This book, which played a role in gaining for Hemingway the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1954, was as enthusiastically praised as his previous novel, Across the River and into the Trees (1950), the story of a professional army officer who dies while on leave in Venice, had been damned.By 1960 Fidel Castro's revolution had driven Hemingway from Cuba. He settled in Ketchum, Idaho, and tried to lead his life and do his work as before. For a while he succeeded, but, anxiety-ridden and depressed, he was twice hospitalized at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, where he received electroshock treatments. Two days after his return to the house in Ketchum, he took his life with a shotgun. Hemingway had married four times and fathered three sons.He left behind a substantial amount of manuscript, some which has been published. A Moveable Feast, an entertaining memoir of his years in Paris (1921-26) before he was famous, was issued in 1964. Islands in the Stream, three closely related novellas growing directly out of his peacetime memories of the Caribbean island of Bimini, of Havana during World War II, and of searching for U-boats off Cuba, appeared in 1970.Hemingway's characters plainly embody his own values and view of life.
The main characters of The Sun Also Rises, A Farewell to Arms, and For Whom the Bell Tolls are young men whose strength and self-confidence nevertheless coexist with a sensitivity that leaves them deeply scarred by their wartime experiences. War was for Hemingway a potent symbol of the world, which he viewed as complex, filled with moral ambiguities, and offering almost unavoidable pain, hurt, and destruction. To survive in such a world, and perhaps emerge victorious, one must conduct oneself with honour, courage, endurance, and dignity, a set of principles known as "the Hemingway code."
To behave well in the lonely, losing battle with life is to show "grace under pressure" and constitutes in itself a kind of victory, a theme clearly established in The Old Man and the Sea.Hemingway's prose style was probably the most widely imitated of any in the 20th century. He wished to strip his own use of language of inessentials, ridding it of all traces of verbosity, embellishment, and sentimentality. In striving to be as objective and honest as possible, Hemingway hit upon the device of describing a series of actions using short, simple sentences from which all comment or emotional rhetoric have been eliminated. These sentences are composed largely of nouns and verbs, have few adjectives and adverbs, and rely on repetition and rhythm for much of their effect. The resulting terse, concentrated prose is concrete and unemotional yet is often resonant and capable of conveying great irony through understatement. Hemingway's use of dialogue was similarly fresh, simple, and natural-sounding. The influence of this style was felt worldwide wherever novels were written, particularly from the 1930s through the '50s.A consummately contradictory man, Hemingway achieved a fame surpassed by few, if any, American authors of the 20th century. The virile nature of his writing, which attempted to re-create the exact physical sensations he experienced in wartime, big-game hunting, and bullfighting, in fact masked an aesthetic sensibility of great delicacy. He was a celebrity long before he reached middle age, but his popularity continues to be validated by serious critical opinion.
Context
Ernest Hemingway was born in Oak Park, Illinois, in the summer of 1899. As a young man, he left home to become a newspaper writer in Kansas City. Early in 1918, he joined the Italian Red Cross and became an ambulance driver in Italy, serving in the battlefield in the First World War, in which the Italians allied with the British, the French, and the Americans, against Germany and Austria-Hungary. In Italy, he observed the carnage and the brutality of the Great War firsthand. On July 8, 1918, a trench mortar shell struck him while he crouched beyond the front lines with three Italian soldiers.
Though Hemingway embellished the story of his wounding over the years, this much is certain: he was transferred to a hospital in Milan, where he fell in love with a Red Cross nurse named Agnes von Kurowsky. Scholars are divided over Agnes' role in Hemingway's life and writing, but there is little doubt that his affair with her provided the background for A Farewell to Arms, which many critics consider to be Hemingway's greatest novel.
Published in 1929, A Farewell to Arms tells the story of Frederic Henry, a young American ambulance driver and first lieutenant ("Tenente") in the Italian army. Hit in the leg by a trench mortar shell in the fighting between Italy and Austria-Hungary, Henry is transferred to a hospital in Milan, where he falls in love with an English Red Cross nurse named Catherine Barkley. The similarities to Hemingway's own life are obvious.
After the war, when he had published several novels and become a famous writer, Hemingway claimed that the account of Henry's wounding in A Farewell to Arms was the most accurate version of his own wounding he had ever written. Hemingway's life certainly gave the novel a trenchant urgency, and its similarity to his own experience no doubt helped him refine the terse, realistic, descriptive style for which he became famous, and which made him one of the most influential American writers of the twentieth century.
SUMMARY
Book I, Chapters 1-6
Frederic Henry begins his story by describing his situation: he is an American in the Italian army near the front with Austria-Hungary, a mile from the fighting. Every day he sees troops marching and hears gunfire; often the King rides through the town. A cholera epidemic has spread through the army, he says, but only seven thousand die of it.
His unit moves to a town in Gorizia, further from the fighting, which continues in the mountains beyond. His situation is relatively enjoyable; the town is not badly damaged, with nice cafes and two brothels--one for the officers and one for the enlisted men. One day Henry sits in the mess hall with a group of fellow officers taunting the military priest. A captain accuses the priest of cavorting with women, and the priest blushes; though he is not religious, Henry treats the priest kindly. After teasing the priest, the Italians argue over where Henry should take his leave; because the winter is approaching, the fighting will ease, and Henry, an ambulance driver, will be able to spend some time away from the front. The priest encourages him to visit the cold, clear country of Abruzzo, but the other men have other suggestions.
When he returns from his leave, Henry discusses his trip with his roommate, the surgeon Rinaldi. Henry claims to have traveled throughout Italy, and Rinaldi, who is obsessed with beautiful girls, tells him about a group of new English women and claims to be in love with a Miss Barkley. Henry loans him fifty lire (Italian money). At dinner that night, the priest is hurt that Henry failed to visit Abruzzi. Henry feels guilty, and tells him that he wanted to visit Abruzzi.
The next morning, Henry examines the gun batteries and quizzes the mechanics; then he travels to visit Miss Barkley and the English nurses with Rinaldi. He is immediately struck by Miss Barkley's beauty, and especially by her long blonde hair. Miss Barkley tells Henry that her fiancee was killed in the battle of the Somme, and Henry tells her he has never loved anyone. On the way back, Rinaldi observes that Miss Barkley liked Henry more than she liked Rinaldi, but that her friend, Helen Ferguson, was nice too.
The next day, Henry calls on Miss Barkley again. The head nurse expresses surprise that an American would want to join the Italian army, and tells him that Miss Barkley is gone-- but says that Henry may come back to see her at seven o'clock that night. Henry drives back along the trenches, eats dinner, then returns to see Miss Barkley. He finds her waiting with Helen Ferguson; Helen excuses herself, and Henry tries to put his arm around her. She refuses, but allows him to kiss her. Then she begins to cry, and Henry is annoyed. When Henry goes home, Rinaldi is amused.
Three nights later, Henry sees Miss Barkley again; she tells him to call her Catherine. They walk through the garden, and Henry tells Catherine he loves her, though he knows he does not. They kiss again, and he thinks of their relationship as an elaborate game. To his surprise, she suddenly tells him that he plays the game very well, but that it is a rotten game. Henry sees Rinaldi later that evening, and Rinaldi, observing Henry's romantic confusion, feel glad that he did not become involved with a British nurse.
Book I, Chapters 7-12
Driving back from his post, Henry picks up a soldier with a hernia; they discuss the War, and Henry arranges a way to get the man to a hospital. Henry thinks about the War, and realizes that he feels no danger from it. At dinner that night, the men drink and tease the priest; Henry nearly forgets he had promised to go see Catherine, and before he rushes over, Rinaldi gives him some coffee to sober him up. At the nurses' villa, Helen Ferguson tells Henry that Catherine is sick and will not see him. Henry feels guilty and surprisingly lonely.
The next day an attack is scheduled. Henry goes to see Catherine, and she gives him a Saint Anthony medal. He spends the day driving to the spot where the fighting will take place.Henry and his men wait in the trenches as the shelling begins. They are hungry, and Henry risks being shot to fetch some cheese. As he sits down to eat it, he hears a loud noise and sees a flash and believes he has died. A trench mortar shell has struck him in the leg. Wounded men fall all around him.
Henry's surviving men carry him to safety; a British doctor treats him on the field, then sends him in an ambulance to the field hospital. Henry lies in intense pain. Rinaldi comes to visit him at the field hospital, and tells Henry that he will get a medal. Henry shows no interest in medals. Rinaldi leaves him a bottle of cognac and promises to send Miss Barkley to see him soon.
At dusk, the priest comes to visit. They discuss the war, then God. Henry tells the priest he does not love God--he says he does not love anything much. The priest tells him he will find love, and it will make him happy. Henry claims to have always been happy, but the priest says Henry will know another kind of happiness when he finds it. Half delirious, Henry thinks about Italian towns, then falls asleep.
Rinaldi and a Major from their group come to visit Henry the night before he moves to a better hospital in Milan. Henry is still half-delirious, and they drink profusely. After a confused conversation, Henry falls into a drunken sleep. The next day, he is taken on a train to Milan.
Book II, Chapters 13-17
At Milan, Frederic Henry is taken to the American hospital. A young, pretty nurse named Miss Gage makes his bed and takes his temperature. The head nurse, Miss Van Campen, irritates Henry by not allowing him to have wine. Henry pays some Italians to sneak wine into his room with the evening papers.
In the morning, Miss Gage tells Henry that Miss Barkley has come to work at the hospital--she claims not to like her, but Henry tells her she will learn to like her. The porter brings a barber to shave Henry, but the barber mistakes Henry for an Austrian soldier and threatens to cut his throat. After the barber and the porter leave, Miss Barkley comes in, and Henry realizes he is in love with her. He pulls her down into the bed with him, and they make love for the first time.
Henry goes through a round of doctors who remove some of the shrapnel from his leg. The doctors seem incompetent, and tell Henry he will have to wait six months for an operation if he wants to keep his leg. He cannot stand the thought of spending six months in bed, and asks for another opinion; the house doctor says he will send for Dr. Valentini. When Dr. Valentini comes, he is cheerful, energetic, and competent and says he will perform the operation in the morning.Catherine spends the night in Henry's room, and they see a bat. Catherine prepares him for the operation, and warns him not to talk about their affair while under the anaesthetic.
After the operation, Henry is very sick. As he recovers, three other patients come to the hospital--a boy from Georgia with malaria, a boy from New York with malaria and jaundice, and a boy who tried to unscrew the fuse cap from an explosive shell for a souvenir. Henry develops an appreciation for Helen Ferguson, who helps him pass notes to Catherine while she is on duty. Catherine continues to stay with Henry every night, but Henry and Miss Gage finally convince her to take three nights off of night duty--Miss Van Campen has commented that Henry always sleeps till noon.
Book II, Chapters 18-24
That summer Henry learns to walk on crutches, and he and Catherine enjoy Milan. They befriend the headwaiter at a restaurant called the Gran Italia, and Catherine continues to see Henry every night. They discuss marriage, but Catherine remains opposed to the idea for the time being. They pretend to be married instead. Catherine tells Henry that her love for him has become her religion.
When not with Catherine, Henry spends time with a soldier named Ettore Moretti, an Italian from San Francisco who is very proud of his war medals. Ettore is extremely boastful about his military prowess, and Catherine finds him annoying and dull. One night Henry and Catherine lie in bed listening to the rain, and Catherine asks Henry if he will always love her. She says she is afraid of the rain, and begins to cry.
Henry and Catherine go to the races with Helen Ferguson, whom Henry now calls "Fergie," and the boy who tried to unscrew the nose cap on the shrapnel shell. They bet on a horse backed by a racing expert and former criminal named Mr. Myers; they win, but Catherine feels dissatisfied, so they pick a horse for the next race on their own. Even though they lose, Catherine feels much better.
By September, Henry's leg is nearly healed. He receives some leave time from the hospital, and Catherine tells him she will arrange to go with him. She then gives him a piece of startling news: she is six months pregnant. Catherine worries that Henry feels trapped, and promises not to make trouble for him, but he tells her he feels cheerful and thinks she is wonderful. Catherine talks about the obstacles they will face, and mentions the old quote about how the coward dies a thousand deaths, the brave but one. She says that, in reality, the brave man dies perhaps two thousand deaths in his imagination--he simply does not mention them.
The next morning it begins to rain, and Henry is diagnosed with jaundice. Miss Van Campen finds empty liquor bottles in Henry's room, and accuses him of producing jaundice through alcoholism to avoid being sent back to the front. Miss Gage helps Henry clear things up, but in the end he loses his leave time.
Henry prepares to travel back to the front. He buys a new pistol, and takes Catherine to a hotel. The hotel makes Catherine feel like a prostitute, but before the night is over they feel at home there. Before midnight, they walk downstairs and Henry calls a carriage for Catherine. They have a brief good-bye, and Henry boards the crowded train that will take him back to the war.
Book III, Chapters 25-28
After returning to Gorizia, Henry has a talk with the major about the war--it was a bad year, the major says; Henry was lucky to get hit when he did. Henry then goes to find Rinaldi; while he waits for his friend, he thinks about Catherine. Rinaldi comes into the room and is glad to see Henry; concerned, he examines Henry's wounded knee. He says that he has become a skilled surgeon from the constant work with the wounded, but now that the fighting has died down temporarily he has a frustrating lack of work. They talk about Catherine, and at dinner the officers tease the priest.
After dinner, Henry goes to talk with the priest. The priest thinks the war will end soon, but Henry remains skeptical. After the priest leaves, Henry goes to sleep; he wakes when Rinaldi comes back, but quickly falls asleep again.
The next morning, he travels to the Bainsizza area, and sees the damage caused by the war: the whole village is destroyed. Henry meets a man named Gino, and they discuss the fighting. Gino says the summer's losses were not in vain, and Henry falls silent--he says words like those embarrass him. He says that the names of villages and the numbers of streets have more meaning than words like sacred and glorious.That night, the rain comes down hard, and the Croatians begin a bombardment. In the morning, the Italians learn that the attacking forces include Germans, and they become very afraid--they have had little contact with the Germans in the war so far, and prefer to keep it that way. The next night, the Italian line has been broken, and the Italian forces begin a large-scale retreat.
As the forces slowly move out, Henry returns to the villa, but finds it empty; Rinaldi is gone with the hospital. Henry finds the drivers under his command, including Piani, Bonello, and Aymo. Before leaving in the morning, Henry gets a good night's sleep.