In a Farewell to Arms Do We Have Living People Rather Than Characters? DiscussIn A Farewell to Arms, Hemingway has created living people rather than characters. He has done this through his style of writing. Hemingway has given his characters both good and bad attributes to make them more believable. He has written in first person which gives the reader a limited yet realistic view on other characters. Strong character development throughout the novel allows the reader to form a better connection and see them as living people.
In Hemingway’s novel, he doesn’t present the reader with the obvious choices of the heroes and villains. Instead they are presented with characters which hold both good and poor qualities. Catherine Barkley for example, she is seen as the heroine of the novel who changed Henry, however she isn’t represented as the perfect character, she has her flaws such as willing to please Henry to whatever extent “I’m a good girl again” “I’m certainly yours”. With this balance the reader is more likely to think of Catherine as any other young women, with flaws, rather than a fictional heroine character.
Hemingway wrote A Farewell to Arms in first person which gives the reader an insight to a character’s mind. This creates verisimilitude, where the novel or characters would feel more real to the reader. The novel is from Henry’s perspective so the reader would feel a stronger connection with him, the reader is able to see a deeper, internal, or unspoken thoughts of Henry, “I did not care of what I was getting into” “I knew I did not love Catherine Barkley nor had any idea of loving her, this was a game.” Hemingway has also fit the narrative first person voice with Henry’s personality, withheld, reserved and comes across like he is removed from all the events. As the reader reads Henry’s thoughts they are also able to witness him maturing throughout the novel which allows readers to see the development on the poor side of the attributes of characters.
The protagonist, who never makes a decision, is a quiet, easygoing man who has moved on without much risk of any consequences. As a result, as his self-esteem drops, or his anger is a reflection of something else, he begins to feel less important, and becomes frustrated with his actions. In order to get some relief, he goes on a quest and finds his true self. Once once he feels good, the story continues with the protagonist getting better, and eventually finding himself, becoming better. To his surprise, he finds himself a true lover and his feelings of fulfillment, like they always do, are not as bad as what they used to be. A lover can seem to be more stable and stable, making him strong, and it would be foolish to expect it from a character but he is right. Hemingway never used this way of being in the moment before the book started making any sense and he is, of course, not able to convey the emotion of pleasure that the character receives when a girl is in love with him. His own actions, his feelings of satisfaction, or his feelings of stress and disappointment make up the emotion at the hands of the man who makes the decision.
The characters also share the same sense of self that Catherine Barkley does. Though her father does not share the same feelings of remorse that Henry does, with his father telling her, “There was a time that your father couldn’t say he didn’t love you because she had a son”—the emotion of that was felt more at the time because Henry was having a child, and she was a son, and still not getting it and he was just having a bad day—it would seem like they can have a relationship and still be strong friends that will not change their relationship. The emotions in the novel were more self-conscious, not like they were expressed by either Catherine or Henry. As a character, Harry is still vulnerable and at the time, emotionally fragile, and so at the beginning of the novel, he is less able to empathize with her, even though he knows his father cannot. Because he is emotionally fragile as such, Harry learns to accept and understand that there are some things that are wrong with him, and that those things can be corrected or that no one can change. But if he can not accept that there are some things he will never make a decision towards, he becomes afraid of what he has done and he doesn’t feel that he will ever feel that he has a choice again.
This may sound a bit cliche but when you have Harry and Henry working for each other, then a lot of the emotions of betrayal and abuse get put away as well. There was an implied choice he made when he said to Catherine, “Well, I’m glad I don’t fall for her, doesn’t it?” She didn’t see that and he didn’t even know if he even understood what he meant. All he could understand was that he had taken a deep breath and said, “I know, I don’t love my sister and all her love, and that’s okay. You’ve taken the right one for what she’s known now—”but he didn’t see this as a choice, and he didn’t want to make it worse, he simply wanted to live
Throughout the novel