Ernest Hemingways A Farewell to Arms as an Anti-War...

A Farewell to Arms as an Anti-War Novel There are indications in each of the novel’s five books that Ernest Hemingway meant A Farewell to Arms to be a testament against war. World War One was a cruel war with no winners; †War is not won by victory† (47). Lieutenant Frederic Henry, the book’s hero and narrator, experiences the disillusionment, the hopelessness and the disaster of the war. But Henry also experiences a passionate love; a discrepancy that ironically further describes the meaninglessness and the frustration felt by the soldiers and the citizens. In Book I, the army is still waiting for action, and the world is one of boredom with men drinking to make time go by and whoring to get women. War itself is a male game; †no†¦show more content†¦There were many words that you could not stand to hear and finally only the names of places had dignity. Certain numbers were the same way and certain dates and these with the names of the places were all you could say and have them mean anything. Abstact words such as glory, honour, courage, or hallow were obscene beside the concrete names of villages, the numbers of roads, the names of rivers, the numbers of regiments, and the dates.† This quotation illustrates the great turning point in Henry’s idea about heroism and the meaning of war. Further desillusionment and chaos arise in consequence of the army’s withdrawal as the Austrian and German troops break through the Italian lines. Henry shoots one of his own men, and he himself is mistakenly seized as a German foreigner. Henry manages to escape execution, and now his ’separate peace’ begins: †Anger was washed away in the river along with any obligation. (†¦) I was not against them. I was through. I wished them all the luck. (†¦) But it was not my show any more† (224). In Book IV Henry, in danger as a deserter and a fugitive, together with Catherine, rows by night thirty-five kilmetres into the neutrality of Switzerland. The journey is long and painful for Henry, but all the time there is hope and longing for the new peaceful life to begin. Catherine is pregnantShow MoreRelatedHemingway’s, A Farewell to Arms: Does The Film Do Justice To The Novel?851 Words   |  4 PagesA Farewell to Arms, published in 1929, is a classic short story written by Ernest Hemingway about the hardships and cruelties of love and war. In 1932, a film adaptation of the novel was developed by Director Frank Borzage and nonetheless the unquestionable originality of his photography as well as for his excellent directorial concepts; Borzage misses on many levels of Hemingway’s brilliant description and significant dialogue between the main character Lieutenant Frederic Henry and his fellow ItalianRead MoreThe American Style : Ernest Hemingway s Writing Method196 4 Words   |  8 PagesThe American Style: Ernest Hemingway’s Writing Method It is extremely rare when someone enters the world of literature and essentially changes everything. Ernest Hemingway is one of these people. His style of writing is unique compared to anybody before him. He has reserved his spot amongst the most influential authors of all time, basically defining the style of American literature. This style includes basic sentence structure with less adjectives, deeper meaning behind the simplicity, useRead More Catherine as Code Hero in Ernest Hemingways A Farewell to Arms3316 Words   |  14 PagesCatherine as Code Hero in A Farewell to Arms      Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   In the last book of A Farewell to Arms, when the pregnant Catherine Barkley is having painful contractions, Frederic Henry, the narrator and protagonist of the novel, reminds his wife that she is a brave good girl (FTA 313). A day later, after undergoing a caesarian section and giving birth to a stillborn baby boy, Catherine proves just how brave she is; though she knows she is dying, she still has the dignity and strength to acceptRead MoreA Farewell Of Arms, And The Sun Also Rises, By Ernest Hemingway2276 Words   |  10 Pages In A Farewell to Arms, For Whom the Bell Tolls, and The Sun Also Rises, Ernest Hemingway uses damaged characters to show the unglamorous and futile nature of war and the effects it has on people. Hemingway wants readers to know that war is not what people make it out to be; it is unspectacular and not heroic. Hemingway also feels that war is futile by nature and that most goals in war have almost no point. He also shows readers that mil itary conflict often causes people to have shallow values andRead More Biography of Ernest Hemingway Essay3737 Words   |  15 PagesBiography of Ernest Hemingway Certainly there is no hunting like the hunting of man and those who have hunted armed men long enough and liked it, never really care for anything else thereafter. You will meet them doing various things with resolve, but their interest rarely holds because after the other thing ordinary life is as flat as the taste of wine when the taste buds have been burned off your tongue. (On the Blue Water in Esquire, April 1936) A legendary novelist, short-storyRead More Comradeship in James Hanleys The German Prisoner, Ernest Hemingways Farewell to Arms, Not So Quiet, All Quiet on the Western Front, and Pat Bakers1451 Words   |  6 PagesComradeship in James Hanleys The German Prisoner, Ernest Hemingways Farewell to Arms, Not So Quiet, All Quiet on the Western Front, and Pat Bakers Regeneration For many soldiers and volunteers, life on the fronts during the war means danger, and there are few if any distractions from its horrors. Each comradeship serves as a divergence from the daily atrocities and makes life tolerable. Yet, the same bonds that most World War literature romantically portrays can be equally negativeRead More Mourning and Melancholia in Hemingway’s For Whom the Bell Tolls3190 Words   |  13 PagesMourning and Melancholia in Hemingway’s For Whom the Bell Tolls Ernest Hemingway’s For Whom the Bell Tolls (1940) begins with a quotation from John Donne’s â€Å"Meditation XVII.† With this epigraph, Hemingway identifies the source of his title and defines the connections achieved between human beings through mourning.: Donne’s argument begins, â€Å"No man is an island,† and it concludes with an assertion of our bond to the dead: â€Å"never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.† ProperRead MoreThe Sun Also Rises Critical Essay3893 Words   |  16 Pagesfound in the novel. Although Lionel Trilling in 1939 afforded his readers a salutary, corrective view, most commentators have found the meaning inherent in the pattern of the work despairing. Perhaps most outspoken is E. M. Halliday, who sees Jake Barnes as adopting a kind of desperate caution as his modus vivendi. Halliday concludes that the movement of the novel is a movement of progressive emotional insularity and that the novels theme is one of moral atrophy. [Hemingways Narrative PerspectiveRead Morewisdom,humor and faith19596 Words   |  79 Pagesmeans of survival in a threatening world. It demands that we reckon with the realities of human nature and the world without falling into grimness and despair.† Roger Shattuck, The Banquet Years: The Origins of the Avant-Garde in France—1885 to World War I, rev. ed. (1968), 248. â€Å"Humor is, in fact, a prelude to faith; and laughter is the beginning of prayer. . . . The saintliest men frequently have a humorous glint in their eyes. They retain the capacity to laugh at both themselves and at others.