A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway - Research Paper Example

A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway A Farewell to Arms has many interpretations; the most obvious way to interpret the novel is as portrayal of love represented in the relationship between Frederic Henry, the narrator, and Catherine Barkley. This stereotypical portrayal juxtaposes the reassurance of love with the fear of war. Since Italy during World War I is the setting for the novel, the two protagonists find safe places like hospital rooms, hotel rooms, and a forest chalet to make love and the contrast of their love and the war that rages all around them provides an age old sentiment of contentment and safety in the arms of a lover. The contrast of the fear and the sweetness make for an interesting dynamic and quite a bit of drama in the novel. But romantic love may not be what is depicted in the novel. Hemingway may be playing with the reader’s perception, and forcing him/her to step outside the comfort of relying on the narrator to give a truthful accounting. All of the relationships in A Farewell to Arms must be filtered through the narrator’s account, and by the end of the novel, readers should not be too sure that he is reliable. In fact, perhaps the entire story serves only to justify Frederic’s desertion from the Italian army and to assuage his guilt and shame in having taken the cowardly way out of a terrible situation. If a reader decides to accept Frederic’s account as an accurate retelling, the story comes off as contrived and vapid. Catherine’s constant and nauseating declarations of love and demanding that Frederic return the feeling could leave readers repulsed. Ironically, though, if one chooses to not trust Frederic’s narrative completely, then the story becomes much more interesting. James Nagel says, “More important than the precise moment of the telling is the awareness that many of the judgements (sic) expressed in the novel must be perceived as having derived not from insight contemporaneous with the action but from the older and painfully wiser perspective of Frederic Henry as narrator” (Nagel 172). Frederic’s reliability or lack thereof reveals itself in subtle ways throughout the narrative. The love affair between Frederic and Catherine may seem real enough in some ways, but both characters either state outright or cryptically refer to the fact that they are only pretending several times. For instance, early in the relationship, Frederic gets detained with his duties as an officer and does not call on Catherine for a few days. Before this time, he has called on her every day. Both seem to like each other, but Frederic clearly seems to have only one purpose in mind, and Catherine has refused to participate. But, after Frederic is delayed and then finally goes to see her, they have the following exchange: “’You did say you loved me, didn't you?’ ‘Yes,’ I lied. ‘I love you. I had not said it before” (Hemingway). Both Catherine and Frederic knew he had not said he loved her before, but both play along with the lie. In that way, Catherine can give in to Frederic’s demands for sex and refer to it as “love making” rather than “having sex.” The former, of course, only possible if the two people participating are actually “in love.” Apparently Catherine believes in the three days that he has been gone that Frederic has found what he wants elsewhere, with the prostitutes provided for the men by the army or somewhere besides in her arms. Catherine understands the male notion that sex is a necessity, but also, after Frederic is wounded and nearly dies like her fiancé, Catherine realizes the importance of seizing the moment. Katie Owens-Murphy says that Frederic categorizes his love for Catherine in the same realm as eating, drinking and sleeping. “Frederic places his love for Catherine on the same plane as these other bodily necessities: ‘I was not made to think,’ he remarks. ‘I was made to eat. My God, yes. Eat and drink and sleep with Catherine’” (Owens-Murphy 94). Frederic knows he is not “in love” with Catherine, but he wants to have sex with someone because he realizes he could die at any moment especially after he nearly does die. The prostitutes are a possibility but they leave him feeling unsatisfied. Catherine may be just another more socially acceptable version of a prostitute. Or, perhaps he sees Catherine as a conquest since he stole her from Rinaldi initially. Besides, Catherine is convenient and willing to play along, or that is what Frederic the narrator would have readers believe. Perhaps Frederic as the narrator faithfully recounts Catherine’s words and actions, or perhaps he alters them to suit his purpose Frederic’s account of Catherine seems unconvincing at best and fantasized at worst. Catherine initially comes off as a sad woman, whose spirit has been broken by the war which has claimed her fiancé. She is so lost and confused by the war that she decides to find solace in Frederic’s arms. This, in Frederic’s narration, makes her very happy, and she talks about how happy she is with Frederic frequently, almost as if the more she says she is in love, the more she will believe it herself. Perhaps Catherine did use Frederic much the same as he used her. Sandra Spanier says that Catherine may use the “love affair” with Frederic as a “survival tactic” (Spanier 134). Catherine may feel cheated out of the romantic relationship she envisioned with her fiancé. While she may not love Frederic, he fills the role of lover. Not only that, he has money, and she ends up pregnant and unmarried in a time when unwed motherhood was not as acceptable as it is nowadays. On the other hand, perhaps Catherine believed that she loved Frederic and needed his constant confirmation that he returned her love. That would make Frederic feel even guiltier about her death birthing his child, which might make him alter his recounting to appear in a better light. According to the narrator, Catherine is as aware of the game that Frederic plays with her, and consciously plays along. Daniel S. Traber phrases his reading of Catherine’s complicity in terms of a performance. “Catherine’s repeated declarations of love for Frederic and the joy she feels with him. . .those moments are just an extension of the role she has chosen to construct her separate peace” (Traber 36). Perhaps it is the role she is forced into because she finds herself pregnant and unmarried, and to keep the father around she feels she must pretend she is happy playing the game he has constructed and persuade him that she is happy too. Then, again, perhaps it is Hemingway’s take on a woman’s intellectual and emotional capabilities. Maybe Hemingway or Frederic sees women as useful for only certain things: sex and procreation, but only when desired. Because of this, Frederic may have felt trapped by the situation. Catherine pregnant is much harder to abandon than Catherine not pregnant. Thus, to make the situation bearable, he plays games, and so does Catherine. Throughout the novel, there are frequent references to games and playing roles Frederic admits his role in the game early in the novel. “I knew I did not love Catherine Barkley nor had any idea of loving her. This was a game, like bridge, in which you said things instead of playing cards. Like bridge you had to pretend you were playing for money or playing for some stakes.” (Hemingway). Yet he repeatedly declares his love, or recounts that he did, especially once she is pregnant and vulnerable. Marc Hewson says, “Crucial to our understanding of the patterns Hemingway sets up early in the novel is the conflation of proprietorship and physical love underlying masculine cultural practice. [Linda] Singer suggests that ‘[i]n patriarchy, male privilege is both marked and exercised, at least in part, by control over the production, circulation, and representation of pleasure. Such control is operative…at the level of cultural representations, which are designed to accommodate and normalize masculine preferences and patterns of gratification’” (Hewson 54). Had the story been narrated through Catherine’s eyes, the “love affair” between she and Frederic may have looked quite differently. As the narrator, Frederic tells the story so that he comes off in the very best light, even when he does things that are not so impressive. Frederic’s relationship with the other soldiers bears this out. For instance, he meets Catherine when Rinaldi asks him to come along to escort her friend because Rinaldi is in love with Catherine. Frederic narrates the following exchange between him and Rinaldi the evening before he meets Catherine. Rinaldi asks him, “’Do you think I would do right to marry Miss Barkley—after the war of course?’ ‘Absolutely,’ I said” (Hemingway). Then later on, after it is clear that Frederic has “stolen” Catherine from him, Rinaldi says, “Miss Barkley prefers you to me. That is very clear. But the little Scotch one is very nice.” To which Frederic replies, “Very,’ I said. I had not noticed her. ‘You like her?’ ‘No,’ said Rinaldi” (Hemingway). Rinaldi gives up Catherine without a fight either because he does not care that much or perhaps it is because Frederic is his superior officer. Either way, he loses the girl he claimed he was in love with because she prefers Frederic. Rinaldi goes on to frequent the whorehouse so much that by the end of the novel he fears he has syphilis. Perhaps that is the way it happened, or perhaps that is the way Frederic recounts his behavior rather than telling readers that he purposely stole Rinaldi’s love interest to prove he was the better man. His framing of Rinaldi’s good-natured relinquishing may be just an account of how he wished it had occurred and how Frederic believes those who read his story may find it more likeable than to say that he stole his roommate’s girlfriend. Other encounters of Frederic and his men occur that when analyzed completely may have more than one interpretation, and Frederic has chosen only the one that puts him in the most favorable light. One near the end of the novel has Frederic shooting at two soldiers who, out of fright, refuse to help get a jeep unstuck from the mud. The soldiers fear that they are sitting ducks for the Austrian or German army, whichever has just invaded Italy and forced the Italian Army’s retreat. First Frederic orders them to cut branches to use for traction to get the vehicles out of the mud. They refuse and make a run for the woods. Frederic shoots at them, wounding one, who he later orders one of his drivers to kill. Since the men under his command are all mechanics or ambulance drivers, none of them have killed before. They only try to save the wounded and collect the dead. In fact, much is made about their political and religious beliefs of socialism and atheism. Unlike today when those tenets may be framed in an unflattering light, Hemingway holds those particular philosophies up as noble and praiseworthy. These men chose not to kill others in a war that promotes beliefs they do not share. Frederic’s ordering the man to kill his fellow soldier shows how heartless he could be, especially when one notes that Frederic himself is recounting the episode with quite a bit of bravado aimed at demonstrating his courage as a leader. Later on, the same soldier deserts Frederic—perhaps out of fear for his life in case Frederic should become angry at him—when they are forced to hide out in an abandoned farmhouse. Another way to detect that Hemingway may have been purposely employing an unreliable narrator is revealed in the word play throughout the novel. Hemingway “plays” with the reader through double meanings. Gary Harrington notes, “One highly revealing play on words in A Farewell to Arms involves Frederic’s returning to the front before his knee is completely healed. He has only “partial articulation” in the wounded leg, a pun that captures his reticence and failings as a narrator” (Harrington 60). Frederic’s “partial articulation” can be viewed as only some normal movement of his knee or the telling of only some (select) details in his story. In the same episode, one of the doctors looking at the x-rays of Frederic’s knee looks at the x-ray of the other leg. When the other doctor points out his error, the first doctor says, “You are right. I was looking from a different angle” (Hemingway). Perhaps, that is Hemingway revealing to the reader his “angle” on the story is using an unreliable narrator, inviting readers to play with the words of the story themselves rather than passively accept the words in the context they are presented. Hemingway’s play on words in Frederic’s narration includes allusion to other authors. This occurs when Frederic compares Catherine with the prostitutes, and he never really wants to marry her even though she is pregnant with his child. The other works of literature Frederic alludes to also use word play in relation to the subject of lust being disguised as love. For instance, Frederic quotes “To His Coy Mistress,” a poem by Andrew Marvell that includes an argument persuading a beautiful young woman not to delay having sex too long or she would no longer be young or beautiful. Instead she would be unattractive to men or dead. “Frederic’s quoting ‘To His Coy Mistress’ in this episode unintentionally displays his carnality, since Marvell’s speaker, as Catherine notes, is intent on seduction” (Harrington 67). The context of the poem also foreshadows Catherine’s end. Yet, given the evidence of Frederic’s unreliability, and the fact that he is recounting the story from sometime after the events of the novel have occurred, perhaps Catherine did not die; maybe she did not even exist. If she did exist, maybe Frederic just had a brief fling with her; no pregnancy occurred, or if one did, Frederic was not aware of it. Perhaps he abandoned her during the pregnancy and never saw her again, or perhaps he waited until the day she gave birth to leave her. The story of both her and he baby’s death conveniently relieves Frederic of any responsibility. Perhaps the real story is that he pusillanimously deserted his post as an officer in the Italian army rather than accepting his fate like the other officers who were shot by their own men for orders such as the one Frederic gave to kill the frightened soldier who attempted to desert. Ironically, that is just what Frederic did only he did not receive the same penalty for it. Perhaps Catherine and the baby are just figments of Frederic’s imagination that he believes justify his cowardly action. Evidence for this reading may come in the form of Hemingway’s word play. When Catherine and Frederic first meet, Catherine asks Frederic why he joined the Italian army, and he replies, “There isn’t always an explanation for everything.” Catherine responds, “Oh, isn’t there? I was brought up to think there was” (Hemingway). Perhaps this is Hemingway’s clue about Catherine: she is the explanation for everything, and that everything may be Frederic’s justification to himself and to the world why he would desert the army. Traber says, “[Catherine] opens a space for agency between the cracks of wanting the lie and knowing it is a lie. . . .This vacillation between romantic fantasy and hard-boiled cynicism informs many of the scenes where Catherine and Frederic are together. Chapter VI is the key early example, while her death scene is the best late one” (Traber 31). Catherine’s numerous declarations of love seemed contrived, as if someone who does not know how women think or speak were putting words in her mouth, which may be the case of Frederic making up the entire story. Of course, readers will never know how Hemingway intended for them to interpret A Farewell to Arms. He may not have known himself, or his intentions may have changed. Yet, it is clear that Hemingway wrote an unreliable narrator in the character of Frederic Henry. The clues are everywhere throughout the novel, and without that possibility, the novel would hardly be the masterpiece it has become known to be. Frederic’s story as a justification for what he sees as cowardly actions, whether or not readers see his them in the same way, explains many of the ambiguities, the word play, the clearly contrived exchanges between Frederic and Catherine, and the inappropriate actions Frederic chooses on more than one occasion. Whether his story of Catherine is true or completely false, readers must decide based on his unreliable narration. Works Cited Harrington, Gary. "Partial Articulation: Word Play in "A Farewell to Arms"." Hemingway Review 20.2 (2001): 59-74. Hemingway, Ernest. A Farewell too Arms. New York City: Charles Scribner & Sons, 1929, 1957. Hewson, Marc. ""The Real Story of Ernest Hemingway": Cixous, Gender and "A Farewell to Arms"." Hemingway Review 22.2 (2003): 51-. Nagel, James. "Catherine Barkley and Retrospective Narration in A Farewell to Arms." Ernest Hemingway: Six Decades of Criticism. Ed. Linda W. Wagner. East Lansing: Michigan State UP, 1987. 171-186. Owens-Murphy, Kate. "Hemingway's Pragmatism: Truth, Utility, and Concrete Particulars in "A Farewell to Arms"." Hemingway Review 29.` (2009): 87-102. Spanier, Sandra. "Catherine Barkley and the Hemingway Code: Ritual and Survival in A Farewell to Arms." Modern Critical Interpretations: Ernest Hemingway’s A Farewell to Arms. Ed. Harold Bloom. New York: Chelsea House, 1987. 131-148. Traber, Daniel S. "Performing the Feminine in "A Farewell to Arms"." The Hemingway Reveiw 24.2 (2005): 28-40. Read More