Page 1 of 6
European Journal of Business &
Social Sciences
Available at https://ejbss.org/
ISSN: 2235-767X
Volume 06 Issue 12
December 2018
Available online:https://ejbss.org/ P a g e | 351
A STUDY OF THE MAJOR THEMATIC CONCERNS OF HEMINGWAY’S
A FAREWELL TO ARMS
DR. AJIT SINGH
MA,M.PHIL,PH.D,JRF
ABSTRACT:
A Farewell to Arms depicts man at war and irrevocably linked with him is man in
love. Death and life grapple with each other and the chances of man’s resurrection out of
death. In the introduction to Man at War, Hemingway says that one can learn a lot about the
human heart and the human in war from the book. It won’t be an exaggeration to say the
same thing about A Farewell to Arms. The condition of the human heart and mind
corresponds to two inextricable stands the theme of love and war, in structure of novel.
Actually these are the two aspects of the human condition as visible in the modern times.
Hemingway uses war as a metaphor for the general condition of man’s existence in the 20th
century. As many critics have suggested war has now become a deep and permanent crisis in
the public affairs of all nations.
Introduction:
The novel is divided into five books. In the first book, Rinaldi introduces Frederic
Henry to Catherine Barkley; Frederic attempts to seduce her, and their relationship begins.
While on the Italian front, Frederic is wounded in the knee by a mortar shell and sent to a
hospital in Milan. The second book shows the growth of Frederic and Catherine's relationship
as they spend time together in Milan over the summer. Frederic falls in love with Catherine
and, by the time he is healed, Catherine is three months pregnant. In the third book, Frederic
returns to his unit, but not long afterwards the Austrians break through the Italian lines in the
Battle of Caporetto, and the Italians retreat. Frederic kills an engineering sergeant for
insubordination. After falling behind and catching up again, Frederic is taken to a place by
the "battle police", where officers are being interrogated and executed for the "treachery" that
supposedly led to the Italian defeat. However, after seeing and hearing that everyone
interrogated is killed, Frederic escapes by jumping into a river. In the fourth book, Catherine
and Frederic reunite and flee to Switzerland in a rowboat. In the final book, Frederic and
Catherine live a quiet life in the mountains until she goes into labour. After a long and painful
birth, their son is stillborn. Catherine begins to haemorrhage and soon dies, leaving Frederic
to return to their hotel in the rain. Love in the novels of Hemingway is not a sentimental
affair where lovers cry and long for one another. His concept of love unlike that of Charles
Dickens is realistic, and, an urgent need of body and mind which explains why lovers in the
novels of Hemingway establish sexual and emotional intimacy. Love like war takes place and
is a stormy affair and just as war ends in time so does love ends in separation or death.
Page 2 of 6
European Journal of Business &
Social Sciences
Available at https://ejbss.org/
ISSN: 2235-767X
Volume 06 Issue 12
December 2018
Available online:https://ejbss.org/ P a g e | 352
Autobiographical Elements:
The presentation of war in A Farewell to Arms is so realistic that one is compelled to
believe that it was a way of finding a release for his turmoil of war for Hemingway. His
impression was so deep and final as to make it seems that the war experience released rather
than inhibited them. We may say to paraphrase Voltaire that if there had been no war it would
have been necessary for Hemingway to invent one.
Depiction of the Horrors of War and Disintegration of Human Values:
A Farewell to Arms presents a world in which destruction is the ruling motive. A
horrifying description of death, destruction and despair covers the major portion of the book.
The opening paragraph of novel itself hints at the disintegration impact of war. The quiet but
pregnant statement at the end of the first chapter, “At the start of the winter come the perm
ant rain and with the rain came cholera But it was checked and in the end only seven
thousand died of it in the army, leaves nobody in any doubt what is there to follow in the rest
of the book – disintegration in the world. To give an example of the crushing effect of war on
human beings - Catherine weighed down by a bitter sense of loss tells Henry how she was
going to marry. She has been deeply wounded emotionally and her sudden outburst causes
Henry to think of her as ‘a little crazy’. She who had preserved her virginity for over eight
years in deference to the dictates of conventional morality actually sleeps with Henry on the
very first opportunity. The war has taught her to live from day to day and forge values as she
goes along. There are no more absolutes left in life. It is not surprising that love becomes her
religion; even death loses its sanctity. She calls it a dirty trick. Frederic Henry’s participation
in the war is that of an observer who is not touched by war. The war to him is like the one in
the movies. Henry seems to be sure of his own immortality. It is only when Henry becomes a
victim of the brutalities of war that he realizes that one simply can’t remain an observer.
His sense of security-implicit is his attitude towards the war as a spectator is shattered
by Austrian bombing. Passini, his ambulance driver sitting next to him in ditch is killed. It
could be Henry. In the first aid tend the doctors are red with blood like butchers. The
ambulance carrying the wounded turn into hearses as the soldiers die of internal haemorrhage
before reaching the hospital. The war makes no discrimination between the angels of mercy
and the demons of cruelty. Heroism is a thing of the past because in the mechanized warfare,
the victim is not ever seen by the man presses the button. Values of the past lie abandoned on
the dung heap of obsolescence. The Retreat opens quite a few eyes to the harsh reality of the
war.
Henry finds it shocking when he is instructed to carry hospital equipment in his car
and leave the wounded to their fate. The war has its destructive impact upon the civilian
population too forcing them out their homes. The caravan of homeless people across the
muddy fields towards an unknown destination is endless, uncertain and erratic. Henry shoots
a sergeant of his own army. Fredric Henry thus embodies in his experiences the experience of
countless Native Americans who joined the war but return bitter and wrecked. We cannot but
justify the words of Passini, “There is nothing as bad as war. We in the auto ambulance
cannot realize at all how bad it is.”
Page 3 of 6
European Journal of Business &
Social Sciences
Available at https://ejbss.org/
ISSN: 2235-767X
Volume 06 Issue 12
December 2018
Available online:https://ejbss.org/ P a g e | 353
Not a Great War – Novel:
In the book the narrative pattern in Hemingway’s fiction. Dr. Chaman Nahal has
advanced the view that A Farewell to Arms is not a great war novel. He says, “The novel
neither register an atmosphere of war nor records acts of war as in great war-novels like ‘War
and Peace’ or All’s Quite on the Western Front. He is of the view that though apparently the
theme deals with the subjects of war novel. He remarks that it is more a love story than a war
novel because the actual scenes of battle in the novel are very few and war is almost forgotten
after Henry and Catherine land in Switzerland. But most of the critics and readers do not
agree with this view and the more accepted opinion is that A Farewell to Arms can be placed
next to Tolstoy’s War and Peace. The setting for A Farewell to Arms is the war and the
romance of Frederic Henry and Catherine develops in a war afflicted atmosphere. The two
themes war and love have been dexterously interlinked into a tragic pattern. It is a story of
war and love in five books. In the book I & III the war theme is dominant and II & IV the
emphasis is on the love theme. In the book V it is farewell to both. But even the novel having
love as the dominant theme, the motive of war is not forgotten.
Even after the successful attempt of Henry and Catherine to enter Switzerland, the
war catches up with them. In the beginning of the book II Henry tells barman – ‘Don’t talk
about war. The war was a long way off. May be there was not any war?’ The death of
Catherine, however remote in its setting from that of the war is placed in sharp equations with
defeating and confusing terror of the war. In this connection Leo Gurko remarks – The war
outlasts the lovers.
Henry’s Attitude towards Love:
Henry’s attitude to love has many variations. He knows that he neither loves nor has
any intention of loving Catherine. For him, “This was a game like Bridge in which you said
things instead of playing cards”. With realization of his self after he gets hurt on the front,
comes the realization of love for Catherine. Realizing self and falling in love with Catherine
are in fact two sides of the same coin. Love comes as a changing factor in his life and he
becomes immersed in it so much so that even in the midst of the battle he cannot forget
Catherine is so potent that it brings about an inner transformation in him. So far as love is
concerned it is an experience sufficient by itself and it does not need to be legalized by
marriage. His reactions to Catherine at first were physical. He would prefer to sleep with her
than go to house of prostitution. But he becomes more and more involved with Catherine. He
sees in their relationship a type of order, a type of commitment to a regular existence.
Love the Essence of Catherine’s Existence:
Catherine Barkley has lost her faith in conventional religion and made a religion for
herself out of love for Frederic. Like Brett in the The Sun Also Rises she has no wish to go to
the church but whereas Brett has the pagan ethics of “deciding not to be bitch ........ instead
of God”, the portrait of Catherine reminds us rather of the Dantesque vision. There is a
