In his landmark novel, A Farewell to Arms, Ernest Hemingway deftly combines themes about individual identity with those of patriotism and war in a book that many consider to be a love story.
The Theme of Identity
From the outset of the novel, the identity of the narrator is in question. The reader does not discover the name of the narrator until more than twenty pages into the novel. Frederic Henry maintains the role of outsider throughout the entire story. He is an American volunteer on the Italian front. People with entirely different backgrounds from his own surround him. Even the woman he falls in love with comes from a culture very different from American culture.
After Catherine slaps Henry for kissing her, he tries to explain his actions away by saying “"You see I've been leading a sort of a funny life. And I never even talk English. And you are so very beautiful." (31)
Henry’s strong sense of alienation helps creates a sense of detachment in his descriptions of events and conversations. For instance, when Henry makes a call on Catherine, he enters a conversation with the head nurse. She questions him about why he is an American in the Italian army. He asks if he could join the British, she replies that he can’t now. So Henry goes on to explain that he joined because he was in Italy when the war started and he spoke Italian.
At another time, Henry said that it was impossible to salute foreigners (those not in the Italian army) without embarrassment because “The Italian salute never seemed made for export.” (27)
Some critics suggest that Henry spends most of the book creating his identity in other people culminating in finding his identity in Catherine when he says near the end of the book “We’re the same one.” (270) However, one of the great tragedies in the book is that Henry loses this piece of identity when Catherine dies.
The Theme of Individualism
Most of the characters in the novel A Farewell to Arms are tired of war. As a result, they turn away from group identities that are found in things such as tradition, patriotism, glory, and sacrifice.
Henry says “I had seen nothing sacred and the things that were glorious had no glory and the sacrifices were like the stockyards at Chicago if nothing was done with meat except to bury it…Abstract words such as glory, honor, courage, or hallow were obscene beside the concrete names of villages, the numbers of roads, the names of rivers, the numbers of regiments, and the dates.” (169)
As a result, Henry turns away from ideals, such as patriotism, that create nations and chooses to honor the individual people, places, and times.
The character Rinaldi carries the rejection of the group identity even further and makes the existentialist statement “We never get anything. We are born with all we have and we never learn. We never get anything new.” The only group identity found amongst people of the existentialist mindset is one which says ‘We are born alone, we die alone, and nothing is added to our aloneness.’
In Count Greffi, the idea of tradition and the individual exist together. Greffi represents the old world, yet ultimately his advice is given as an ‘unattractive wisdom’ and ‘a religious feeling.” Greffi tells Henry that old men do not grow wise they grow careful and that love is a religion. He also tells Henry that young nations win wars for a time and then they become old nations and begin to lose. As a result, Greffi undermines the value of tradition and nationalism.
The isolation of the individual ultimately drives Catherine and Henry into each other’s arms. However, when Catherine dies Henry finds that he is once again alone. It is impossible to live in another’s identity.
The Theme of Patriotism
The concept of war is preceded by the idea of patriotism. The love of country and the willingness to sacrifice all for one’s country is the patriot’s reason for joining the battle.
The character Gino embodies Hemingway’s idea of what a patriot looks like. Henry says that Gino was born a patriot and was a fine boy and that he couldn’t help himself.
Catherine Barkley dismisses patriotism by saying that “Anybody may crack.”
Rinaldi dismisses it as an industrial accident “It’s a simple industrial accident.”
Frederic Henry his embarrassed by words that are used by patriots such as “sacred, glorious, and sacrifice, and the expression in vain.”
The Theme of War
Hemingway does not portray war as something glorious in his novel, A Farewell to Arms. At best the war is something tiresome that all the combatants are beginning to feel will last forever. When Catherine and Henry discuss their possible future they believe that their child will fight in the same war that they are enduring. Perhaps their child will even try out two branches of the military since they are sure the war will go forever.
During a conversation with his friend the priest, Henry argues that the winners never stop fighting, which means the war will never end. He claims that peasants are wise because they are defeated from the start
Catherine believes that if people really understood war, “it couldn’t all go on.” War is no longer a personal battle where people are injured face to face with a saber rather they are blown all to bits like her fiancé.
When the individual no long believes in a group identity, when the individual is no longer a patriot; he walks way. Desertion is simply a denial of patriotism and of a national identity. It is the individual turning away and making A Farewell to Arms.
Hemingway, Ernest. A Farewell to Arms. Scribner Classics. 1997. ISBN-13: 978-0-684-83788-8 ISBN-10: 0-684-83788-9
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