Character Analysis: A Farewell To Arms

1282 Words6 Pages
So Long Army, Hello New Beginning
Throughout the novel, A Farewell to Arms, Hemingway uses each of the five books to develop his narrator and protagonist, Lieutenant Frederic Henry’s transition from the daily life of an Italian army ambulance driver to the life of a civilian. “A Farewell to Arms is the story of Lieutenant Frederic Henry and the ways he grows and changes, lives and learns, in order to catch up to the Nurse Catherine Barkley with respect to experience and the wisdom that it brings.”(“Character Analysis Frederic Henry”) Lieutenant Frederic Henry, often referred to throughout the novel as Signor Tenente, Frederic, and Henry has participated in World War Ⅰ for three years at the start of the novel. Hemingway, makes use of creative language and untagged dialog to foreshadow the changes that take place as Frederic Henry makes his metaphorical “Farewell to Arms.” As a character, Lieutenant Frederic Henry changes in his identity, emotion, and overall as the man he is becoming more responsible; learning the consequences of his actions as he makes his disconnection from the military. Frederic Henry’s decision to disengage himself from the war while positively affecting his personality and maturity, negatively affect his emotional mindset in addition to his physical well being.
In support of, having said that the narrator Lieutenant Frederic Henry evolves in his identity, it should be noted that, the reader was unsure the name of said narrator until Hemingway