Ernest Hemingway's A Farewell To Arms

Superior Essays
“Role of Love” Love is like war, easy to begin with, but hard to come to an end with. War has a domino effect on love throughout the book A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway. We see love work for the better and worse while in war. Hemingway expresses his idea of love in war and Henry 's relationships with other characters. War brings his relationships together with friends and at the same time tears them apart. Hemingway is able to express his views of love through characters apart of war in the novel. War makes Henry and Catherine 's relationship more difficult than it already is. The war always finds a way to separate couples from one another. We see this in the beginning chapters when Henry and Catherine are first introduced …show more content…
The common emotion shown in each chapter is love. Hemingway focuses rather on the individual struggle that is going on than the one in the relationships. This is distinct in the relationship between Henry and Catherine. Both characters are in love with each other, but both have their own problems that they individually face throughout the book. Hemingway does not only focus on their relationship together, he goes into deeper detail with what self struggle each character is going through. Putting the reader in the characters own shoe, this helps us get a strong understanding of what each character is facing at the time. Another example is when Hemingway says, “If two people love each other, there can be no happy ending.”(Quote of the Day). This quote shows how Hemingway believed that nothing good came out of love. In better terms there is no happy ever after ending with love. At the end of the novel in chapter forty-one when Catherine is on her death bed love is being displayed by Henry. Once Catherine dies all of that love and emotion vanishes. Henry does not feel any remorse, for he just continues on with his life. In chapter thirty-four Henry says,”One of them is my wife, I said . I have come here to meet her.”(Hemingway, 245). This shows that even though Henry and Catherine are not physically married onto a piece of paper, they are mentally with each other in spirit. In connecting this to Hemingway, we can gather that he believes a couple does not have to get married to receive that bond a wife or husband may share with each

Related Documents

  • Improved Essays

    Since Henry was alone during the time he was at war he knew how it feels. In the two stories…

    • 2049 Words
    • 9 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Henry and his fathers relationship is tainted. Throughout the novel they rarely talk and when they do they either talk about the war or schooling.…

    • 873 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    In the novel Tunes for Bears to Dance to Mr. Levine presents Henry a small figure. The small figure resembles Henry quite a lot. Mr. Levine gives Henry this figure, so that Henry will remember Mr. Levine once Henry moves back to his old town. This figure gives the reader an insight of what Henry looks like, because Henry describes the figure. He said this figure is three inches tall, sturdy, strong, smiling and he also says he’ll keep this figure forever.…

    • 428 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    For example, the focus of “All Quiet on the Western Front” is more extensive than that of the theme of "Soldier's Home”. This is because of a variety of things, length, writing, author ,etc.… ;but either way the crucial point of Hemingway's story is Krebs's relationship with his family, exclusively his mother, Remarque's ,extends into the relationships of individual with the machinery of war, technology and military procedures, and the friendships that these men make during these times. “All Quiet on the Western Front” showcases a more uplifting optimistic side of a soldier that most people witnessing war, unfortunately, do not have. The war is seen through the eyes of Paul Baumer whose mindset is far better established in comparison to his companions.…

    • 568 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    As blood-curdling screams and deafening gunshots fill the air, thousands of innocent lives expire. As soldiers fight for the freedom and safety of others, they also fight for their own lives. They risk their lives and the well-being of their families. War affects the emotional prosperity of all involved in war, whether their involvement is direct or indirect. The effects include injuries and loss of loved ones.…

    • 1029 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    1. Both Abner Snopes in Faulkner’s “Barn Burning” and Miss Emily Grierson in Faulkner’s “A Rose for Emily” can be described as tragic anti-heroes, lacking the conventional nobility of mind while struggling for values and morals not deemed acceptable within society. Abner Snopes is trapped in a war of one against the rich and wealthy. Unfortunately the conduct in which he wages this war is far from effective. In order to strike back against the wealthy, who have made their fortunes on the backs of the working poor and African Americans, Abner Snopes burns the barns of his employer. Tragically his personal vendetta against the wealthy ultimately leads to his death, after his own son’s betrayal (although done for the right reasons).…

    • 960 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    At 0900 hours the shelling started again. Our commander stood, and yelled, “Take cover!” It was a mistake on his part, because when he came back down, half of his face was gone. This was above and beyond the call. I wanted to be a hero, not a corpse.…

    • 1700 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Hate is a word people use almost everyday. They hate getting out of bed, hate going to work, hate people. In today's world, it seems to be that hate has become more prominent than love. Hateful relationships have become so normalized in society, that people do not even think twice when they see or hear about them. As much as people try not to acknowledge it, hateful relationships are an important part of who we are, as are all relationships in a person’s life.…

    • 1248 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    There are many different aspects of our society today, and relationships are a huge part of the society in many ways. In today's world there are many circumstances where relationships take place between various types of people. There are many types of relationships in everyone's lives and there are three important aspects that everyone should have and they are family, friends, and lastly love. These three different types of relationships are portrayed in many different ways through the novel, Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet by Jamie Ford. Henry developed many important relationships throughout the novel that were all special in their own way.…

    • 978 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The physical sacrifices of war lead to inner and outer turmoil within men impacted by the cruel intentions of military battle. Bloodshed leads to victory. However, this bloodshed arrives at the mercy of millions of men who war kills and wounds. These wounds are most often mental, yet physical wounds directly correlate with the inhumanity of war. Physical wounds of war strip man of his confidence in personal image and force him to place prior ideals of body composition above the reality of his condition.…

    • 926 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    If normal everyday life can change and mold individuals; war surly those this abruptly. Any soldier coming back home will say war a horrible thing especially when their morality is tested, not to mention the mentally scaring situations they have to deal with even after the war. Ernest Hemingway make this point very clear in his short story about a young a soldier going home at the end of World War I titled “Soldier’s Home”. John J. Robert’s article “In Defense of Krebs” goes a little deeper and emphasizes on what is really happening to the young veteran and the problems he faces even after the war. It may be safe to say a soldier will never be the same person they once were before war.…

    • 1124 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Dealing with the war, he goes from a nonchalant perspective to being disillusioned and broken down into realizing the true horrors and trauma war can bring upon, and defeat is not worse than war itself (Benson 88). Henry also was not very adept in maintaining good connections between him and his friends. The only one true concern and care he had was Catherine, with which whom he shared what one could consider an obsessive relationship. In the end, out of all of Henry’s evolution, it all boiled down to him longing for the one thing he had true and positive feelings…

    • 1068 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    He didn’t live up to his promise and was not a man of his word after he was “saved.” This vignette is followed by the short story, “Soldier’s Home” which is about Harold Krebs who returns from war and is feeling empty. He can’t love anymore, not even his own mother, and he can’t pray because it is too difficult. When he came back, the world seemed more modern and complex, but all he wished for was a simple life and to avoid talking about war. Hemingway shows that war was more of an emotional and psychological battle than a physical battle, because they were still fighting it mentally when they had returned home.…

    • 1437 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Superior Essays

    “Love is an endless mystery, for it has nothing else to explain it” a quote by Rabindranath Tagore, summarizes the themes implemented in “Hills like White Elephants” by Ernest Hemingway, and “What we Talk About When we Talk About Love” by Raymond Carver. These two stories, contain a husband and wife who attempt to decipher the meaning of love. Hemingway’s characters do this subliminally, whereas Carver’s character’s discuss the meaning in a much broader fashion. Both authors have similar writing strategies, but have a few differing literary techniques. These two aforementioned stories, use similar structures and setting, but contrast in their use of symbols, to convey the author’s negative attitudes of love through their themes.…

    • 1350 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Theme Of Heroism In A Farewell To Arms

    • 995 Words
    • 4 Pages
    • 1 Works Cited

    Everything changed after he met Catherine though. Henry fell in love, and he learned to care for someone besides himself. He learned that what other people want matters and that, sometimes, you need to put other people’s needs in front of your own. “When you love you wish to do things for. You wish to sacrifice for.…

    • 995 Words
    • 4 Pages
    • 1 Works Cited
    Superior Essays