Troops marching down the street, all eyes trail upon the guns in their arms, a symbol of inevitable violence. Rations slowly decrease and morale plunges. Whether it is an ambulance driver, a civilian, or combatant in service, war changes the lives of everyone involved for the worse. Due to situations like these, people develop bitterness towards fighting and instead work to express the harsh realities of war.War is presented as a hindrance to life in both Ernest Hemingway’s A Farewell to Arms and Walt Whitman’s “Beat! Beat! Drums” in order to demonstrate anti-war attitudes despite having different means of doing so.
Both works describe war to halt the ordinary progress of life, although they do so through different approaches. Hemingway uses …show more content…
Towards the end of A Farewell to Arms, war has taken its toll on Frederic, Catherine, and the nation that is harboring them. The waitress at the restaurant Frederic and Catherine first eat at when they escape from war duties to Switzerland says, “I’m sorry, we haven’t [any rolls] in war time,” showing that this normality of simply having and enjoying a breakfast is taken away by war (Hemingway 278). Although Frederic and Catherine may have only been minimally affected, many in wartime go without any food or luxuries at all. It is not only the consumers who are affected, however, it is also the producers, as Whitman’s poem details, “Nor the peaceful farmer any peace ploughing his field or gathering his grain”, showing that war in its’ symbolic form of beating drums and bugles blowing creates stress and depression in the lives of the simple people in the nation, such as farmers who are not directly connected to the war, but still suffer the consequences of it (Whitman 6). The novel approaches the idea of disrupting normality by subtly weaving it in with the major plot of Frederic’s war experiences and his love affair with Catherine by
Both works describe war to halt the ordinary progress of life, although they do so through different approaches. Hemingway uses …show more content…
Towards the end of A Farewell to Arms, war has taken its toll on Frederic, Catherine, and the nation that is harboring them. The waitress at the restaurant Frederic and Catherine first eat at when they escape from war duties to Switzerland says, “I’m sorry, we haven’t [any rolls] in war time,” showing that this normality of simply having and enjoying a breakfast is taken away by war (Hemingway 278). Although Frederic and Catherine may have only been minimally affected, many in wartime go without any food or luxuries at all. It is not only the consumers who are affected, however, it is also the producers, as Whitman’s poem details, “Nor the peaceful farmer any peace ploughing his field or gathering his grain”, showing that war in its’ symbolic form of beating drums and bugles blowing creates stress and depression in the lives of the simple people in the nation, such as farmers who are not directly connected to the war, but still suffer the consequences of it (Whitman 6). The novel approaches the idea of disrupting normality by subtly weaving it in with the major plot of Frederic’s war experiences and his love affair with Catherine by