A Farewell to Arms

"If people bring so much courage to this world the world has to kill them to break them, so of course it kills them. The world breaks every one and afterward many are strong at the broken places. But those that will not break it kills. It kills the very good and the very gentle and the very brave impartially. If you are none of these you can be sure it will kill you too but there will be no special hurry."

Part of yet another gag in the movie Evil Dead 2. After Ash cuts off his possessed hand with a chainsaw, he puts a can overtop it so it won't get away, then puts a load of books on top. The book at the top of the stack (which the cameral focuses on plenty long enough) is this book by Ernest Hemingway.

The point of view in this book is called limited first-person narrator. He writes from the point of view of one of the characters in the story (which happens to be Henry) and you see, hear, and know what Henry sees, hears, and knows. This point of view kind of gets you involved in the story, to participate almost in what's going on.

If I were to describe his style, I'd say he was quite journalistic, in that he is simple and succinct. His terse style includes many short and to-the-point sentences, but nonetheless, there is a lot of sensory detail within. That is, instead of romanticizing everything as authors like Nathaniel Hawthorne do, filling sentences with high-flown adjectives, and speaking of so many abstractions, Hemingway is concrete and deals with tangible things. In fact, the elegant love between Henry and Catherine that would have been romanticized by another author, is merely a function of existence in A Farewell to Arms. The style even varies as well - after all, his point of view is first person narrator, so his style varies along with the character's sentiments.

There are several themes in this novel that are apparent: love, war, humanity, and loss of innocence. Hemingway provokes the questions: Can love blossom under even the stress of war? and in war, what is priority - self, country, or morality? What defines heroism? But the most encompassing question he asks is: what are the effects of war are on man?

The structure of A Farewell to Arms is also quite simple. It resembles that of a Shakespearian tragedy. In fact, Hemingway once called A Farewell to Arms his own Romeo and Juliet; I mean besides, they both tell a love story. As far as structure goes, however, Hemingway split A Farewell to Arms into five books, like the five acts in a Shakespearian tragedy; these five acts work out the plot in a pattern.

1. The first book is the introduction, and Hemingway uses this part to introduce the reader to the characters and setting of the novel, including the protagonist Henry. Henry is an ambulance driver in World War I who decides to visit a hospital, where he meets a British nurse named Catherine.
   
   
2. The second book is complication, in the form of Henry falling in love with Catherine. Another complication arises when he's wounded by a canister shell. He goes to the hospital, where Catherine is transferred. He gets better, but Catherine announces to him that she has become pregnant.
   
   
3. The third book contains the climax, where Henry goes back to war. His section is forced to a hard retreat, and he is almost killed in the madness. In this book, he begins to change his attitude toward war.
   
   
4. The fourth book contains the resolution as Henry and Catherine escape to Switzerland
   
   
5. And the fifth is conclusion, ending in a tragedy.

Home vs. not home

The sense of home is synonymous with a sense of comfort and safety. Baker's sense of "not-home" corresponds to discomfort and fear. This is the case for the latter part of Book One. Frederick is forced to deal with injury and war wounds, as well as Italians who consider him an outsider. The imagery there is of darkness and dampness as Frederick and the other ambulance drivers await action on the war front. There is obvious danger in the mortar shells that fall all around them as they wait in the brickhouse, falsely sheltered by the building. The location is telling, down by the river in the low-lying areas. Even the dugout, really a brickhouse that was being used for shelter is significant in that is is usually a source of great heat as the clay is baked into bricks in the large ovens by the river.

Contrast this with the early part of Book One, in which Frederick first meets and courts Catherine, and he consumes wine and vermouth with his enlisted mates at the mess. He is free to visit the brothel and spend time with Rinaldi. This is a life of leisure; he does little work for the army and gets to have fun almost all of the time in the town. This is only ignorant comfort, however. He does not care about the war, and he lacks the inner peace and prosperity that will come in Book Two. All the fun he has in town is just playing around. It is certainly fun for him, but not fulfilling.

The truly comforting setting for Frederick however, is in Milan. He is far displaced from the war and battle in the hospital. He is waited on by the staff and excepting the pain from his wounds, has little if any discomfort. He is afforded the luxury of seeing Catherine, whom he finds himself in love with all of a sudden. It is as if being injured has affected a change in his psychology that allows him to love her. Frederick's level of control is articulated when he states, "When I saw her, I was in love with her" (Farewell 91) and later, more acutely, "God knows I had not wanted to fall in love with her. But God knows I had." (Farewell 93) This is not the fake love that he feels for her as they play their "rotten game", this is true love according to Frederick.