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A Farewell To Arms By Ernest Hemingway: Character Analysis

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In the novel, A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway, the protagonist Lieutenant Frederic Henry is an ambulance driver in Italy. He and a couple friends were enjoying some off time eating cheese and drinking wine when they were attacked by a trench mortar shell. Henry was badly wounded and was sent to a hospital in Milan for surgery. Three doctors came to look at his knee, and decided that they should wait six months to operate. On the other handotherhand, another doctor came in and claimed he could operate the following day. Frederic Henry chose to be operated on immediately. Hemingway’s decision to have Henry’s surgery right away was beneficial to plot of the story and character development. Many plot events would have been different if Henry decided to be operated on after six months. The nurses and house doctor at Ospedale Maggiore suggested the three doctors to come in to check on the Lieutenant. However, since Frederic Henry didn’t like their decision, he went back to the nurse saying he wanted a better doctor. He was able to get one, thus he had his surgery right away. During this time, Catherine Barkley and Frederic Henry got to know each other a little better. She was transferred to this hospital from the villas, where they had previously met. Originally, they met through Rinaldi who pushed Henry to visit when they had the conversation, “‘You will come with me to see miss Barkley.’ ‘No.’ ‘Yes. You will please come and make me a good impression on her’” (Hemingway 17). Ironically, …show more content…

CertainCetain plot events wouldn’;t have happened and the reader wouldn’t learn as much about the characters. Catherine and Frederic may have never had a relationship, they would have, most likely, not gotten pregnant, or they may have never even met. In the end, Hemingway’s decision to have Lieutenant Frederic Henry’s surgery immediately was favorable to the plot and the character

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In my point of view, Frederic Henry is his own villain. Throughout the novel the audience gets to roam his mind and search for what he really believes. In his own mind he is judgemental of everything and everyone around him. This is not a good quality. His pessimistic views about people, especially himself creates an almost extinct sense of self confidence.

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Frederic has become aware of the soul and in his relation with Catherine he has achieved a greater awareness of life more than the experience he has attained from war; he realizes that life extends beyond the physical desires and beyond the physical body and realizes that the men who insist to maintain the war ignore the soul. Hemingway once said that he rewrote the last page of the novel thirty-nine times before getting his satisfaction of it, which places the emphasis that Hemingway’s real goal was not to end the novel with the tragic vision of Catherine’s death but to reveal the betterment of the man after committing a fault against himself. Frederic, whose all previous concerns have been about the sensuality of his world and whom he has refused the existence of the soul unless he can see it, has attained a real love that has enabled him to realize the difference between the body and the soul.

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Another strength is the case provided help for further research like Corsi (1970) and the case R.B (1986) by Zola Morgan et al. And also this case gives us a detailed picture as it was studied for over 50 years. This is one very rare and strange case. However there are certain limitations, they are this case cannot be generalized as the findings are just based on Henry. Another limitation is only little information is known about Henry therefore comparison about before and after surgery cannot be made.

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