As you know, the novel “Farewell to Arms!” Was written by Ernest Hemingway in his young years. He was not yet thirty years old. In the preface to the illustrated edition of 1948, the author shares his impressions of the work on the book.
He was not upset that the novel was tragic, since he considered life in general a tragedy, where the outcome was a foregone conclusion. But he was glad that he was able to compose, moreover, so truthfully that he himself was pleased to read. These feelings were new to Hemingway. But the novel became famous throughout the world. Below you will read a summary of it.
"A Farewell to Arms!"
The novel tells about the fate of the American Frederick Henry, a lieutenant of the Italian sanitary forces, who volunteered to go to the front. America then did not enter the First World War. The author shows her as she was. Where the sanitary units stood, it was still quiet. Officers from idleness drink, play cards and debauchery with local girls of easy virtue.
Nearby is an English hospital where they are sent to serve the young nurse Catherine Barkley. 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
Fighting is likely to begin soon, and until then, Henry has been caring for a nurse out of boredom. Gradually, the lieutenant falls in love with a kind and beautiful girl. But war is war, they have to part.
In the battle, Frederick was wounded at the feet and taken to the hospital, where Katherine was unexpectedly sent. Gradually, the protagonist realizes that he is not created for war. He wants to live, eat, sleep with his beloved woman. So you can fit in a couple of lines a brief summary.
“Goodbye, weapons!” Hemingway, however, is much more about human dignity and the author’s disgust for war, for any kind of violence.
The main character of the novel, Henry, gets into his head various sad thoughts, like the fact that war breaks some people and makes others stronger. But those who do not want to break down are killed, they are always killed by the best, kind, gentle and brave - indiscriminately.
He decides that for him and Katherine the war is over, and they are deserting 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 dreams of a happy future life, constantly talk and walk. They learn about the war from the newspapers, and it seems so distant to them ...
Katherine is pregnant, and there is a chance that the birth will be difficult. Happiness breaks off just as suddenly. Childbirth is difficult, she undergoes a cesarean section, but it's too late. At the end of the novel, everything ends with death. Katherine and the baby die, Henry is left alone ...
The meaning of the novel
So it was supposed to happen. The war itself is tragic, and love against the background 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 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, suicide cases have become commonplace. It seemed that in the world there were no moral values, no ideals. Many committed suicide only because of the stock market crash they lost their income. This tragedy did not go around the Hemingway family: his father committed suicide. The writer did not like to talk about it, he loved his father too much, but believed that his father was in a hurry.
To understand the meaning of the narrative, it is not enough just to read the full or summary. “Farewell, weapons!” Must be read in full to represent those times, plunge into the era and at least put yourself in the place of heroes.
Screen adaptation of the book
Fortunately, today with the help of cinema you can imagine everything. The novel was filmed several times.
In 1932, the film directed by Frank Borzeyli “Farewell to Arms!” Was released. The film was nominated for four Academy Award, but received only two: for the best sound and best camera work. 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, American director Charles Widor makes the film "Farewell to Arms!" based on the eponymous novel by Ernest Hemingway. This film was less successful, only the supporting actor was nominated for an Oscar for the role of a friend of the main character Rinaldi.
The story 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. The description of the war, this massacre, meaningless for the most part, is reliable and ruthless. Hemingway has a lot of space devoted to the feat, but he also truthfully narrates about that time and the meanness of the government. So, the Italian authorities punished everyone who does not want to fight.
A soldier who has left the battlefield is awaiting execution, or the shame will fall on the rest of his family. They will lose the right to state protection, suffrage, and 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 that it will all be over soon.
At first, Henry goes to war, because he prefers to take the side of the people with whom he has lived recently than to return to his homeland and undergo training in a military camp. His decision to say, “Farewell to arms!” Is influenced by love for Katherine, but not only that. When he, a wounded man, is hardly taken to a hospital, he is constantly dropped from shots, and in the car, the blood of a dead soldier drips onto him. This is an absurd and terrible situation.
Love in romance
Hemingway, “Farewell to Arms!”, Devoted not only to war; love takes the main place in the novel. Love is selfless, sacrificial, real. Nurse Katherine loves Henry so much that she does not care about her status, that she is pregnant, single, 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 so that Fred is happy, she does not need the world around her. Although the characters are not religious, but in the novel there is a place where Catherine gives Henry the image of St. Anthony to the holy shore of her lover.
Dying, Katherine is true to herself. She does not need a doctor or a priest, she wants only Henry to be nearby. The question of the transition from one world to another Hemingway describes simply. It is evident that he is not afraid of death, like his heroes.
The task of the artist
Summary “Farewell to Arms!” - the novel of the famous American writer Ernest Hemingway - cannot reflect the whole tragedy of the book. You must read it to the end. Many critics believed that this novel is the backstory of the novel "Fiesta", where the protagonist, who came from the war as a disabled person, does not lose his temper, and keeps his honor.
Andrei Platonov, after reading “Farewell to Arms!” In 1938, understood the main idea of the author. He wrote that for Hemingway the main idea was to preserve human dignity. This feeling must still be found, educated in himself, perhaps at the cost of hard 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 truth can help a person. Therefore, in his piercing work “The Old Man and the Sea” it is clear what a person is capable of and what he can endure.
Of the Russian writers, Hemingway admired Tolstoy, Turgenev, Dostoevsky and Chekhov. But, despite his admiration, he rejected the very idea of imitation of geniuses. Each writer must find his own style, his own style of writing, in his own way to see and capture the surrounding reality.
Conclusion
In addition to honesty, he considered clarity to be his motto. “Writing with honest clarity is more difficult than writing with intentional complexity,” are the words of the author of the novel “Farewell to Arms!”
Hemingway reviews are different. But many people who grew up in the USSR remember the years 80-90, when a portrait of the American writer Ernest Hemingway hung in almost every house.