The novel A Farewell to Arms, (1929) by Ernest Hemingway, takes place on the Italian front of World War I. Fredrick Henry is an American Lieutenant who drives an ambulance for the Italian army. On his leave time he often visits whorehouses and gets drunk. While fighting in the war, his knee gets injured and he has to go to the hospital in Milan where he meets a British nurse named Catherine Barkley and falls in love with her. During one of their many sexual affairs, Catherine gets pregnant. Fredrick greatly wants to desert the war because he is tired of seeing Italian solders killing each other.
Fredrick and Catherine then escape to Switzerland by rowing across a lake. After they escape to Switzerland, Catherine has the baby, but during labor there are complications and she must deliver by having cesarean section. Other problems arise, she begins hemorrhaging, and dies. The baby also dies from the birth. Although this novel is not perfect, he uses very elaborate writing, and also shows how important it is to have good morals. “I loved to take her hair down and she sat on the bed and kept very still, except suddenly she would dip down to kiss me while I was doing it… inside a tent or behind a falls. This novel is very graphic when it comes to them having sex or while he is at the whorehouses during his leave time. Many things in this novel are inappropriate for children and adults.
In more ways then one, Hemingway didn’t like women very much, one example is in chapter nine where he takes page and a half to describe how a solder dies who is not a main character in the book. But in chapter forty-one, he only uses approximately three lines to tell that Catharine dies, and she is a main character. In this novel there are a few things wrong. “The plain was rich with crops; there were many orchards of fruit trees… ut the nights were cool and there was not the feeling of a storm coming. ” The elaboration and choice of diction in this book is extraordinary. Hemingway uses so many words to describe the little things in this book.
“There was a great splashing and I saw the starshells go up and burst… biting his arm, the stump of his leg twitching,” is another great example of how he uses much elaboration in the novel. In this novel, it is shown that a man guided by morals has a structured and placid life. Fredrick who believes “nada” encounters tragedies in his life. He has nothing to judge his world by, nothing to guide him; he has no moral character.
He admires the priest because his life is guided by a choice to believe in a higher power and by the knowledge that he must chose good to improve the world in which he lives. Fredrick admires this lifestyle of peace and contentness, but can’t bring himself to guide his own life by a higher power or by good choices. This novel, A Farewell to Arms is well known and often read throughout the world because it shows the conflict in man to do and chose the right during the setting of war. It shows the good and evil in mankind. It also is one of Ernest Hemingway best written novels.
