For today’s blog, please feel free to talk about anything that interested you in A Farewell to Arms. Here are some prompts to get you started thinking:
- Many critics have talked about the poetic nature of the first two pages of the book and of the first paragraph especially. Discuss Hemingway’s style and language use in this opening scene or anywhere else in the novel where you the style is particularly key.
- Why do you think Frederic and Catherine have such a strange beginning when they first meet at the hospital where she works near Gorizia? What’s going on in these scenes?
- Talk about Frederic’s relationship with Rinaldi or the priest.
- How do Frederic’s ideas about the war change as the book progresses? You might look especially at passages in which he talks to the ambulance mechanics and to the priest in the hospital. What do you think Hemingway is saying about the war? Is this an anti-war novel?
- Discuss the character of Catherine Barkley. Readers of the novel have long disagreed about how we’re to view her. Is she simply a stereotypical woman, a male fantasy? What do you think about lines when Catherine says things like this: “There isn’t any me anymore….just what you want” (end of Ch. 16)? What about her own history of trauma and her attitude toward the war? Some commentators have even go so far to see her as the true hero in the book. Does this reading seem at all plausible to you?
- We’ve talked about characters trying to make “homes” or safe domestic spaces in war. How is this theme important in the novel?
- Hemingway famously wrote 47 different endings to the novel. Perhaps provide a close reading of the ending he settled on and speculate about why he chose this one.
I found the opening paragraphs of A Farewell to Arms to be captivating. Hemingway has a way of creating rhythm and movement within his sentences that had a mesmerizing effect on me as a reader. I think he accomplishes this poetic feat by focusing on poignant specific details while also directing the reader’s attention to the physical movement around the details he chose.
For instance, he repeats many key words that evoke the landscape and I think he did this to focus the reader’s attention to the parts of the landscape he wanted to draw special attention to. I noticed repetition of the words river, trees, and leaves, Each time he repeats the word it is in a slightly different state (the leaves falling or becoming coated in dust from the passing troops) or context and this emphasis creates movement and motion for the reader. There is also the literal movement that is occurring in the action of the scene. I took note of his use of the words “moving”, “raised”, “fell”, “rising” to describe everything from the leaves to the river to the groups of soldiers making their way through the village. He also employs a great number of conjunctions (I counted the word “and” fifteen times in the first paragraph) to generate a feeling of movement in the text itself and not just the actions of the characters and landscape.
That being said, I noticed a change in tone around the time the Italian Army was routed about two-thirds of the way through the book. There is a general feeling of paranoia and desperation that consumes all the characters as they make their way rearward away from the encroaching German army. I noticed more cursing and a lack of the same poetic tone that carried the first half of the novel. I think it was intentional on Hemingway’s part but it lacked the same power for me as a reader. I wasn’t a big fan of the final 40 pages. I felt like it was heavy-handed and predictable. Almost Hollywood-esque. I read that he rewrote the ending many, many times so I would be interested in hearing if anyone knows why he chose the ending he did and what the other endings looked like.
Interestingly enough, I have a copy of the novel that shows all the alternative endings that Hemingway came up with. A lot of them are incomplete and some have scratched out words here and there. They all range from the pessimistic to the religious to the uplifting. In a few drafts it seems Hemingway toyed with idea of having Henry’s child be alive at the end sort of indicating the cycle of life with his work. In one “Live-Baby Ending” (as my book calls it), it states “I could tell about the boy. He did not seem of any importance then except as trouble and God knows that I was better about him. Anyway he does not belong in this story. He starts a new one. It is not fair to start a new story at the end of an old one but that is the way it happens. There is no end except death and birth is only the beginning”. Out of all the alternative endings, this one was my favorite. Some endings discuss the funeral for Catherine and the undertakers. Ultimately, I think Hemingway (and his editors) did the right choice by choosing the official ending. The other endings did not feel like a proper send off to this story.
I was disappointed in how the book ended although I kind of get it. Taking into account the title of the book, it can mean different things. “Arms” meaning weapons and “arms” of possibly the one you love could be Hemingway’s vision of this book. Lieutenant Henry said goodbye to his military career by way of desertion and he had to say goodbye to the love of his life as she died in childbirth. He walked away from both. So, to me, the ending is fitting. It is very traumatic but fitting.
It is really interesting reading Michael and Noah’s comments. I have to admit that the chapter where a mechanic talked about how the battle police rounded up retreating soldiers and shot every tenth man was a psychologic turning point for me. From then on I was fully exposed to the trauma and chaos, and everything felt like a recurring nightmare: the big retreat, Frederic shooting an Italian sergeant, Frederic almost got executed himself and Frederic deserting…
What Hemingway wished to express about war definitely sunk in me, and I came out with a deeper understanding of his famous mistrust of “abstract words”.
I agree with Michael that the movement in the last few chapters slowed down significantly (after they escaped to Switzerland), and I as reader was left anticipating the final catastrophe for a long while. It’s pretty clear from the way the last book was built that there can be no happy ending.
My feelings toward the ending are mixed. On the one hand, I agree with the critic Judith Fetterley that romanticizing a woman’s death in labor is pretty lame, especially if you take Hemingway’s “A Very Short Story” into consideration — it’s pretty hard to argue against the fact that he did what a lot of people are attempted to do, romanticizing a strong woman who left him into a selfless victim in a novel before killing her off.
On the other hand, I do think Catherine’s death and the still birth is very symbolic. It deepens the consistent theme of disillusionment — not just of patriotism, but of love and life and human connection as well. They are, after all, all abstract words. I personally felt the ending to be very dark and it left me in despair. But I admire the power in this choice.
The theme of making “homes” or safe domestic spaces in war is important to the novel because, in times of war, a soldier or affiliate is away from what they consider home and must make the best of a stressful situation. There is a proverb, “home is where the heart is.” The origin is unknown, but it is a widely used saying. It means, wherever you are or wherever who and what you love are, you are home. To a soldier, having a place to call home or a safe space to gather yourself is essential to survival.
Hemingway uses this theme in his novel regarding where Lieutenant Henry calls home throughout his journey. Lieutenant Henry is “home” when returning from the front, the dugout on the front line (pg 47) with the other drivers was a place to stay, when he was in the hospital healing from his war injury (pg 129), and when he and Catherine stayed at a hotel before he returned to duty. Home is dependent on whom and what is there at the time.
When returning from the front on pages 10 and 11, Lieutenant Henry notes they still live in the same house and everything is just as he left it, except the change of season. I think this provides a sense of comfort for him knowing all his things are where they should be in the place he calls home. I know when I leave my house, I leave it a certain way. Upon returning, I look around to make sure nothing has been disturbed and everything is as it should be. For soldiers, I find it is important to come home to something that appears normal, predictable, and consistent. War is unpredictable enough, having a home should not be.
The next example is making sure the drivers have a place to stay while they wait for the war to start on the front (pg 47). This is important because you don’t want to be out in the open when the shells drop. A soldier must find a place where they can feel as safe as possible given the situation. Next example is after Henry got injured, he had an extensive stay at the hospital. This becomes his next home. As he has healed and is walking around town, he says on page 129, “I stopped at a barbershop and was shaved and went home to the hospital.” There at the hospital, he has a safe space, his girl is there, and he has made friends with the staff. This hospital becomes his home. The last example I will use is when Lieutenant Henry and Catherine stay at a hotel before he returns to duty. When it is almost time for him to leave to catch his train, Catherine said she hates to leave their fine house (pg 148). Obviously, they are in a hotel room, and it is temporary, but they are together and happy therefore making where they are, home while they have it.
This theme is important to the novel because the main characters are not in typical places a person would call home. The story takes place at a time of war where shells are being dropped everywhere and really, nowhere is completely safe. But, in the midst of all that, a soldier will find a way to carve out a place they feel safe and a place they can count on to give that comfort of being home.
I found Catherine as a character to be very intriguing. At first, she comes off stubborn, knowing how to play the game to win over the protagonist’s heart. Play playing hard to get and being modest, the two quickly fall in love. I appreciated the backstory of previously losing her husband and wishing she had married him. It provided an explanation to her hesitance with Henry, despite him visiting almost every other night. However, she quickly fell into the trope of the classic American women during World War I, even though she was British. Her ability to go with the flow and need to “be a good girl “made her passive which annoyed me. Prior to meeting Henry, she invested herself in nursing to take care of others. She had a purpose. I felt like Henry ultimately diminish that purpose because she made him her main priority. Granted, she did show Henry a way to find a home and that’s traveling through a variety of countries. I can see how one could argue that she was the hero and that she kept Henry saying and gave him a reason to keep going despite the world crumbling around them.
With this being the third Hemingway book we read in a row, I feel aggravated with the way in which he depicts women. Catherine was her own person before she found Henry, which is the complete opposite of Brett who found that no man could please her. I was disappointed and that she fell into the trope of being a side character rather than also fulfilling the main protagonist role. Granted, with that said, I really appreciated the love story between the two of them. While she was very submissive, they found love easily in a world where love is hard to find. I was devastated by the ending but almost saw it foreshadowing threw it away Hemingway discuss the weather of the day she gave birth.
I would love to hear more about other people’s thoughts on Catherine and Hemingway’s abilities to foreshadow her death throughout the novel!
Sam,
I think Hemingway used the weather significantly to foreshadow Catherine’s death, and the rain was the most prominent foreshadowing tool. For example, there is a conversation in chapter 19 where Catherine says, “I’m afraid of the rain because sometimes I see me dead in it” (110), and she continues to tell Frederic that she saw him dead in the rain as well. The repeated mentioning of the rain in the final chapter solidifies its symbolic use for Hemingway.
That being said, I, too, am frustrated with Hemingway’s portrayals of women. But I did find Catherine a more intriguing and complete character, at least in comparison to Brett. I like what you said about her making Frederic a priority and diminishing her sense of purpose in life. During Catherine and Frederic’s first romantic interaction, the two joke about dropping/getting away from the war (22-23). These statements served as another form of foreshadowing to me: their “walking away” from their duty to the war because of their love for each other. As Noah mentioned, there is a more hopeful ending where the son lives. I wonder if the “bad” ending is punishment for the desertion of the duty or an attempt to show how unrealistic it is to search for that home or “domestic sphere” in the middle of a war.
While reading A Farewell to Arms, I continued to notice the specific mentions of clothing and the practice of dressing and undressing. The first time noticed the comment was when Henry noted that “Rinaldi came while I was undressing” (32). The next page he comments on the way some of the soldiers’ helmets fit saying, “Most of the helmets were too big and came down almost over the ears of the men who wore them” (33). These moments of undress and ill fitting headgear made me interested in the way clothes were talked about in the novel. I paid attention to moments where Henry described his clothing. The most important discussion of clothing comes after Henry’s escape from the army when he says, “In civilian clothes, I felt a masquerader. I had been in uniform a long time and I missed the feeling of being held by your clothes” (243). This emphasis of dress shows the unique power a uniform can provide. Henry is empowered by his uniform and without it he becomes exposed. A uniform acts now as armor and shield, but it also links members together by their dress. Without the uniform, Henry is opened up to individuality without his clothes. I believe Hemingway’s care to mark when Henry is in states of undress or is putting on different clothes represents an important image in A Farewell to Arms.
I thought it was interesting how Hemingway portrayed home throughout the novel because it seemed like he was trying to depict characters who create home wherever they are. For example, when Henry goes back to war after his injury and the soldiers are retreating, the team of men stop at various homes along the path to eat and drink together almost like a family would at supper time. Henry even says at one point when Catherine and him are staying at the hotel that the hotel was their home, and before that, the hospital was their home. Overall, I think the character’s are just trying to create domestic spaces for themselves in the chaos of the war as a way of coping with the devastation around them at all times.
I have mixed feeling toward Catherine’s character. She’s obviously a very passive character whose written through the male gaze, but I couldn’t help but wonder at times if Hemingway was writing her ironically. Especially when she’s pregnant and she’s making all of these comments about how she understands that if Henry will no longer love her because of her expanding body, etc. Some of her lines are so funny that I find it hard to believe that Hemingway intended them to be read seriously. Her death made me consider the idea that Hemingway might’ve intended us to read her as a critic on the idealization of women. Catherine was perfect–too perfect to be real, so she had to die. But I also think its a commentary on how soldiers at war would idealize the life they left at home and then come home and realized that the life they idealized at war doesn’t really exist–they just created it in their mind as a coping mechanism.
This is my second time reading A Farewell to Arms and my understanding of Catherine and Frederic’s relationship has definitely grown. When I read the novel in high school I saw their relationship as deeply toxic from the start – the scene where they first meet is especially unsettling. While I still view their relationship as severely problematic, reading their initial meeting with fresh eyes helped me see how flawed they are from the start and gave me sympathy for them thar I did not have before, Catherine in particular.
“I wanted to do something for him. You see I didn’t care about the other thing and he could have had it all. He could have had anything he wanted if I would have known” (Hemingway, 16). I read this as Catherine expressing guilt in not giving her fiancé all of herself, including sex, (“the other thing”) before he died in war. Given her promise to marry Frederic and telling him they were already married in a way once they had slept together and became pregnant, I’m not sure if I believe she was ever really engaged at all. Nonetheless, her feelings for her ‘fiancé’ and subsequent guilt seem authentic and his death results in lasting trauma for her.
Knowing this backstory I find her desire to give Frederic anything he wants, including sex, more understandable; she doesn’t want to repeat what she views as a mistake. In reading later declarations like “there isn’t any me anymore” (Hemingway, 92) and there is only what Frederic wants, I saw that as her desire to keep him and to attempt to make a ‘home’ of sorts in the midst of war, however unstable.
While I didn’t see her as an entirely submissive character in relation to Frederic (she seems to know more about who she is and what she wants than he does, at least), she seemed to be holding on to more Victorian era feminine ideals, like being a good homemaker and “suffering in silence”; her labor scene certainly showed her trying to keep her composure in pain. I thought perhaps she does this to try and regain a sense of normalcy that existed before the war but that can no longer exist.
In this novel, Hemingway addresses death (immediate and slow, spontaneous and unanticipated) more directly than in our previous readings. I want to look at these deaths more closely.
Frederico’s first near-death experience (“I went out swiftly, all of myself, and I knew I was dead and that it had all been a mistake to think you just died. Then I floated and instead of going on I felt myself slide back” pg 54) is informed by Hemingway’s own war injuries, and the detail and sensitivity given to this scene (also, the humor: “They dropped me once more… ‘You sons of bitches,’ I said” pg 56) which creates for us a powerful sense of how luck seems to have a hand in death throughout the novel. This returns with the killing of the sergeant, whose anxiety about their unlucky circumstances during the retreat lead him to make an impulsive choice and desert. Fred drops him and Bonello kills him, which adds to the irony of the coming pages. As they approach Udine, having abandoned the charges of their ambulances, Italian soldiers shoot and kill Aymo. Bonello, grappling with this, says, “That might have happened to us any time on the railway tracks.” He and Fred debate for a moment over the role of chance in this death until Bonello drops it, “You reason it out, Tenente” (pg 214). As they carry on, Fred takes an uncharacteristic moment of pause to note how small Aymo looks in the rain and decides to write to his family. Their numbers dwindling, Bonello offers himself as a prisoner to the germans which neither Fred nor Piani can explain fully. At the point when Fred is pulled away from Piani to be questioned as an officer without his troops, Hemingway begins to take narrative distance from the mass murder: “They made a point of being intent on questioning the next man while the man who had been questioned before was being shot. In this way there was obviously nothing they could do about it” (pg 224), later as escapes: “I did not want to see the bank. There were shots when I ran and shots when I came up the first time… there were no shots now.” This distance emphasizes for me the intensity of emotion that is being repressed in order for Fred to survive. In a similar way, he shuts down his thoughts of Catherine while he knows he is still not safe.
Of course we know the most notable death in the book is the final death. I was compelled not to approach this with prior knowledge of Hemingway’s work (in which I have yet to meet a pregnant woman who a) kept the baby and b) survived childbirth except the mother in Indian Camp, although that child will still be down one parent). Instead, I tried to parse out why Fred would take on the role he does as the worried father when in fact he has no interest at all in the child either before or after its delivery, except that Catherine has notably melded into another version of himself which he loves wholeheartedly. Catherine is his most redeeming quality, and therefore worth salvation, enough even to pray for her.
Fred relates for us while he was in the hospital the sensation of going under anesthetic which he says is “not like dying it is just a chemical choking so you do not feel, and afterward you might as well have been drunk” (pg 107). His experience there changes the reading of Cat’s use of the gas, which she consumes voraciously despite knowing it may also kill her in high doses, and which Fred gives her out of fear and pity. Of course we could talk about the alcohol consumption during her pregnancy as a product of the times but the gas is specifically only meant to work to a point. Which is surpassed not just by the doctors but also by Fred. He was also allowed to decide between a forceps delivery and a Caesarian, putting responsibility on him (and guilt) when she dies. In this way I see him as equally culpable for her death as the doctors. Here there doesn’t seem to be much about bad luck, though Fred speculates that the child had been dead for over a week. Rather it leaves us a protagonist struggling to accept an unfair world wherein his choices led to his loss.
Frederick Henry in Ernest Hemingway’s A Farewell to Arms can be read to reflect the author’s own disillusionment of war. Meanwhile, the novel’s heart-wrenching ending is a disillusionment of the domestic sphere. Neither the glory of battle or the security of the homefront are guarantees.
While I was reading, I noticed similar transactional relationships to those in The Sun Also Rises. For example, when Frederick and Catherine are detained by police for illegally crossing the border, the police ask how much money they have, but “they [are] polite because [Frederick and Catherine have] passports and money” (242). The couple is then assured “‘there will be no unpleasantness with the police'” when they get to Montreux (244). Money grants them agency in this case, but Frederick is not able to buy his way out of war or buy a healthy, painless delivery for Catherine. Transactional relationships can only go so far.
The priest also fits into this discussion. He asks why Frederick wants him around, and Frederick says, “Just to talk” (63). Although Frederick has personal motives for many of his choices, he interacts with the priest in different ways. He likes the priest even though they do not see eye to eye. Does this novel disillusion religion?
After writing a research paper about Ernest Hemingway and this specific novel, rereading the book has lent me a new perspective on my attention to the aspects of trauma within the narrative. In my prior research, I focused in-depth on the relationship between Catherine and Frederic through the lens of trauma and psychoanalysis–more specifically, how their relationship could be viewed from both the perspective of the book and an autobiographical lens as an demonstrative of the concept of “trauma bonding.”
This time around reading the novel, I found myself more focused on his prose and his narrative structure more so than narrative content, which served to maintain my perspective of it as a trauma narrative. The first-person narration and direct/unadorned writing style in conjunction with his autobiographical elements projected onto the main characters seems to illustrate a mechanism of coping with trauma in itself; writing from the first-person perspective about personal trauma through fictional characters provides a sense of objectivity as well as an outlet to make somewhat tangible the “inarticulable” trauma within. Considering that in addition to his iceberg writing style, Hemingway’s prose in the book could be thought of as an attempt NOT to articulate the inarticulable of the all-encompassing nature of trauma. Rather, he presents it and expresses it in his characters through their dialogues and their actions–by what they say, what they don’t say, and how they do both.
Excuse my typos!