Ernest Hemingway ` A Farewell to Arms`

With its relatively simple plot, sparse language, and seemingly traditional dry land of love and war, Earnest Hemingways third refreshful, A Fargonwell to Arms stands as angiotensin converting enzyme of the approximately highly regarded novels of the twentieth century.Beneath the traditional surface of the novel revolutionary yarn techniques and penetrating appraisals of political and social cornerst sensations interact to produce, perhaps, the near richest and profound work of Hemingways cargoner.The newspaper publishers and emotions of A f atomic number 18well to Arms are stated indirectly, through and through an fallible fibber, unless beneath the familiar-seeming surface of the story, like an iceberg, which Hemingway lots in like mannerk to be the apt image of his art. (Bloom 10)One important technique Hemingway engrosss in A Farewell to Arms is to tell the story from a 1st soulfulness narrative raze of collect. This allows for the inclusion of ambiguity and unr eliability in the story, so that the reader can never be exactly certain (as one can in omniscient narration) of the nature and specificity or meaning of the events that are being recounted.The first step toward this ambiguous and unreliable narrative is to cause a character with an outward traditional face that of a soldier but with a non-traditional inner-self the book is cast in the form which Hemingway has on the face of it delimited for himself in the novel-diary form.It is written in the first person, in that sodding(a) and unliterary style in that tone which suggests a roughly educated but sensitive poet who is prouder of his muscles than of his vocabulary. (Meyers 121)The poetic storyteller caught in a war that he is only ambivalently engaged in at an emotional level, and then caught up in a whirlwind love-affair that he may or may not be faking,generates an enormous degree of novelty in Hemingways characterization. The fact that the narrator spends a great deal of his ti me contradicting himself or acting in direct opposition to his expressed beliefs endows A Farewell to Arms not only with verisimilitude, but also with a multi-layered theme, one which must be searched for by the reader as he or she follows along with Fredrick Henrys avow quest.Henry says he is in love with Catherine, but then immediately remarks I knew I did not love Catherine Barkley nor had any idea of loving her. This was a game, like duo, in which you said things instead of playing cards. Like bridge you had to pretend you were playing for money or playing for some stakes. (Hem 30-31)This dynamical use of theme marks one of several innovative narrative techniques at work in the novel. By subsuming even his character to the (hidden) theme of the novel, Hemingway allowed for an intense degree of reader-identification and thematic resonance. The theme of the novel is probably most directly and explicitely stated by Frederick Henrys observation thatIf people bring so much courage to this world the world has to kill them to go over them, so of course it kills them.The world breaks every one and afterward many are strong at the broken places. But those that will not break it kills. It kills the very good and the very gentle and the very brave impartially. If you are none of these you can be sure it will kill you too but there will be no special hurry. (Hem)This theme, one of bitterness, regret, and mortality where heroism and courage are met only by terminal is decidedly not a traditional theme for war novels or love stories.By digging deeply beyond the surface layers of the novel, an clear-sighted reader will find that the aforementioned traditional themes of the heroic soldier and the happy lovers gives way to a to a greater extent probing, penetrating and accurate view of love and war, at least in light of Hemingways personal beliefs and experiences.Beneath the amatory surface is a brutal truth of termination and regret and abandon and sadness F or a war novel, however, A Farewell to Arms ends instead surprisingly, with the strangled and stillborn death Of Frederics and Catherines infant, and Catherines subsequent death by hemorrhaging. (Pozorski)In fact, this theme is foreshadowed and hinted at throughout the course of the novel by way of Henrys unreliable narration and also by way of the use of symbols and wordplay through the novels rising action. Key to Hemingways themes being masked or mirrored is his use of wordplay and puns.The title of course operates as a pun of sorts A Farewell to Arms involves a play on linguistic communication relating both to Frederic Henrys desertion from the Italian army and to his later leave-taking of Catherine Barkley after her death in Switzerland. (Harrington 59)However, there are other instances of puns and wordplay which specifically point out to the astute reader that Henrys surface level narration cloaks the deeper more desolate themes recounted above.One highly revealing play on w ords in A Farewell to Arms involves Frederics returning to the front earlier his knee is completely healed. He has only partial articulation in the wounded leg (96), a pun that captures his reticence and failings as narrator Similarly, while making their diagnosis, the doctors in Milan test Frederics articulation (96), which matches the readers task in works through this intricate text. (Harrington 59)