BS ENGLISH SEMESTER

04.
A Farewell to Arms by Ernest
Hemingway | Summary
BOOK 1
• It is the summer of 1916 and the scene is the Italian
front, war is going on and the mood is gloomy. The
narrator tells us how the permanent rain came in the
winter and brought cholera and killed seven thousand
men in the Army. Fighting is suspended.
• The narrator is to go on leave. The priest wants him to
go to Abruzzi a place of peace and calm. But Henry
returns having visited all the big cities, indulging in
wine and women, when he returns he is sorry that he
didn’t go to Abruzzi.
BOOK 1
• When he returns to the front he meets Catherine Barkley an English nurse
through his roommate Rinaldi. A kind of romance develops between the
two. Casual on Henry’s part and serious on Catherine’s who is a bit crazy
due to her fiance’s death.
• Henry is casual in his attitude to both the war and to love. He however
begins to feel lonely at not being able to see Catherine and performs his
duties conscientiously. Henry is wounded severely in his legs as he was
sitting in a dug out with his drivers during the offensive. He comes face
to face with the horror of war.
• He is transferred to the field hospital. Rinaldi comes to meet him and
talks of casual sex and the priest also comes but he gives the definition of
ideal love. Then Henry is to be transferred to the American Hospital in
Milan.
BOOK 2
• Henry’s wound serves as a means to open his eyes
about the war. Especially more so when he is told
that he will get an award for bravery.
• It also serves as an excuse to take the lovers away
from the scene of war to another where the love
theme can be developed.
• Henry is now at the American Hospital in Milan.
And Catherine too is transferred there. On seeing
her, Henry realizes that he had truly fallen in love.
BOOK 2
• Earlier, love had been just a game like bridge played for
status. But now he is very much in love. As he
recuperates from his wounds their love affair blooms.
They lead a nice life during that summer. But Henry has
to return to the front.
• Catherine also tells him that she was pregnant. She had
tried everything but nothing worked and she was
pregnant. Henry offers to marry but she refuses. The
lovers part in the rain and the book ends on this gloomy
note.
BOOK 3
• In Book III we are back at the war front. Things
have changed for the worst. Most men are depressed.
Rinaldi, the major, the priest all express their feeling of
despair. The unspoken wish is for the war to end.
• The written Book in then devoted to the Caporetto
retreat which happens soon after Henry returns. The
Italian offensive has been a failure and their army has
been routed by the Austro-German forces
BOOK 3
• . An order to retreat is given. There is also some patriotic talk and
Henry expresses that for him words like ‘sacred, glorious and
sacrifice and the expression in vain’ were rather embarrassing.
• He says, ‘He heard them, sometimes standing in the rain almost
out of earshot, so that only the shouted words came through and
had read them…..the things that were glorious had no glory and
the sacrifices were like the stockyards of Chicago if nothing was
done with the meat except bury it…..Abstract words such as
glory, honour, courage, or hallow were obscene beside the
concrete names of villages, the number of roads, the name of
rivers, the number of regiments and the dates”.
BOOK 3
• It is the retreat that opens Henry’s eyes in the
reality of war. As it becomes chaotic and confused
from the ordered style that it had started out as. He
sees the disorder and disarray the whole country
and the army is thrown into.
• Henry is forced to abandon his cars, shoot at the
sergeants, and run for his life. In the process
Bonello leaves to give himself up and Ayno is
killed by the Italian rear guard.
BOOK 3
• Henry observes the Battle police summarily
executing officers suspected of deserting their post.
He himself is under threat of being executed.
• In a split second decision, he jumps into the
Tagliamento river and escapes.
• Officially he has deserted the army.
• He gets into a freight train and having bid farewell
to the war thus, makes his way towards love and
Catherine.
BOOK 4
•This book opens with Henry coming to Milan in
search of Catherine.
•He is out of uniform and he does not want to talk
about the war with anyone.
• He finds that she and Ferguson has left for
Stressa.
•He takes the help of Simmons, a student of music
to dress in civilian clothes and takes the train to
Stressa.
BOOK 4
•In Stressa the lovers are united. A very pregnant
Catherine is ecstatic to see him whereas Ferguson is
unhappy that Henry might leave her or that they might
never get married etc.
•However, both Henry and Catherine assure her of
their love and wish to stay together. This section also
serves as a brief interlude of love.
•The lovers have a lovely time together. Sometimes,
Henry is consumed by guilty thoughts about the war.
BOOK 4
•He still has no inclination to talk about the war but at
times he thought about Rinaldi and the priest and others
and he feels like an errant school boy wondering of what
may be happening at the certain have he had played
truant.
•The lovers are forced to flee thick idyll when the
barman at the hotel they are in wakes them up during the
night with the information that they were going to arrest
Henry in the morning as ‘they’ know Henry to be an
officer and now he was out of uniform.
BOOK 4
•He offers them his boat so that they can row across the lake and
escape to Switzerland. Henry and Catherine take up this offer. They
simply walk out of the hotel and go to the lake.
•There the barman gives them some sandwiches and brandy and
instructions as to how to reach Switzerland.
•The rest of the chapter is about how Henry rows throughout the
night and finally arrive around down.
•They get into Switzerland without much trouble and also get
permission to stay without any hardship
BOOK 5