Essay About Frederick Henry And Catherine Barkley

A Farewell to Arms
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A Farewell to Arms, by Ernest Hemingway, is a typical love story. A
Romeo and his Juliet placed against the odds. In this novel, Romeo is
Frederick Henry and Juliet is Catherine Barkley. Their love affair
must survive the obstacles of World War I. The background of war-torn
Italy adds to the tragedy of the love story. The war affects the
emotions and values of each character. The love between Catherine and
Frederick must outlast long separations, life-threatening war-time
situations, and the uncertainty of each others whereabouts or
condition. This novel is a beautiful love story of two people who need
each other in a period of upheaval.
Frederick Henry is an American who serves as a lieutenant in the
Italian army to a group of ambulance drivers. Hemingway portrays
Frederick as a lost man searching for order and value in his life.
Frederick disagrees with the war he is fighting. It is too chaotic and
immoral for him to rationalize its cause. He fights anyway, because
the army puts some form of discipline in his life. At the start of the
novel, Frederick drinks and travels from one house of prostitution to
another and yet he is discontent because his life is very unsettled.
He befriends a priest because he admires the fact that the priest
lives his life by a set of values that give him an orderly lifestyle.
Further into the novel, Frederick becomes involved with Catherine
Barkley. He slowly falls in love with her and, in his love for
her, he finds commitment. Their relationship brings some order and
value to his life. Compared to this new form of order in his life,
Frederick sees the losing Italian army as total chaos and disorder
where he had previously seen discipline and control. He can no longer
remain a part of something that is so disorderly and so, he deserts
the Italian army. Fredericks desertion from the Italian army is the
turning point of the novel. This is the significance of the title, A
Farewell to Arms. When Frederick puts aside his involvement in the
war, he realizes that Catherine is the order and value in his life and
that he does not need anything else to give meaning to his life.
At the conclusion of this novel, Frederick realizes that he cannot
base his life on another person or thing because, ultimately, they
will leave or disappoint him. He realizes that the order and values
necessary to face the world must come from within himself.
Catherine Barkley is an English volunteer nurse who serves in Italy.
She is considered very experienced when it comes to love and loss
since she has already been confronted with the death of a loved one
when her fiance was killed earlier in the war. The reader is not as
well acquainted with Catherines inner thoughts and feelings as we are
with those of Frederick. The story is told through Fredericks eyes
and the reader only meets Catherine through the dialogue between her
and Frederick or through his personal interpretations of her actions.
Catherine already possesses the knowledge that her own life cannot be
dependent on another. She learned this lesson through the death of her
fiance. Her love for Frederick is what her life revolves around, yet
she knows not to rely on him to be the order in her life. Had she been
dependent on Frederick for the order in her life, she would not have
been able to allow him to participate in the war for fear of losing
her own stability with his death.
The theme that Hemingway emphasizes throughout the novel is the search
for order in a chaotic world. Hemingway conveys this through
Fredericks own personal search during the chaos of World War I.
Catherine has found strength within herself to lead her through life.
This is what Frederick must come to realize.