A Farewell To Arms Analysis

“It’s not the load that breaks you down, it’s the way you carry it” (Lou Holtz). Ernest Hemingway’s novels all have a similar main character that portrays a term called a Hemingway Hero. In his novel, A Farewell to Arms, the main character Frederic Henry shows traits to classify him as a Hemingway Hero. The load mentioned in the quote on Frederic Henry is stress. Henry’s stress comes from many sources such as what happens to Catherine, fellow soldiers, and the war. The ways he deals with this stress keeps his character defined as a Hemingway Hero. This is proven by his grace under pressure as well as the presence of the Nada Concept. Also, his simplicity of life adds more to his Hero character.
While under the impactful scenes of his life

Henry represents certain images that are often connected with the concept of the code hero (Concepts). He is usually a man of few words and cutting sentences short. He talks as if he is emotionless. In the beginning of the novel, Henry constantly replies with “No” whenever Catherine wants to talk to him (Hemingway 16). Henry avoids darkness and sleep throughout the novel, leading to his insomnia. (Concepts). Henry was watching “Catherine sleeping” with the “moonlight on her face” and then only sleeping himself (Hemingway 301). He was “awake for quite a while thinking about things” (301). He is a restless man who does not like the night and only sleeps when he is with Catherine. One night when the priest came to visit Henry, the priest asks him if he “love Him at all”, with Him being God, and Henry responds with “I don’t love” (72). This scene shows that he has no meaning or value through religion because otherwise, he would have had a different approach to responding (Miles). Henry goes through a sequence of misfortunate events. In the ambulance ride after his knee being blown off, “the man on the stretcher above [Henry] has a hemorrhage” (Hemingway 61). Blood drips onto him slowly, then drips faster and he cannot move so the annoying dripping stays. Later, when he is with Piani, Bonello and Aymo, their car gets stuck in the mud. They decided to go a back road to avoid traffic, which was muddy

Henry’s simplicity of life has defined him as a Hemingway Code Hero. A Hemingway Code Hero with the standard of simplicity of life “carry” themselves in a way that bespeaks the high regard of precision of speech and consistency of conduct (Scott). In A Farewell to Arms, Henry’s rituals prove his simplicity by not changing and sticking true to them. He typically asks and accepts alcohol with his meals, even offers wine to the people he meets, like the priest. He asks the priest if he will “drink a glass of vermouth” and while the priest declines and offers it back to Henry, Henry takes it and brings more for the priest (Hemingway 69). He also spends a lot of time with Catherine as he does not need any more people in his life, showing his simplistic nature. When Catherine is in the hospital, he goes to see her when he wants and ever since he met, he has always looked for a way to be with her. He has gone to the hospital when she’s working and stepped in the hospital room when she was in pain. Towards the end of the story when he goes out to cafe for lunch twice and orders the choucroute, he adds a “light demi” (318) or a “demi-blonde”(329) beer with it both times. Having a clean, well-lighted place also falls under the concept of simplicity of life. Having a clean and well-lighted place means showing symbols of order, purpose, meaning and value (Miles). In this case, his purpose, meaning and value, comes from Catherine. He wants to please Catherine and make her happy.