Ariel Ziegler
Period 3
A Farewell to Arms Argument Essay
In A Farewell to Arms, Hemingway portrays the idea that life and war create
nothing but hopelessness and tragedy. As he depicts one of the many lifeless men living
within the lost generation, Hemingway greatly reflects upon his own life and experiences.
The feeling of tragedy is brought about through his portrayal of the dehumanizing and
numbing effects of war, the traumatic experiences of the front, the feeling of emptiness
and more.
The novel begins with Frederic at the front. As he describes his experiences, he
greatly down-plays the destruction and devastation of war with a numbness characterized
by the lost generation. When describing the immense devastation of the war, he merely
states that “things went very badly,” and that “only seven thousand died” (4). Later,
Frederic got injured while in a dugout with the other ambulance drivers. The irony of the
situation is the fact that the men were just eating macaroni, when they got hit by a “big
trench mortar shell,” which reflects the experience of Hemingway himself, who got
wounded in the war while passing out chocolate to the soldiers. As Frederic returned to
consciousness and realized his comrade was dying, his training took over and when he
failed to save his life, he just “made sure he was dead” and went on as if numb to the fact
that he had just witnessed his friend die (55). Traumatic events such as this depict the
immediate tragedy of war, but also the tragic effect that caused the men of the lost
generation to essentially become emotional zombies.
After being wounded at the front, Frederic was sent to the field hospital and later
to a hospital in Milan. To an extent, Catherine’s romanticized idea about war came true
in that she was able to care for the man she loved after he had been wounded just enough
to get him away from the front. When Frederic stayed at the hospital in Milan, the
relationship between him and Catherine began to develop. Catherine emerged as an
increasingly prominent character and in many ways helped foreshadow tragedy. While in
the hospital, Catherine tells Frederic that she is pregnant, but the feelings toward the baby
as a problem or obstacle portrays the lack of emotional ties and the fear Catherine has of
upsetting Frederic. Because of her experiences in the war, Catherine is paranoid about
losing Frederic and is somewhat delusional in regard to the loss of her fiancé in the war.
This constant fear between the two lovers of loosing on another foreshadows a tragedy
and causes the reader to anticipate their separation as well as sympathize with the
characters. Nearing the end of his hospital stay, Frederic came down with “jaundice” due
to his alcoholism and one of the nurses got his leave taken away (144). The nurse had
been skeptical of his actions, and had believed that he deliberately got himself sick in
order to avoid the front, and in turn got his leave taken away. Frederic had not known
that this could be the result of his drinking, but the idea of harming oneself to avoid the
front had become increasingly evident and shows how war can dissolve the heroic image
of a soldier and, as a last resort, exemplifies the hopelessness felt in war.
Frederic then returned to the front, and the mood had completely changed. It
seemed as though the devastation and tragedy of war had consumed the men and the land.
Whether emotionally of physically, most of his friends had died or been changed. Once
again, the numbness created by the war is shown when the major told Frederic that it had
“been a bad summer” at the front, when in fact it had been devastating and they were
about to begin a retreat (164).
As the retreat commenced toward Udine, many events portrayed the devastation
and tragedy created by war. As they began the retreat, Frederic and the other drivers
were told to bring the equipment and other things as opposed to bringing the wounded
soldiers to safety (187). This is not only dehumanizing, but also extremely tragic in that
countless men would die merely for the lack of transportation. In the long run, this sort
of event is traumatizing because it awakens the men to the fact that they could be left
behind at any time, which is contrary to the heroic image given to soldiers. Later on,
after a series of unfortunate events, Frederic shot a sergeant without giving it a second
thought, and Bonello “finish[ed] him” off (204). Afterward, the men joked and laughed
about killing the man, and Bonello was extremely proud; the sergeant had been the first
man he had killed in the war. These actions and reactions further portray their numbness
toward death, the dehumanizing side of war, and the tragedy of the death, along with the
mental distortion that is produced out of war. Also along the way to Udine, Aymo – one
of the drivers—was shot by their own Italian soldiers. This not only shows the paranoia
created by war, but also the traumatic experiences as one of their comrades was suddenly
shot and killed. This is not only tragic for Aymo and the people he left behind, but also
the men that were force to witness his murder and swiftly return to their journey. Also,
this event exemplified the hopelessness created by war as the men’s own army began to
turn on them out of fear for the Germans.
As Frederic and Piani neared the Italian army, Frederic was stopped by some of
the soldiers and was put in a line to be questioned and executed. With the realization of
the death that awaited him, Frederic made a run for it and escaped. Once again, the fact
that his own army had turned on him, and many others, conveys the hopelessness created
by war. Also, the break-down of the Italian Army itself, and the soldiers within it, shows
the tragedy, hopelessness, and panic resulting from the traumatic experiences of war.
As Frederic narrowly escapes his death, he goes on to find Catherine and later,
moves to Switzerland in order to escape the war itself. In turn, he is faced with the
hopelessness and tragedy of life. As Catherine and Frederic begin their life together in
Switzerland, they constantly bantered back and forth, showing their interdependence and
their fears of loosing one another. This in a sense foreshadowed the tragedy awaiting the
couple and the unborn child. Frederic’s feelings toward the baby as a “trap” and merely
a consequence to their actions together reveals his lack of emotion and his incapability to
connect with anyone other than Catherine (320). Also, Frederic’s string of
consciousness, which shows his immense fear of Catherine’s death, causes sympathy
within the reader, as well as anticipation for the looming tragedy. When Catherine finally
goes into labor and has the child, Frederic continues to lack any emotional connection to
his new-born son, and in turn describes him as looking like a “skinned rabbit with a
puckered-up old-man’s face” (326). These feelings and toward the baby reflect the
numbness to life and death, along with the grief and hopelessness created by the war and
its experiences. These ideas are once again reflected through Frederic’s lack of a reaction
to the news that his son was dead and the way he handled Catherine’s death, which was
“just a dirty trick” (331). The tragic death of Catherine and the baby are somewhat
foreshadowed and anticipated, but the events of their deaths and there after were
extremely blunt, reflecting the feeling of nothingness left behind for Frederic, and the
feeling of tragedy. This emptiness is shown through Frederic’s cold and impersonal
descriptions of her dead body as a “statue,” and the quick, lonely ending (332).
In order to create a tragedy about life and war, Hemingway utilized the
sympathies of the readers in order to create anticipation and tension between what the
reader wants to happen and what the reader knows will happen (Merrill). Also,
Hemingway uses the title, A Farewell to Arms, to allude to the end of the defense and
fight in life, resulting in a hopelessness and emptiness. The title could also be interpreted
through a more literal standpoint, in that it reflects Frederic’s attempts to escape the war.
The overall emotionless and dreary tone of the novel further reflects the dehumanizing,
numbing and tragic effects of war. Though A Farewell to Arms is not a conventional
tragedy—by the terms and ideas of Aristotle—it is in fact a tragedy that evokes sadness,
loneliness and a realness, while expressing the tragedy and hopelessness created by war
and life itself (Merrill).