War and Society. “A Farewell to Arms” by Ernest Hemingway Essay

Wars have always played a certain important, sometimes even vital role for individuals, nations and the whole world. The reasons of most wars were different, but usually the main goals were the same, i.e. either to gain more power or to change the political order of this or that country. However wars brought seldom something good to people, only sufferings, losses and hardships. But on the other hand they say that sufferings help individuals to develop their best moral qualities, stand for their high moral ideals, this could be true to life to some extent. In this paper, using the example of war, described in the famous book by Ernest Hemingway – “A Farewell to Arms”, we would try to investigate what positive could war bring to the mind and to the heart of a person and whether it is in general possible, that after seeing all the hardships and cruelty of the war a person’s inner world changes to better. From the very title of the story is clear that this novel has to do with war a lot, but in reality this is not a purely an anti-war novel. War played an important role in the life of the author himself, so we could probably trust his seeing and presentation of war and his understanding of human feelings during it. Ernest Hemingway was known not only as a bright writer but also as a public figure. He was recognized even to those people, who never touched any of his books. Even after his death he remained one of the most read authors of that century. Ernest Hemingway was born in 1899 in Oak Park, Chicago in the house of his grand father. There were six children in his family and he was the second among them. He was taught to be physically and morally strong. He knew how to handle guns and his first shotgun he got when he was ten. He killed himself with the gun fifty-one years later. He was a rather strong man with strong principles, he believed that “life was a tragedy and it could have only one end” (2). His famous work – “A Farewell to Arms” was published in series in 1929. But in some cities, like Boston for examples some of these series were not allowed as they continued sexual content. Nevertheless the popularity of the author was quickly growing. Several years later a film was made out of his story, but the author didn’t want to attend the debut. The whole novel is actually based on the personal experience of Hemingway. In 1918 he was in Italy and he was wounded and he had a relationship with one of the nurses at the hospital where he was staying. So, the novel is practically based upon the life philosophy, the development of life views of the author.

The first argument we are going to talk about is the connection of religion and love in the story. Hemingway supported the point of view that the universe is not ordered by God, there is nobody to control lives of people and to dictate the moral rules. One of the most famous quotes from the book is: ” All thinking men are atheists’ (p 8). The universe itself is indifferent to human beings. This indifference the author shows through the war between people. He underlines that there are no real reasons for this war and there are no winners. But throughout the story the war serves a supporting force for the love of between the main heroes. It helps to create the circumstance to bring them together emotionally. The feelings of Henry towards Catherine are influenced by priest a lot, but his ideas about the true nature of love, which priest experienced towards God. The priest proves that when a person is in love he is able to do a lot to serve the object of his affections, either a woman or God. The first example of the author’s Code Hero is Catherine, later it is identified with Henry as well. The heroes of the novel, as well as the author himself have to come to the conclusion that the universal moral codes do not exist and that there are no such abstract values as “justice” and “glory”. But still the heroes have their personal values, like for example dignity, courage and so on. Catherine knows about it from the very beginning and Henry has to come to this conclusion in the course of the war. This novel could be called an anti- war propaganda only to some certain degree. The brutality and chaos of the war are well described, the scene of retreat of the Italian army is considered to be one of the bright presentations of the war in American literature. The broken columns of soldiers are associated here with their nerves, minds and moral judgement. The violence and disorder of the war are underlined by the murder of the engineer. The war is presented on the one hand as only an outcome of the cruel and senseless world and on the other hand a strong catalyst of development of devotion to the dear woman and faith in God.

The second argument is the connection love and pain, which is rather deep and important in the story. It seems hard to understand the behavior of Catherine, who lost her fiancé and still tries to seduce Henry. In reality the main reason for her to do so is the desire to escape from her pain, the same way as Henry was trying to escape from talks about war. The both develop their relationship not for the sake of pure amusement, but they look for “fuel to sustain them”. For Henry love plays even a more important role than his honor, as he decided to flee from the war in order to find Catherine. They manage to find their peaceful refuge together in Swiss mountains, where they are able to seek for psychological and moral support from each other. The only negative moment about their love shown in the novel is the fact that even such beautiful, genuine and deep love is only a temporary fragment in this world.

And the last, third argument would be the appearance of illusions, coming to the person’s mind when he faces the brutal reality of life and realizes his own mortality. The both heroes – Catherine and Henry are under the influence of the illusion of their love when they meet for the first times. Their love at the beginning is even more like a game, where they play their parts and nothing more. But as time passes they develop deeper desires and feeling towards each other. The two people are from time to time plunging into their dreams of better life, so that it is sometimes difficult to find the strict division between the reality and their imaginary world. Even when they distance from the severe reality of war and spend some time together in the Swiss mountains they do not refuse from their fantasies about life. This becomes the only way for them to cope with the damaging effects of the reality around them.

So, it certainly sounds rather unusual and might seem meaningless to state that the war could cultivate any high, deep feelings and emotions in a human being, as wars are usually associated only with cruelty and sufferings, but with the help of the novel by E. Hemingway – “A Farewell to Arms” we tried to argue and to provide at least some examples of the situations when war incites people to positive deep emotions and feelings.

Sources:

1. Unger, Leonard (Ed.). American Writers: A Collection of Literary Biographies, vol. 2. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1974. pp. 2-17
2. Baker, Carlos. Hemingway: The Writer as Artist. Princeton University Press, 1952 pp.10-12
3. Fuentes, Norberto. Hemingway in Cuba. New Jersey: Lyle Stuart Inc, 1984.
4. Nelson, Gerald B., and Glory Jones. Hemingway: Life and Works. 1984
5. Hemingway, Ernest. The Complete Short Stories of Ernest Hemingway. 1998