Ernest Hemingway's Farewell to Arms Term Paper

As a result, it is a "farewell to arms" that turns out badly. The farewell and the consequences were based on an unfortunate decision.

Johnson (1940, p. 89) adds that Frederick is not only saying farewell to arms of the war, but to all of society. He is purely separating from the war, refusing to be part of it. By doing so, he is isolating himself from the outside world. By his flight from the war, he is evading responsibility and emotion, taking refuge in simple primary sensations. In A Farewell to Arms," says Johnson, "it is society as a whole that is rejected, social responsibility, social concern. Lieutenant Henry is in the War, but his attitude is purely that of a spectator, refusing to be involved. He is leading a private life as an isolated individual." Penn Warren (1985, p. 58) explains that the individual is thrown back upon his private discipline and his private capacity to endure. The hero cuts himself off from the herd, the confused world. Frederick is then reborn into another world: he comes out into the world of the man alone, no longer supported by and involved in society. "Anger was washed away in the river along with my obligation...I had taken off the stars, but that was for convenience. It was no point of honor. I was not against them. I was through."

As far as Frederick is concerned, "I was always embarrassed by the words sacred, glorious and sacrifice and the expression in vain." Such words of abstraction "such as glory, honor, courage, or hallow were obscene beside the concrete names of villages, the number of roads, the names of rivers, the numbers of regiments and the dates." However, concludes Johnson, Hemingway is in fact saying that perhaps the only way that one can escape the realities, turn away from society, and gain a separate peace is through death.

Regardless of how one sees the title A Farewell to Arms being used, it is important to realize with Hemingway how he uses his symbolism and irony to enhance his novels. One can easily read this author on a "what you see is what you get" level, taking everything literally as written. However, what makes Hemingway such an excellent and noteworthy author are all the various levels beneath this literal one. Each time one reads his books, which initially seem so simple, they become more and more complex. They offer different interpretations and angles of study.

Thus, from the very beginning of the novel, from the title itself, Hemingway is giving clues to the readers. This book is about more than a man fleeing from the war and saying farewell to arms. It is also about a man who says goodbye to society as he knows it and, worse of all, he is saying goodbye to, and no longer holding in his arms, the woman he loves with all his heart and soul. Thus, instead of being wounded and suffering in the war itself, he ends up wounded and suffering from trying to find a separate peace.

References

Johnson, E. (1940) "Farewell the Separate Peace. Sewanee Review, 40, 289-290.

Lewis, R.W. (1965). Hemingway on Love. Austin: University of Texas Press.

Penn Warren, R. (1985). "Ernest Hemingway." In Ernest Hemingway, Modern Critical….....