A FAREWELL TO ARMS

A farewell to Arms, by Ernest Hemingway

A farewell to Arms, by Ernest Hemingway

Date: 25th July 2011

Title: A farewell to Arms

Author: Ernest Hemingway

Year work Published: 1995

Principal Characters: Lieutenant Frederic Henry, Catherine Barkle, Rinaldi, Helen Ferguson

Minor Characters: The priest, Miss Gage, Miss Van Campen, Dr. Valentini, Count Greffi, Ettore Moretti

Summary of Work: A Farewell to Arms is a stark account of the war, and the pages on which portrays the Italian disaster of the Battle of Caporetto are tinged with a stunning realism, as atrocious as human. Then, the tenderness is spilled when he tells the love story of the wounded soldier and nurse. The end of the book is considered one of the best ever written in the contemporary novel. Hemingway wrote this final said that almost 40 times. It is certainly an achievement, but do not rely too much on this issue, because Hemingway was a bit boastful (Bloom 1987). It is interesting to note an issue about A Farewell to Arms. Hemingway scored on his cocky image of life a war reporter, a guy who was half soldier, half journalist. When he entered Paris with the allied troops during World War II, slightly less than he claimed only the liberation of the city. That brave writer in his own image of warlike for generations has encouraged a number of journalists to emulate ... to torture patients suffered newspaper readers and TV viewers. Themes: The theme of this novel is “The Grim Reality of War”, and “The Relationship between Love and Pain”.

Symbols: The main symbols of this novel are “Rain” and “Catherine's Hair”.

Essay Questions:

In the novel, provided the protagonist interacts with people of different races or ethnicities, and have a vital role in the final outcome of the stories. What role do race relations play in these plots?

In this plot, race relations play an important role. The strange thing is that the novel portrays the war with a view quite contrary to the reporter-style writer soldier who liked to wear. A Farewell to Arms is a book about the horror of war, and although the writer does not take part directly in their condemnation, the horror picture that provokes readers with a deep sense of revulsion (Gellens 1970). War is sad, hard and cruel death hovers over the trenches and the men fear, no bravado, no value in any case, the courage to fight adversity is the supreme human quality in the literature of Hemingway. He made it clear years later in his novel The Old Man and the Sea, which earned him the Nobel Prize: "A man can be destroyed but never defeated." Hemingway was incurably anti-communist, fascist and anti-dictatorship. The Communists of the brigade Thaelmann, bypassing ideological prejudices, imprisoned him in gasoline and food generously. He went everywhere with a beret (the "wonderful decorative mushroom," says Ruben) and a sheepskin Canadian lumberjack always full to bursting with onions, chocolate and American snuff, and a large bottle of whiskey silver filled morning and invariably was empty ...