A Farewell to Arms

1. A Farewell to Arms Ernest Hemingway

2. 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

3. Time of Novel • Three years: 1915-1918 • Begins in August 1915; • Proceeds to spring of 1917 and Frederic’s 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

4. Book I • Frederic meets Catherine • Frederic is wounded and sent to the hospital • Book I initiates a tragic note: the death of the soldiers—gigantic and impersonal • Book I is a WAR STORY

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

6. 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.

7. 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.

8. 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 Compare and Contrast

9. 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 COMPARE and CONTRAST

10. 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 Hemingway’s 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 can’t go to war, but he will teach his sons the importance of war. LINKING LOVE AND WAR

11. “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 – can’t get married. • Atmosphere – dark, hopeless (The Lost Generation)

12. 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. Luz’s 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

13. 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)

14. 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.

15. 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

16. 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?

17. 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 life’s shocks. • Who is (are) the true hero(es) in the novel?

18. TRUE HERO PROTAGONIST FREDERIC HENRY CODE HEROES RINALDI CATHERINE BARKLEY PRIEST TRUE HEROES/CODE HEROES How are these characters “code heroes” and a “true hero?

19. 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.

20. 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.

21. 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.

22. 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 Hemingway’s 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.

23. 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, Frederic’s desertion comes as no surprise.

24. BOOK III • Frederic’s plunge into the river has received much attention from the critics. It could be a symbol of baptism into a new world—a 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.

25. How Caporetto is Remembered Endless Lines of Italian Prisoners TRENCHES Civilians forced to leave home Italian Position on Monte Nero East of Caporetto Caporetto: Namesake of the BattleNot the Main Breakthrough Point, However

26. 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.

27. Book IV • One of Hemingway’s 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.

28. 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 Catherine’s hopes about the birth of her child. Both the opening and ending sentences of Chapter 40 foreshadow a tragic event.

29. 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.”

30. 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 Hemingway’s own philosophy that life is futile and defeat inevitable.

31. Catherine – a code hero • Catherine is a code hero. • She remains true to her life’s philosophy even in death. “I’m not a bit afraid.” “It’s 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.

32. 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.”

33. 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 rain—forces 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.

34. THEME • The theme of the novel is Frederic Henry’s “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.

35. ANALYSIS OF THEME--love • LOVE: • Love makes people more vulnerable (which is bad for people fighting in a war). • Henry’s 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 one’s self for another. • Count Greffi says love is a “religious feeling.”

36. 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 surgeon’s spirit and the Priest’s faith. • The soldier’s lose heart. • War continued to control Henry’s thoughts long after his desertion even after his “separate peace.”

37. 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 – Catherine’s dying in childbirth. She tells Henry, “Don’t worry darling. I’m not afraid. It’s 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.

38. A PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE • Hemingway’s 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.

39. TYPE OF CHARACTERS