Farewell to Arms, Sexism in Research Paper

Frederic's character is somewhat stereotypical through the fact that he is determined to achieve glory by getting actively engaged in warfare. It is only consequent to becoming acquainted to Catherine and her thinking that he acknowledges the meaning of life and how his previous approach to dealing with it was irrational. Considering that Frederic gradually comes to accept that one cannot simply live by a set of immoral rules as a result of his encounter with Catherine, it is obvious that Hemingway was not discriminatory toward women in this novel. Instead, the author addressed a series of prejudices relating to women with the purpose of demonstrating that Catherine was capable of being equal and even better than Frederic. This is a reference to how women are not inferior to men.

In the end of the novel, Catherine's death has no connection whatsoever with Frederic, as Hemingway apparently wants to support the belief that it is because of her faulty biology as a woman that she made matters worse. According to Fetterley, "if we explore the attitude toward women in a Farewell to Arms, we will discover that while the novel's surface investment is in idealization, behind that idealization is a hostility whose full measure can be taken from the fact that Catherine dies and dies because she is a woman" (Fetterley 49).

Works cited:

1. Barlowe-Kayes, Jamie."Re-Reading Women: the Example of Catherine Barkley," Seven Decades of Criticism, ed. Linda Wagner-Martin. East Lansing, MI: Michigan State University Press, 1998. - Book

2. Bloom, Harold ed., Ernest Hemingway's a Farewell to Arms. Philadelphia: Chelsea House, 1987. - Book

3. Fetterley, Judith. The Resisting Reader: A Feminist Approach to American Fiction. Bloomington, in: Indiana University Press, 1978. - Book

4. Fiedler, Leslie a. Love and Death in the American Novel, Rev. ed. New York: Stein and Day, 1966. - Book

5. Fisher, Jerilin. Silber, Ellen S. "Women in literature: reading through the lens of gender." (Greenwood Publishing Group, 2003). - Book

6. Hatten, Charles. "The Crisis of Masculinity, Reified Desire, and Catherine Barkley in a Farewell to Arms," Journal of the History of Sexuality4.1 (1993): 76 -- Journal article

7. Hemingway, Ernest. A farewell to arms.….....