A farewell to Arms:
Concept of code hero.
Hemingway's hero
Lt. Fredric Henry, the
protagonist in A Farewell to Arms, exemplifies Hemingway's code
hero in several ways. Like a typical Hemingway’s hero he is a wounded man not
only physically but also psychologically. He is a man who engages in life,
rather than observing it as a bystander. He maintains self-control in the face
of overwhelming adversity, and he does not demonstrate self-pity.
Like Hemingway’s other code heroes, Lt. Henry is existentially removed
from the world. He possesses personal integrity, often feels isolated and
remains stoic for most of the time. He is a rationalist and pragmatist who
brings everything to the test of experience. Most of all, Lt. Henry functions
as a Hemingway code hero because he faces life with courage, and he endures
life with dignity.
The character of Lt. Henry is a prime
example of a Hemingway hero. He shows a general loss of faith in conventional
morality. Henry respects the priest, but he says flat out that he does not
believe in God. In the start of the novel, Henry
immerses himself into the sensual pleasures that surround him.
In the beginning, his views on life and
the war are extremely naive, innocent, and idealistic. "Only seven thousand have
died" of war and cholera, he comments early
on. This illustrates his innocent perception of the war because he
doesn't acknowledge how many people have actually died. Like a typical
Hemingway’s hero, he enjoys much of drinking and love-making in the beginning
but undergoes tremendous development during the course of the novel.
“American Tenete” Fredrick Henry is
stoic under duress or pain; he is unflappable under fire, he does his work. He
is “man’s man” in that his thoughts
revolve on women and drink. He is an American who enlists in
the Italian army during World War I, a dangerous role he assumes by
choice. As an officer who commands an ambulance unit, he serves on the front
lines, exposing himself to the greatest danger. Henry endures a lot
of pain, but always understates his condition. Even When he is
severely wounded in the battle, he does not let his suffering show.
"I...leaned
over and put my hand on my knee. My knee wasn't there."
He does not freak out and
complain, he just realizes it is what it is.
Indigenous to nearly all of Ernest
Hemingway’s novels, the “Hemingway man” lives by one simple rule: “Man the player is born; life
the game will kill him”. Frederic’s development is enhanced by
his relationship with the English nurse, Catherine Barkley. Originally,
Catherine is nothing more than an object of sensual desire, but as the novel
progresses, Catherine becomes symbolic of Frederic’s final resolution. Having
discovered the value of his relationship with Catherine, Frederic returns to
the front, only to find the army in complete and utter chaos. Frederic is
welcomed by his old friends but is greatly disturbed by their low morale.
As the novel continues, Lt. Henry
eventually deserts the army, but this is not as an act of cowardice. Caught up
in the chaos and carnage of a military retreat, he leaves the army to save his
own life. Frederic no longer feels obligated to
serve a country to which he does not belong. His allegiance is shattered when
he witnesses Italian officials shooting their own men. He will not sacrifice
his life to a senseless death. He no longer feels a part of the war; he feels
isolated from it. He declares an individual separate peace and acts decisively
to make his way back to Catherine.
Despite the cruelty of the world, Henry is able to find
some moments of solace. Reunited with Catherine, and far away from the
decimated Italian countryside Lt. Henry enjoys a period of peace and
happiness with her as they await the birth of their baby. When she dies in
childbirth and the baby dies, also, Lt. Henry is truly alone. Catherine’s untimely
death has driven Frederic into a senseless cesspool of babbling thoughts.
“Get
away hell! It would have been the same if we had been married fifty times. And
what if she should die? She won’t die. People don’t die in childbirth nowadays.
… It’s just nature giving her hell”.
These words show Frederic’s scattered
train of thought. He attempts to shield himself from death with these cliches.
Frederic even begins to pray to God in one last futile attempt but in vain. Nolan remarks:
“What
Hemingway portrays, in fact, is a good, albeit a disappointed and disillusioned
man trying to fulfill his various obligations.”
After Catherine’s “murder” by the Biological Trap, Henry’s disillusionment is revealed in his last tragic note:
After Catherine’s “murder” by the Biological Trap, Henry’s disillusionment is revealed in his last tragic note:
“But
after I had got them out and shut the door and turned off the lights it wasn't
any good. It was like saying good-by to a statue.”
He walks away, in the
rain. He is isolated in his grief, but he will endure this greatest of all his
losses.
To
conclude, by the end of the novel Henry’s metamorphosis is complete and he is
fitting into the definition of Hemingway’s code hero because he has progressed
so much from the beginning to the end.
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