volatile
• Sure
• Strong
• Composed when necessary
• Self-confident
• Self-disciplined

• House doctor and associate
• Lack competence
• No self-confidence
• Lacks self-discipline

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LINKING LOVE AND WAR

• CHAPER 6
• Nick Adams is a recurring protagonist
• Nick is the HERO.
• He has been wounded.
• He withdraws from the war.
• He makes A SEPARATE PEACE
• He is said to be Hemingways alter-ego.
• Comes from In Our Time

• A Farewell to Arms to Queen Elizabeth
• Peele (author) expresses regret to Queen
  Elizabeth that he is too old to bear arms for
  her.
• Line 1 silver indicated old age
• Stanza 2 echoes the themes of war and love the
  same as A Farewell to Arms
• Stanza 3 He is old now and cant go to war, but
  he will teach his sons the importance of war.

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A VERY SHORT STORY

• The story is a perfect work in terms of the
  reality that a war affects people very very
  terribly, and its losses are not only deaths.
  The lives of people who engage in the war
  drastically ruin.
• He is a round character complex real people.
• He is the protagonist.
• Story covers four seasons. (1918-1919)
• Setting is World War I in Italy - Padua
• External conflict war man vs. society cant
  get married.
• Atmosphere dark, hopeless (The Lost
  Generation)

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continued

• 1st Paragraph They are alone.
• Paragraph 2 . . .they all knew about it. -
  it refers to the affair.
• Paragraph 3 They could not get married, but
  felt as though they were married.
• Paragraph 4 Luz wrote letters he was fighting.
  Luzs love was understood.
• Paragraph 5 notice that they agreed. . .so
  that they MIGHT be married. Their relationship
  had changed.
• Paragraph 6 CLIMAX their roads diverge.
• Disintegration begins.
• Paragraph 7 falling action

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Symbols

• MOUNTAINS
• Represent peace and purity
• Snow symbolizes safety
• Height of mountains peace because they are
  protected. They are above it all and removed
  from the cares below
• Snow (on the mountains) symbolizes purity because
  it is clean and untouched from the horrors of
  war.
• Priest lived in snow (Abruzzi)

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SYMBOLS

• PLAINS
• Opposite of mountains
• Dangerous and scary
• Retreat takes place here
• Germans invade and the war is at its peak in the
  plains area.

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SYMBOLS

• RAIN
• Symbol of misery, unhappiness, and disasters
• Symbol of terrible events and death
• Rains when Henry leaves Catherine at Milan
• Rains throughout the retreat
• Rains the night Henry escapes up Lake Maggiore

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CODE HERO

• Character who has learned how to face experiences
  with grace, courage, and dignity.
• He meets them with a code of professionalism,
  competence, skill, self-discipline, and stoic
  acceptance of the worst life can dish out.
• He does NOT win the game of life but loses on his
  own terms and achieves as much victory as is
  possible. He may be destroyed, but not defeated.
• Who is (are) the code hero(es) in this novel?

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TRUE HERO

• He has comparable ancestry and home experiences.
• He has insomnia, nightmares, and sometimes is
  nearly insane.
• He tries to simplify his life and focused on
  concrete sensory things.
• He has unusual sensitivity which makes him
  susceptible to lifes shocks.
• Who is (are) the true hero(es) in the novel?

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TRUE HEROES/CODE HEROES

• TRUE HERO
• PROTAGONIST FREDERIC HENRY

• CODE HEROES
• RINALDI
• CATHERINE BARKLEY
• PRIEST

How are these characters code heroes and a
true hero?
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BOOK III

• Hemingway once stated
• All stories, if continued far enough, end in
  death, and he is no true story-teller who would
  keep that from you.
• One of the dominant themes in A Farewell to Arms
  is WAR and DEATH.

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BOOK III

• The theme of war, dominant in Book I and Book
  III, is devoted exclusively to the martial aspect
  and to the sights and sounds of battle.
  Heightened descriptions of the front, conditions
  in the lines, the equipment and the field
  dressing stations are accurately reported.
  Advances and retreats are carefully analyzed and
  recreated. Finally the results of war as it
  involves the individual are detailed.

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BOOK III

• Book III begins with a mood evoking sentence,
  how in the fall the trees were all bare and the
  roads were muddy. (The IMAGES suggest
  sterility, bareness, and destruction.) The toll
  war takes is evident in the characters looking
  older and drier (major) and lined (Rinaldi).
  Despite the abundance of dialogue thre is limited
  action in these chapters.

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BOOK III

• The town of Caponetto is the scene of one of the
  biggest retreats in the history of the war.
  Chapters 27 and 28 deal with the gradual chaos
  resulting in this retreat. Here, another of
  Hemingways concepts, that of objective
  reality, is observed. It is the act itself
  which is more important than the concept or idea
  of the act. Names of villages, numbers of roads
  are important because men can see and touch them.

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BOOK III

• Chapter 29 builds to a crescendo indicating the
  confusion, anarchy, and loss of discipline. This
  defeat at Caponetto represents a huge military
  disaster for Italy and the allies. If the code
  hero believes in order, respect, and discipline,
  Frederics desertion comes as no surprise.

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BOOK III

• Frederics plunge into the river has received
  much attention from the critics. It could be a
  symbol of baptism into a new worlda new
  beginning. It certainly ends his association
  with war and any active part in it. Here he is
  making his first farewell to arms. This is his
  decision to create a new life (with Catherine)
  apart from the war.

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TRENCHES
Civilians forced to leave home

• How Caporetto is Remembered
• Endless Lines of Italian Prisoners

Italian Position on Monte Nero East of Caporetto
Caporetto Namesake of the BattleNot the Main
Breakthrough Point, However
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Book IV

• Book IV is permeated with the idea of ESCAPE.
• In chapter 34 Frederic declares he had made a
  separate peace.
• John Knowles uses this for the title of his novel
  with its setting in WWII. (A Separate Peace)
• The lovers are united and peace is regained with
  a prospect of future happiness.

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Book IV

• One of Hemingways best passages on love of man
  and woman begins with That night at the hotel
  (Chapter 34). If people bring so much courage
  to this world, the world has to kill them. . .
  (foreshadows death). The world breaks everyone
  and afterward many are strong at the broken
  places (foreshadows stoic survival).
• However, the rain is again with them as they
  escape to Switzerland with the prospect of their
  spending a happy life together.

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Book V

• Book V begins in an ambiance of warmth and
  pleasant views.
• It is consonant with the happiness of the couple.
  They drink beer in a café and talk about getting
  married.
• Hemingway foreshadows the approaching tragedy in
  Catherines hopes about the birth of her child.
  Both the opening and ending sentences of Chapter
  40 foreshadow a tragic event.

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Book V

• We had a fine life begins the chapter, and We
  knew the baby was very close now and it gave us
  both a feeling as though something were hurrying
  us and we could not lose any time together.
• The blissful days in Switzerland are ended.
• For Frederic the moment of illumination has
  arrived.
• The paragraph beginning Poor, poor dear Cat.
  And this was the price you paid for sleeping
  together. This was the end of the trap.

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Book V

• The short, pithy sentences in the form of
  questions with no answers evolve into a long
  paragraph of stream-of-consciousness.
• The result is that Frederic is now sure that all
  life is a trap and his learning experience is
  complete as he voices Hemingways own philosophy
  that life is futile and defeat inevitable.

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Catherine a code hero

• Catherine is a code hero.
• She remains true to her lifes philosophy even in
  death. Im not a bit afraid. Its just a
  dirty trick, she declares. She is true to her
  disciplined beliefs. Because of her, Frederic
  realizes that inner discipline is the only way to
  live life and accept death.

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Frederic

• One of the most revealing parts of the book is
  reached when Frederic ruminates on the
  incomprehensible natural forces Now Catherine
  would die. That was what you did, you died. You
  did not know what it was about. You never had
  time to learn. They threw you in and told you
  the rules and the first time they caught you off
  base, they killed you. Or they killed you
  gratuitously like Aymo. Or gave yu syphilis like
  Rinaldi. But they killed you in the end. You
  could count on that. Stay around and they would
  kill you.

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The End

• The last sentence is a flat depiction of emotion,
  as the plot ends in the rain.
• Thematic focus both love and war lead to losses
  for which there is no compensation.
• The rain that now falls on Henry as he leaves the
  hospital signals the same destructive forces as
  Catherine felt in the rainforces that render one
  powerless, speechless, and hopeless.
• By ending on this note, the novel seems to
  suggest that any epiphany Henry might have lent
  him solace would be false or impossible.

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THEME

• The theme of the novel is Frederic Henrys
  initiation into a disciplined, stoic view of
  life. Catherine Barkley, a more advanced
  character, has already reached this view by the
  beginning of the novel. Through his relationship
  with Catherine and his war experiences, Henry
  progresses slowly toward a new life view and,
  with it, an increased capacity for compassion and
  survival.

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ANALYSIS OF THEME--love

• LOVE
• Love makes people more vulnerable (which is bad
  for people fighting in a war).
• Henrys love for Catherine leaves him less
  self-reliant.
• Rinaldi tells Henry that love is only a
  satisfaction of fleshly appetite.
• The Priest represents spiritual love and the
  desire to serve and to sacrifice ones self for
  another.
• Count Greffi says love is a religious feeling.

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ANALYSIS OF THEME-war

• War
• War was badly managed and unconcerned with losses
  or impossible situations (cannot be controlled).
• War turns values upside down making it right to
  kill and wrong to marry.
• War undermines the surgeons spirit and the
  Priests faith.
• The soldiers lose heart.
• War continued to control Henrys thoughts long
  after his desertion even after his separate
  peace.

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ANALYSIS OF THEME-values

• A CODE OF VALUES (A STOIC VIEW OF LIFE)
• Stoic no matter how much life makes you suffer,
  you must never show that suffering.
• Stoic Catherines dying in childbirth. She
  tells Henry, Dont worry darling. Im not
  afraid. Its just a dirty trick.
• Characters are efficient and professional even in
  the worst circumstances. Rinaldi, Nurse Gage,
  and Valentini endure war wounds so severe they
  will never recover from them, yet in public they
  put on brave faces.

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A PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE

• Hemingways philosophy of life was a profound
  pessimism about the human situation and a stoic
  sense of tragedy that grew out of war. He
  states, All stories, if continued long enough,
  end in death, and he is not true story-teller who
  would keep that from you.
• The analogy of ants and humans and the
  relationship of humans with God humans like
  ants are caught in a trap and born to die. God
  could send miraculous help but does not. The
  burning log is covered with ants trying to
  escape. Henry could have removed the log
  instead, he threw water on it and scalded the
  ants to death.

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TYPE OF CHARACTERS