Summary of "Farewell to arms!": heroes, theme. Ernest Hemingway novel

2024 Author: Leah Sherlock | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 05:25

As you know, the novel "Farewell to Arms!" was written by Ernest Hemingway at a young age. He was not even thirty years old then. In the preface to the 1948 illustrated edition, the author shares his impressions of working on the book.

He was not upset that the novel turns out to be tragic, since he considered life in general a tragedy, where the outcome is a foregone conclusion. But he was glad that he was able to compose, and so truthfully that it was a pleasure to read it himself. These sensations were new to Hemingway. But the novel became famous all over the world. Below you can read its summary.

Farewell to arms

The novel tells about the fate of the American Frederick Henry, lieutenant of the Italian sanitary troops, who volunteered for the front. America had not yet entered the First World War. The author shows her as she was. Where there were sanitary units, while it was quiet. Officers from idleness drink, playcards and debauchery with local girls of easy virtue.

There is an English hospital nearby, where a young nurse, Katherine Barkley, is sent to serve. She seems a little strange. But it turns out that her fiancé recently died, and she regrets that she did not marry him, did not give him a piece of happiness.

Farewell to Arms! Heroes

Apparently the fights are about to start, but until then, Henry is bored looking after the nurse. Gradually, the lieutenant falls in love with a kind and beautiful girl. But war is war, they will be separated.

In the battle, Frederic is wounded in the legs and taken to the hospital, where Katherine is unexpectedly sent as well. Gradually, the main character realizes that he was not created for war. He wants to live, eat, sleep with the woman he loves. So you can fit a summary in a couple of lines.

"Farewell to arms!" Hemingway, however, is about much more - about human dignity and the author's aversion to war, to any kind of violence.

The main character of the novel, Henry, has various unhappy thoughts in his head, like the fact that war breaks some people and makes others stronger. But those who do not want to break are killed, always the best, kind, gentle and brave are killed - indiscriminately.

He decides that the war is over for him and Katherine and they defect to Switzerland. With great difficulty they manage to get into this country. All summer and autumn they live in Montreux in a wooden house near the pines. They are happy, live with dreams of a happy future life, constantly talk and walk. They learn about the war from the newspapers, and it seems to them sodistant…

Katherine is pregnant and there is a chance that the birth will be difficult. Happiness ends just as suddenly. The birth is difficult, she is given a caesarean section, but it's too late. At the end of the novel, everything ends in death. Katherine and the baby die, Henry is left alone…

The meaning of the novel

It was meant to be. War itself is tragic, and love against the backdrop of suffering, fear and blood is even more tragic, this is the meaning of the novel Farewell to Arms! An analysis of Hemingway's work gradually leads to the fact that the generation of the author, born in 1899, is considered lost to society. His peers, who were born at the turn of the twentieth century, lost the illusions of the nineteenth and did not acquire new ones. They find a way out of emotions in drunkenness, debauchery. Among them, suicides have become commonplace. It seemed that there were no moral values left in the world, no ideals. Many committed suicide only because they lost their income due to the stock market crash. This tragedy did not bypass the Hemingway family either: his father committed suicide. The writer did not like to talk about it, he loved his father too much, but he believed that his father was in a hurry.

To understand the meaning of the story, it is not enough just to read the full or summary content. "Bye weapons!" you need to read in full to imagine those times, immerse yourself in the era and at least put yourself in the shoes of the heroes a little.

Screening of the book

It's good that today everything can be represented with the help of cinema. The novel was filmed several times.

In 1932, thefilm directed by Frank Borzali "Farewell to Arms!". The picture was nominated for four Oscars, but received only two: for best sound and best cinematography. There was even an alternative ending to the picture, where Katherine survives and everything ends happily. The audience liked this ending, but caused a deep protest from the writer.

And in 1957, the American director Charles Vidor shoots the film "Farewell to Arms!" Based on the novel of the same name by Ernest Hemingway. This film turned out to be less successful, only a supporting actor was nominated for an Oscar for the role of a friend of the protagonist Rinaldi.

History of the creation of the novel

Ernest Hemingway "Farewell to arms!" (novel) wrote, so to speak, from himself. He, like the main character, served on the Italian front, was wounded, placed in a Milan hospital, and he began an affair with a nurse. Description of the war, this massacre, senseless for the most part, authentic and ruthless. In Hemingway, a lot of space is given to the feat, but he also tells the truth about that time and the meanness of the government. So, the Italian authorities punished everyone who did not want to fight.

A soldier who leaves the battlefield will be shot, or shame will fall on the rest of his family. They will lose the right to state protection, voting rights, public respect. Anyone can go to them and do whatever they want with family members. Naturally, none of the fighters wants such a fate for their relatives, so they silently fight in the hope thatit will all be over soon.

First, Henry goes to war, as he prefers to side with the people he has been living with lately than to return to his homeland and undergo training in a military camp. To his decision to say: "Farewell, weapons!" - affects love for Katherine, but not only that. When he, wounded, is hardly taken to the hospital, they constantly drop him from the shots, and in the car the blood of a dead soldier drips on him. This is a ridiculous and scary situation at the same time.

Love in a novel

Hemingway "Farewell to arms!" devoted not only to war, the main place in the novel is occupied by love. Love is selfless, sacrificial, real. Nurse Katherine loves Henry so much that she doesn't care about status, being pregnant, not married, and so on. She is ready for anything, if only he was there and loved her. Henry answers her the same. They even fall asleep and get up together. They are not interested in the company of other people. Katherine is ready to do everything to make Fred happy, she does not need the world around her. Although the characters are not religious, there is a passage in the novel where Katherine gives Henry an image of St. Anthony to make her beloved's holy shore.

Dying, Katherine is true to herself. She doesn't need a doctor or a priest, she wants only Henry around. Hemingway describes the issue of transition from one world to another simply. It can be seen that he is not afraid of death, like his heroes.

Artist's task

Summary of "Farewell to Arms!" - a novel by the famous American writer Ernest Hemingway - cannot reflect the entire tragedy of the book. You must read it beforeend. Many critics believed that this novel is the prehistory of the novel "Fiesta", where the main character, who came from the war as an invalid, does not lose his composure, keeps his honor.

Andrey Platonov, having read "Farewell to Arms!" in 1938, understood the main idea of the author. He wrote that for Hemingway the main idea is the preservation of human dignity. This feeling must still be found, cultivated in oneself, perhaps at the cost of severe trials.

Therefore, it is necessary to read "Farewell to arms!" chapter by chapter, carefully, thoughtfully.

What did the writer see as his main task as an artist? Ernest Hemingway was convinced that a writer should write truthfully, realistically reflect the world as he sees it. This is the highest goal of the writer, his vocation. He was deeply convinced that only the truth can help a person. Therefore, in his piercing work "The Old Man and the Sea" you can see what a person is capable of and what he can endure.

Of Russian writers, Hemingway admired Tolstoy, Turgenev, Dostoevsky and Chekhov. But, despite his admiration, he rejected the very idea of imitating geniuses. Each writer must find his own style, his own style of writing, see and capture the surrounding reality in his own way.

Conclusion

Besides honesty, he also considered clarity as his motto. "Writing with honest clarity is harder than writing with deliberate complexity," are the words of the author of A Farewell to Arms.

Reviews about Hemingway vary. But many peoplewho grew up in the USSR, remember the 80-90s, when almost every house hung a portrait of the American writer Ernest Hemingway.