Book report on A Farewell to Arms
A Farewell to Arms was written by Earnest Miller Hemingway (July21, 1899—July2, 1962), who was an American writer and journalist.He was part of the 1920s expatriate community in Paris, and one of the veterans of World War one later known as “the lost generation”.He received the Pulitzer Price in 1953 for The Old Man and the Sea in literature in 1954.
During his lifetime, Hemingway wrote many famous books such as Three stories and Ten Poems (1923), The Sun Also Rises (1926), A Farewell to Arms (1929), For Whom the Bell Tolls (1940), The Old Man and the Sea (1953).Most of the protagonists in his novels are typically social men who exhibit an ideal described as “grace under preure”.And many of his works are now considered claics of American literature.Earnest Hemingway’s 1929 novel, A Farewell to Arms, is often regarded as his best artistic achievement with 80,000 copies sold within the first four months.The novel is set in World War one, but it should be claified as a historical romance instead of a war novel.The love story circles around two people, Frederic Henry and Catherine Barkley.Frederic is a young American ambulance driver who volunteers for service with the Italian army in World War one.During his service, he falls in love with Catherine, who is a beautiful English nurse.At first, their relationship is just a game based on their respective purposes.However, later in the story, Frederic is wounded and sent to the American hospital where Catherine works.It is in that hospital that Frederic realizes his feelings for Catherine have become extremely evident.So their relationship further develops and they begin a paionate love affair.During a maive retreat from the Austrians and Germans, Frederic is forced to shoot an engineer and therefore falls into a dilemma.Tired of war, he decides to escape with Catherine and seclude from the annoying world.Having succefully escaped to Switzerland, they live in peace and harmony until the tragic end of Catherine’s pregnancy, during which both she and the child died.To Frederic, Catherine’s dead body is like a stature; he walks back to his hotel without figuring out a way to say goodbye, seemingly lost forever.
In A Farewell to Arms, one of the themes of Frederic Henry’s adventure as an ambulance driver during World War one is identity.Identity is important to the story in that it exprees the general question of the individual in the postwar world.People began doubting the values that war brought about.In order to escape from war, people tend to find different substitutes for relieving themselves, and love is one of them.However, the love tragedy between Frederic and Catherine proves that war is nothing more than the dark, murderous extension of a world that refuses to acknowledge, protect or preserve true love.
