Analytical Essay-November 18, 2007
January 17, 2008Margo Eatmon
Mrs. Robinson
Hn English 3, 4th Period
18 November 2007
Hemingway’s War On War
“One is left with the horrible feeling now that war settles nothing; that to win a war is as disastrous as to lose one.” states author Agatha Christie, verbalizing the bleak anti-war judgments from Ernest Hemingway’s novel of World War I military existence. Influenced by the author’s own military jaunt, A Farewell To Arms expresses many of Hemingway’s biased sentiments—including his negative opinions of war—as inarguable fact. Energizing the exploration of the emotional ruins inflicted by wartime experience, mental quips and conversational narrative construct a text from which the horrors of war are to be inferred. With wild narrative insight, the writer has eliminated dispute of militant dehumanization as the tale climaxes in a misery that is rooted further than triumph and defeat.
The detachment expressed by the characters is most thoroughly perpetuated by the narrative form that lacks intonations of an ego, though a human spirit is forever present (as Frederic Henry). Unannounced revelations of the dormant persona, “feeling lonely and hollow” (41) shock the bland, matter-of fact storytelling of “[I] felt him take me by the collar” (222). Hemingway’s refrain from interjecting Henry’s “feelings” subtly imparts the disconnection apparent in the characters involved with the war, an indifference that the author may have found in himself during World War I. Although factual observations notify the audience of Henry’s position as a military officer, battle scenes lack expressive zeal, as if the war has no relevance to the protagonist; and quotes such as “there was fighting in the mountains” (3) are weakly presented, as if the narrator truly is uninvolved with the war and its details. Henry’s wartime apathy is epitomized by his explanation for joining the Italian army as an ambulance driver, “’I was in Italy’…’and I spoke Italian’” (22), as though he holds no personal estimations of the war and his role. Disinterest spills from Henry’s military existence into his private being, exemplified by Henry’s refrain from religion and his initial unconcerned bearing toward Catherine. Disinterest and detachment culminate in a combatant population void of analytical logic or personal emotion, dehumanized by their militant life.
“’If there is a war I suppose we must attack.’ ‘Must attack. Shall attack.’” (14), an exchange between the pious priest and a captain, reveals a lack of individual thought, which is resigned in the priest and patriotically nonexistent in the captain. Even when seemingly exclusive perspectives are revealed, the narrator explains them to be automated as well, as he did when describing the conflicting views of an Italian soldier: “Gino was a patriot, so he said things that separated us sometimes, but he was a fine boy and I understood his being a patriot. He was born one.” (185). An assumed need for war permeates the forces that are dehumanized to automaton existence. The mental processes of the soldiers become purely factual, and “[a]bstract words such as glory, honor, courage, or hallow were obscene beside the concrete names or rivers, the numbers of regiment, and the dates” (185). The great reliance on the titles of countries and citizenship solidifies the purport that the war is not the fulfillment of individual vendettas, but the concrete destruction of names. During the novel, Hemingway describes a night battle in which German soldiers cross the battle lines in Italian uniform, causing chaos among the Italian army. Because the uniforms serve as titles of ally, they are able to muddle a battle: ironically, the titles and allies of the countries on the war scale are just as interchangeable and malleable as the clothing. Despite the immensity of the disjointed thoughtlessness apparent among the characters, apathy is finally beaten by the misery of the infinite fight.
Morbid emotions eventually overcome the soldiers as comprehension of the deadly, heartless scope of the war is reached, and mindless automaton is replaced with aching despair. “You cannot believe how it has been,” Rinaldi confides in Henry, “Except that you have been there and you know how it can be. Many people have realized the war this summer. Officers whom I thought could never realize it realize it now.” (178). Progressively among soldiers in conversation, and even Henry’s narrative conscience, an expression of hopelessness appears, and the soldiers speculate of an endless war in which victory is unattainable. Even the brutal ache of jaundice—self-inflicted through alcohol consumption—serves more appeal to Henry than the unbounded bombings and warfare of World War I which are escaped with hospitalization. The pessimistic visions inspired by the front spread from Henry with increasing fervor, as he notes during Catherine’s childbirth “[T]his was the price you paid for sleeping together. This was the end of the trap. This was what people got for loving each other.” (320), indicating his perception that all is destined to end in destructive tragedy. Personal detachment is recognized as the result of fighting a war for someone else (like the national leaders), and the soldiers’ patriotic spirit degenerates. Likewise, the disinterest of the fighters is intensified by the atmosphere of resigned defeat, constructing a cycle of apathy and gloom. Ironically, most militants continue to battle in spite of their acknowledged insignificance to the war and the unattainability of victory: solidifying the ideal that human spirit and logic are washed away for war, leaving identical soldiers who, unquestioning, leap to serve orders. None of the facets of emotional destruction exist freely, without the motivation of the other changes imparted upon the war’s soldiers.
Irrefutably revealing his biased opinion through factual narrative, Ernest Hemingway expresses his distaste for war in his autobiographically inspired novel, A Farewell To Arms. The appalling degenerations of the human personality through apathy, uniformity, and anguish are evidence for the author’s proposal, clearly proving that war destroys the ego. Even though Hemingway did not tout his book as an outcry against war, the literary piece serves as a flawless stand against the desolation of combat.
