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Assignment
Submitted To:
Sir Agha Masood Ahmad

Submitted By:
Iram Idrees
MAENE-023R18-14

Submitted By:Iram Idrees

MAENE-023R18-14
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A Farewell to Arms
Third novel by Ernest Hemingway, published in 1929. Its
depiction of the existential disillusionment of the “Lost
Generation” echoes his early short stories and his first
major novel, The Sun Also Rises (1926). A Farewell to
Arms is particularly notable for its autobiographical
elements.
Character List
• Lieutenant Frederic Henry - The novel’s narrator and
protagonist. A young American ambulance driver in the
Italian army during World War I, Henry meets his military
duties with quiet stoicism.
Catherine Barkley - An English nurse’s aide who falls in
love with Henry. Catherine is exceptionally beautiful and
possesses, perhaps, the most sensuously described hair in
all of literature. When the novel opens, Catherine’s grief for
her dead fiancé launches her headlong into a playful,
though reckless, game of seduction.
Rinaldi - A surgeon in the Italian army. Mischievous, wry,
and oversexed, Rinaldi is Henry’s closest friend. Although
Rinaldi is a skilled doctor, his primary practice is seducing
beautiful women. When Henry returns to Gorizia, Rinaldi
tries to whip up a convivial atmosphere.
The Priest - A kind, sweet, young man who provides
spiritual guidance to the few soldiers interested in it. Often

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the butt of the officers’ jokes, the priest responds with good-
natured understanding.
Helen Ferguson - A nurse’s aide who works at the
American hospital and a dear friend of Catherine. Though
Helen is friendly and accepting of Henry and Rinaldi’s visits
to Catherine early in the novel, her hysterical outburst over
Henry and Catherine’s “immoral” affair establishes her as
an unhappy woman who is paranoid about her friend’s
safety and anxious about her own loneliness.
Miss Gage - An American nurse who helps Henry through
his recovery at the hospital in Milan. At ease and accepting,
Miss Gage becomes a friend to Henry, someone with whom
he can share a drink and gossip.
Miss Van Campen - The superintendent of nurses at the
American hospital in which Catherine works. Miss Van
Campen is strict, cold, and unpleasant. She disapproves of
Henry and remains on cool terms with him throughout his
stay.
Dr. Valentini - An Italian surgeon who comes to the
American hospital to contradict the hospital’s opinion that
Henry must wait six months before having an operation on
his leg. In agreeing to perform surgery the next morning,
Dr. Valentini displays the kind of self-assurance and
confidence that Henry (and the novel) celebrates.
Count Greffi - A spry, ninety-four-year-old nobleman.
The count represents a more mature version of Henry’s
character and Hemingway’s masculine ideal.
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Ettore Moretti - An American soldier from San

Francisco. Ettore, like Henry, fights for the Italian army.
Unlike Henry, however, Ettore is an obnoxious braggart.
Quick to instigate a fight or display the medals that he
claims to have worked so hard to win, he believes in and
pursues the glory and honor that Henry eschews.
Gino - A young Italian whom Henry meets at a decimated
village. Gino’s patriotic belief that his fatherland is sacred
and should be protected at all costs contrasts sharply to
Henry’s attitude toward war.
Ralph Simmons - An opera student of dubious talent.
Simmons is the first person that Henry goes to see after
fleeing from battle. Simmons proves to be a generous
friend, giving Henry civilian clothes so that he can travel to
Switzerland without drawing suspicion.
Emilio - A bartender in the town of Stresa. Emilio proves a
good friend to Henry and Catherine, helping them reunite,
saving them from arrest, and ushering them off to safety.
Bonello - An ambulance driver under Henry’s command.
Bonello displays his ruthlessness when he brutally unloads
a pistol round into the head of an uncooperative engineer
whom Henry has already shot.

A Farewell to Arms Summary

Lieutenant Frederic Henry, a young American ambulance
driver with the Italian army during World War I, takes a
winter leave from the front. When he returns, he meets and
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quickly falls in love with Catherine Barkley, an English

nurse's aide in the town's British hospital. She mourns the
death of her fiancé from the war last year, and she eagerly
enters the pleasurable diversion the game of love offers with
Henry. Henry, too, is revived by love after the horror he has
seen of war.
Henry's knee is badly wounded during an artillery
bombardment, and he is sent to a hospital in Milan for an
operation. Catherine transfers to his hospital and helps him
recuperate from the surgery. They spend all their free time
together, and their love deepens as they gradually
acknowledge that they stand alone against the cruel world.
Before Henry returns to the front, Catherine reveals she is
pregnant. They are both pleased with this, however, and
cannot wait to see each other again.
Back at the front, the Germans and Austrians break through
the Italian line, and the Italians are forced to make a lengthy
retreat. Henry travels with some other drivers, two Italian
engineering sergeants, and two Italian girls. When the
sergeants abandon the drivers when their car gets stuck,
Henry shoots one of them, and another driver finishes him
off. Later, the trigger-happy Italian rear guard mistakenly
shoots one of the Italian drivers. One of the drivers deserts
the group, choosing to be taken prisoner rather than face
potential death. At a bridge over a flooded river, the corrupt
Italian military singles out Henry as a lieutenant and
accuses him of treachery leading to the Italian defeat.
Knowing he will be executed, Henry jumps into the river
and escapes with the current.
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Henry manages to get out of the fast-moving river and jump

a train to Milan. He thinks he has made a "separate peace"
and is no longer attached to the military. He finds Catherine
in the town of Stresa and, prior to Henry's arrest for
desertion, the two make a daring nighttime escape by a
borrowed boat to Switzerland. They enjoy an idyllic,
isolated life that winter in the Swiss town of Montreux,
spending time outdoors and preparing for the arrival of
their baby; Henry is not completely without guilt, however,
for abandoning his friends at the front.
They move to the town of Lausanne in the spring to be close
to its hospital, and Catherine soon goes into labor. The
pregnancy is lengthy and painful, and the baby, delivered
through a Caesarean, is stillborn. Catherine dies soon after
of multiple hemorrhages with Henry by her side. He tries to
say goodbye to her, but it is like saying goodbye to a statue,
and he walks back to his hotel room in the rain.
A Farewell to Arms Themes
Love as a response to the horrors of war and the
world
Hemingway repeatedly emphasizes the horrific devastation
war has wrought on everyone involved. From the opening
account of cholera that kills "only" 7,000 men to the graphic
description of the artillery bombardment to the corrupt
violence during the Italian retreat, A Farewell to Arms is
among the most frank anti-war novels.
But Hemingway does not merely condemn war. Rather, he
indicts the world at large for its atmosphere of destruction.
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Henry frequently reflects upon the world's insistence on

breaking and killing everyone; it is as if the world cannot
bear to let anyone remain happy and safe.
Indeed, whenever Henry and Catherine are blissful,
something comes along to interrupt it - be it Henry's injury,
his being sent back to the front, his impending arrest, or,
finally, Catherine's death from childbirth. With such misery
confronting them at every turn, the two turn to each other.
Catherine, especially, plunges almost too easily into love
when she first meets Henry. She admits she was "crazy" at
first, most likely over the fairly recent death of her fiancé,
but Henry, too, succumbs to the temptations of love. Love
is a pleasurable diversion (see Games, below) that distracts
lovers from the outside world; the two often tell each other
not to think about anything else, as it is too painful. Hidden
within the shelter of Catherine's beautiful hair, Henry and
Catherine feel protected from the cruel outside world.
The major problem with such escapist love is, as Henry and
other characters point out several times, one does not
always know the "stakes" of love until it is over, or that one
does not know about something until one has lost it. Henry
hardly allows himself to think of life without Catherine
while he is in love, and once he does lose her, it seems
unlikely that he will recover.
Grace under pressure and the Hemingway hero
Although less important in this novel than in his 1926
novel The Sun Also Rises, Hemingway maps out what it
means to be a hero. Chiefly, the "Hemingway hero," as
literary criticism frequently tags him, is a man of action who
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coolly exhibits "grace under pressure" while confronting

death. Henry's narration is certainly detached and action-
oriented - only rarely does he let us into his most private
thoughts - and he displays remarkable cool when shooting
the engineering sergeant. Characters in the novel strive for
this grace under pressure in an otherwise chaotic world.
Even when the men eat spaghetti (and especially when they
eat macaroni in the dugout during the artillery
bombardment), they try to exercise mastery over a single
skill to compensate for the uncontrollable chaos
elsewhere. Dr. Valentini is another example of a skillful,
confident Hemingway hero.
The Hemingway hero also eschews glory for a more
personal code of honor. Unlike the selfish and boastful
Ettore, Henry is not greedy for accolades, nor is he stupidly
sacrificial. He judiciously determines what is worth the
sacrifice, and decides that the war is no longer worthwhile.
Even after he makes his "separate peace," however, he feels
slightly guilty over letting his friends continue the battle
without him.
Rain and destruction
From the first chapter to the last word, the novel is flooded
with rain and other images of water. The rain almost always
heralds destruction and death; it impinges upon whatever
momentary happiness Henry and Catherine have and turns
it into muddy misery. Ironically, rain often signifies fertility
in literature but here stands for sterility, as it does in much
post-WWI literature.

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However, water is positive in other ways. Henry receives

symbolic baptisms when he bathes and, more prominently,
when he twice escapes from the authorities via a river and a
lake. Frozen water is kinder to him and to soldiers in
general; snow usually prevents fighting, and Henry and
Catherine are happiest during their snowy winter in
Switzerland.
Diversions
Nearly all the characters in the novel try to divert
themselves with pleasurable activities from the horror of
war. The soldiers play card games, drink heavily, and
carouse in brothels; Rinaldi is the poster-boy for this
hedonistic excess. Henry goes along somewhat, but his
biggest diversion is love itself; he and Catherine treat it like
a game at first, flirting and teasing each other. Above all,
ignorance is prized during the war; if one does not think
about the war, then one cannot be unhappy during the
ongoing pursuit of games and diversions.
Abandonment
The novel deploys several instances of abandonment,
intentional and forced, in the realms of love and war. After
the death of her fiancé, Catherine understandably fears
abandonment by Henry, and he makes every attempt when
separated to reunite with her. Even Helen fears
abandonment by Catherine. In the war, we see several cases
of abandonment: the engineering sergeants, who abandon
Henry and the other drivers; Bonello, who abandons the
drivers to give himself up as a prisoner; the Italian retreat,
a large-scale abandonment; and Henry's escape from army.
However, Henry's abandonment is completely justified (he
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was going to be executed if he did not), and it is less a

desertion that what he calls a "separate peace." Ultimately,
he decides that not abandoning Catherine is far more
important than not abandoning the war, though he does feel
guilty over leaving behind Rinaldi and the others at the
front.
Journalistic style of omission
As is typical in a Hemingway work, Henry's narration is
spare, detached, and journalistic. Contrary to what the
reader might expect, the effect often heightens emotion. For
example, Hemingway ratchets up the connotations of death
and violence by omitting explicit mention of blood when it
drips on Henry in the ambulance.
Hemingway shows his range when he occasionally uses a
near "stream-of-consciousness" narration for Henry. In
these few cases, Henry's thoughts are ungrammatical,
awkwardly worded, and repetitive - much as the mind
works, especially under such chaotic circumstances. A
notable example is the long second-person narrative
passage in Chapter XXXII after Henry has divorced himself
from the army. By addressing himself as "you," Henry
shows how he has separated from his former self through
his "separate peace."

Submitted By:Iram Idrees

MAENE-023R18-14