Mark Esposito
Mrs. Luisi
Mod American Lit H
December 9 2015 Independent Reading Assignment:A Farewell to Arms
1. How does the first chapter of A Farewell to Arms set a tone and mood which anticipate subsequent events? Why does the narrator move the reader through a change of seasons from late summer to autumn and on to winter? What are the major images in the chapter, and what is the effect of the understatement in the final sentence of Chapter 1?
The first chapter of A Farewell to Arms sets a tone of love and loss, it expresses the main theme of decay and the effects of war. The second paragraph of the first page recalls the weather being “like summer lightning, but the nights were cool and there was not the feeling of a storm coming.”
…show more content…
The soldiers were also under the delusion of militarism, they have been taught to not question their military leaders they had blindly followed orders. When the soldiers realize what they are fighting for they are disappointed in not only themselves, but also those who falsely lead them. The Italian soldiers realize the pointless killing they war has produced, the amount of gruesome grimm results that had lead them to their realization. The soldiers each time realize that the war is pointless they aren’t fighting for anything their efforts are for not, and that they have no hand in the war. Frederic leaping into the river symbolized the commitment that the Italian army and its soldiers had in the army. The Italian army all throughout World War I had been in and out its commitment to the Allied powers. Throughout the novel this was recognized to the army members lack of commitment to their passion for fighting as a subsequent result Frederick was also in an arrow in his commitment to the war. Frederic did take refuge in Catherine he was able to go somewhere and have something outside of war something that wasn't as crazy and messed up in the world that he was living in before hand. Catherine was eventually someone that he became familiar with he was eventually able to open up to her and be vulnerable in a different way that he had been in the …show more content…
Hemingway uses the priest a staple for faith, the soldiers represent skeptics in the romantic era of America. Religion and faith is a main idea throughout the novel, and some of the many aspects within the affects of war. This book clearly examines the way people feel abandoned by god, the lose of faith that people experience during the war, and the ability to separate from the emotional parts of life. When Frederic describes the ants on the burning log, we are given an insight into the way Hemingway feels about religion and god. He describes seeing the ants panicking and moving around franticly, comparing the ants to war, and our anomic society that is created with the chaos of war. He describes that some feel into the fire, some got out, but there was no certainty, there was nothing constant, war just like this fire had changed everything forever, it couldn’t be reversed. Frederic even recalls the scene appearing “that it was the end of the world and (he had) a splendid chance to be a messiah.” However he doesn't do anything but poor a cup of water on the log, which Lieutenant Henry says “only steamed them more”, here he compares the relationship between god and man, the frustration from man who feels like god could do so much more. Just like the ants on the burning log, they seem mad, almost irrationally mad because to Fredric he isn’t doing all he can. It appears as
In the first chapter of the book, the relationship between the story and its title is quickly made. As the character who encites the chase, Cacciato embarks on the seemingly ludicrous journey to Paris. A voyage of eighty six hundred miles on foot is not one to be taken lightly. To get an idea of the distance that Cacciato is planning to transverse, imagine walking across the United States four times bringing only what one can carry. Paul Berlin, to whom Cacciato has divulged his travel plans, and his unit begin on a mission to retrieve Cacciato. Told from Berlin's viewpoint, the story is revealed from the experiences of a person who questions his own purpose in the war. The soldiers are literally walking away from the war as they follow Cacciato through the jungles of Vietnam. Paul's journey with the others is occasionally broken up by sudden lapses into the past. Such unexpected transitions have positive and negative affects on the reader. The latter result is immediate; the quick topic changes add an element of confusion as to what exactly is happening in the novel. However, the divisions also attribute to increased interest during these flashbacks as they break up the monotony of the mar...
from sympathy to fear within the readers. However, out of all the notions and events that
The novel is based on Erich Maria Remarques experiences with WWI, which gives an insight to all readers of how life is in warfare. With the conflict of Man vs. Man and Man vs. Self, it gives the theme of change in war more amplification. Comradeship gave the men hope and a mini society to live with, enabling everyone to have people to talk to. However, during rough times the dark tone gives the theme of death an extra kick, making all of the elements much more vivid. Erich Maria Remarque’s writing of this novel opens the eyes of readers all around, from going through boot camp, to the final breaths that are
“Don’t talk about the war,” he says after abandoning the front, “it was over…but I did not have the feeling it was really over” (Hemingway 245). For Frederic the war captured his mind in a way that he
One observation that can be made on Hemingway’s narrative technique as shown in his short stories is his clipped, spare style, which aims to produce a sense of objectivity through highly selected details. Hemingway refuses to romanticize his characters. Being “tough” people, such as boxers, bullfighters, gangsters, and soldiers, they are depicted as leading a life more or less without thought. The world is full of s...
Hemingway, Ernest. "Soldier's Home." The Bedford Introduction to Literature, 6th Edition. Ed. Michael Meyer. New York: Bedford/St. Martin's. 2002. 152-57.
World War I began in 1914 and lasted until the end of 1918. In that time young men had to go to the front and fight for their country. It is also the time when Ernest Hemingway’s novel A Farewell to Arms takes place. It talks about Frederic Henry, a young American who is an ambulance driver for the Italian army. He is also the novel’s narrative and protagonist. He falls in love with an English nurse, Catherine Barkley. She is the main woman character in the novel and it is noticeable how she is shown as a stereotypical female during World War I. Throughout the novel we can see how women are shown in a stereotypical way and how they were mistreated by men. The purpose of this essay is firstly to analyze how Hemingway describes women in his novel A Farewell to Arms and finally to discuss Catherine’s attitude towards Frederic.
Thinking that the war was just an ideal character. Convincing the reader to believe the boys didn't know the risk they were taking by being in this war. They way the boys viewed it, shows that, true their are some hard times in wars, but their minds are young and they thought it was just another thing to talk about. When they should have been taking things more serious, but thinking about the good parts helped them to keep a hold on their sanity. "They ought to have been mediators and guides to the world of maturity, the world of work, of duty, of culture, of progress to the future", was the beliefs of the boys after their friend Behn dies. Their generation thought that the authorities were going to look after, and take care of them, the authorities were thought of real highly by them. Until their friend passed away, then everything changed. "We had to realize that our generation was more to be trusted than theirs", this is where they came to reality that, everybody was taking care of their selves, and didn't want anything to do with other peoples problems.
Ernest Hemingway used an abundant amount of imagery in his War World I novel, A Farewell to Arms. In the five books that the novel is composed of, the mind is a witness to the senses of sight, touch, smell, hearing, and taste. All of the these senses in a way connects to the themes that run through the novel. We get to view Hemingway’s writing style in a greater depth and almost feel, or mentally view World War I and the affects it generates through Lieutenant Henry’s eyes.
Frederick Henry grew up in America and in his early twenties, he decided to go to Europe and fight in the Italian army. Henry’s decision in the first place, showed courage and bravery. Fighting for another country over making a living in your own goes above and beyond what is remotely asked for. Even in my wildest dreams, I would probably not even think about fighting for my own country, let alone a foreign country. Times were tough, especially when the start of the winter came. With that winter came “permanent rain and with the rain came the cholera. But it was checked and in the end and only seven thousand died of it in the army.” (4) In the army, people die, and it is not the nicest place. Frederick Henry chose to enter this world and this portrays bravery.
"After a while I went out and left the hospital and walked back to the hotel in the rain" (332). This last line of the novel gives an understanding of Ernest Hemingway's style and tone. The overall tone of the book is much different than that of The Sun Also Rises. The characters in the book are propelled by outside forces, in this case WWI, where the characters in The Sun Also Rises seemed to have no direction. Frederick's actions are determined by his position until he deserts the army. Floating down the river with barely a hold on a piece of wood his life, he abandons everything except Catherine and lets the river take him to a new life that becomes increasing difficult to understand. Nevertheless, Hemingway's style and tone make A Farewell to Arms one of the great American novels. Critics usually describe Hemingway's style as simple, spare, and journalistic. These are all good words they all apply. Perhaps because of his training as a newspaperman, Hemingway is a master of the declarative, subject-verb-object sentence. His writing has been likened to a boxer's punches--combinations of lefts and rights coming at us without pause. As illustrated on page 145 "She went down the hall. The porter carried the sack. He knew what was in it," one can see that Hemingway's style is to-the-point and easy to understand. The simplicity and the sensory richness flow directly from Hemingway's and his characters' beliefs. The punchy, vivid language has the immediacy of a news bulletin: these are facts, Hemingway is telling us, and they can't be ignored. And just as Frederic Henry comes to distrust abstractions like "patriotism," so does Hemingway distrust them. Instead he seeks the concrete and the tangible. A simple "good" becomes higher praise than another writer's string of decorative adjectives. Hemingway's style changes, too, when it reflects his characters' changing states of mind. Writing from Frederic Henry's point of view, he sometimes uses a modified stream-of-consciousness technique, a method for spilling out on paper the inner thoughts of a character. Usually Henry's thoughts are choppy, staccato, but when he becomes drunk the language does too, as in the passage on page 13, "I had gone to no such place but to the smoke of cafes and nights when the room whirled and you
There is never a simple key to any writer worth much attention, but in the case of Hemingway there is something that looks so like a key… that it cannot escape any informed and thoughtful reader’s notice" (O’Conner 153). Ernest Hemingway was one such author. Very rarely did he summarize statements, therefore the only way to solve his puzzle was to take it apart and examine each components. One of the hidden elements that the reader must analyzie closely is the parallel between Santiago and Jesus Christ. In the novel, The Old Man and the Sea, Ernest Hemingway creates connections between Santiago and Jesus Christ that adds religious coloration to the story.
At this point, he seems to go a little crazy himself and gets scared. He needs a way to escape immediately and ends up separating himself again through love. Frederic had not been prepared for the stress and pressure of the reality he had faultily deluded himself from.
Theme is a literary element used in literature and has inspired many poets, playwrights, and authors. The themes of love and war are featured in literature, and inspire authors to write wartime romances that highlight these two themes. Ernest Hemingway’s A Farewell to Arms deals with the collective themes in the human experience such as love and the reality of war. A Farewell to Arms is narrated from the perspective of Fredric Henry, an ambulance driver in the Italian army, and pertains to his experiences in the war. The novel also highlights the passionate relationship between Henry and Catherine Barkley, a British nurse in Italy. Henry’s insight into the war and his intense love for Catherine emphasize that love and war are the predominant themes in the novel and these themes contribute to bringing out the implicit and explicit meaning of the novel. Being a part of the Italian army, Henry is closely involved with the war and has developed an aversion to the war. Henry’s association with the war has also made him realise that war is inglorious and the sacrifices made in war are meaningless. Specifically, Henry wants the war to end because he is disillusioned by the war and knows that war is not as glorious as it is made up to be. The state of affairs and the grim reality of the war lead Henry towards an ardent desire for a peaceful life, and as a result Henry repudiates his fellow soldiers at the warfront. Henry’s desertion of the war is also related to his passionate love for Catherine. Henry’s love for Catherine is progressive and ironic. This love develops gradually in “stages”: Henry’s attempt at pretending love for Catherine towards the beginning of the novel, his gradually developing love for her, and finally, Henry’s impas...
In the novel, A Farewell to Arms, Ernest Hemingway creates a moving and intense portrayal of love between Catherine Barkley and Frederic Henry, which is set mainly on the Italian Front during World War I. The novel was originally published in 1929, after Hemingway himself served as an ambulance driver for the Italian Red Cross. Due to this experience, Hemingway is able to show great detail and description when writing about the scenes of war on the Italian Front. Additionally, he draws on his experiences with a nurse and similarities can be seen in the events in his novel and in the events in his life leading up to the writing of A Farewell to Arms. While a select few of the initial reactions claim that this particular novel is a disgusting, salacious, and a violent account, the majority of reviews written shortly after the novel was originally published commend Hemmingway for his detailed picture of the war, the intensity of the love story, and the craftsmanship and talent of his writing style. This leads most to claim that A Farewell to Arms is one of Ernest Hemingway’s most successful and masterful works.