You Go Girl: A Critique on the Feminism Critiques of A Farewell to Arms

            The novel “A Farewell to Arms” demeans women by its use of Catharine as the central female character and presenting her as possessing a weaker character than Henry. This weaker character is shown through Catharine’s constant appeasement of Henry’s wants and needs, her constant pursuit of approval from him, as well as through Henry’s treatment of other female characters.

            Many critics have claimed that Catharine is actually a strong character in the novel that is important in mentoring Henry. In “Catharine Barkley and the Hemingway Code” a literary critique, the author Spanier describes the code heroes in Hemingway’s novels as “that person already initiated into the cruelties and absurdities in life, who has devised practical means to cope” and names Catharine that hero. Spanier attempts to refute previous arguments that Catharine is a “leech-like shadow” and other literary critiques that Catharine is a submissive dream-girl by saying that she believes Catharine is there to teach Henry by example how to “cope”. By doing this Spanier deems Catharine as the code hero in the novel. But I feel that neither character is helping the other, they are both trying to learn to cope with the war. Their quick ascension into love is like a game that distracts them from thinking about the unpleasantness of the war. This game is evident through their conversations about the relationship they share. This façade is evident during their conversation while in the hospital when Catharine asks, “How many people have you ever loved,” and Henry responds, “Nobody,” (104). Clearly he is lying because before he met Catharine the novel explained the many expeditions to the whore houses Henry went on with the other officers. But Catharine doesn’t care; she wants him to continue keeping the distraction going, she even tells him, “It’s all right. Keep right on lying to me. That’s what I want you to do” (104). The idea that Catharine wants to keep Henry in this delusion and not face the war going on is not the kind of mentoring that a code hero should be employing. Eventually the war will catch up with them as it does during the retreat and her death ends the distraction that Henry held onto for so long.

            Other critics go to the other extreme of the argument, that Catharine is the pitfall of Henry and that women in general are the cause of the pain of men. This is not the case either. While I agree that Catharine is a submissive and weak character, I do not agree that she or other women in fact, are the cause of men’s troubles. Hemingway presents the women in his novel as weaker than men, and if they show any sort of strength they are perceived as horrible women like Nurse Van Campen. Some people say that after a while people with dogs start to resemble the animal themselves. This is the case with Catharine as well. While telling Henry about her ex fiancé Catharine tells him that she wanted to cut it all off when he died and that she, “wanted to do something for him… he could have had anything he wanted if [she] would have known” (19). This is evidence that Catharine herself does not have a real character; she is so passive with her own characteristics that she starts taking on her lovers personalities and appeasing to everything they want. This is something that I’m assuming no feminist approves of. As Catharine and Henry’s love story develops Catharine starts to do anything for Henry and he starts to depend on that. Catharine also depends on Henry and shows her weak character. She tells Henry she wants to cut her hair like his, “then [they’d] both be alike,” and that she wants so much to be like him. While with both men Catharine mentions cutting her hair to please them, one of the ways women are held apart from men is the length of their hair and her wanting to cut off her hair to be like the men in her life is a statement about women’s weakness that Hemingway tries to point out in this novel.

Hemingway points out the weakness in Catharine through Henry’s constant use of her without her telling him no, finally Fergy has to tell him to stop calling on her so often because she is tired. The reader also sees this through her constant search for approval from him even to the end of her life giving childbirth. During this modern age of feminism childbirth is depicted as a sort of blaming period, where the woman yells and screams at the man while he does nothing. But Hemingway’s scene of childbirth further aids to Catharine being perceived as a weak character with her constant apologizing to Henry and the doctor, “I’m not very good, darling… I’m so sorry” (316). Catharine is very calm and quiet during her childbirth which is not a very easy thing to do. While I feel that Catharine is not the drastic downfall of Henry just as much as she is not the heroine of the novel, her character still aids in the process of Henry’s depression by the end of the novel by not letting his character recognize the harshness of the war and be able to cope with the bitterness of his life. Hemingway’s description of women as the weaker gender is very apparent in this novel, and it is very evident in this novel that women of this time were not valued and treated like objects. Even though Henry claims that he loves Catharine when she dies all he says is, “Poor, poor dear Cat… This was the end of the trap…Thank God for gas anyway…” (320). It seems that he is more in a panic and afraid of the façade they created together dying rather than an overwhelming loving feeling towards her that most novels would create.

Sweet and Delusional: The Madness of War in "A Farewell to Arms"

Ernest Hemingway believed that there is a graver reality to war that many people fail to recognize, and that people attach their own delusions to the idea of war in order to romanticize the seriousness of it. This is demonstrated as Hemingway alludes to the poem “Sweet and Low”, a ballad by Tennyson, in his novel “A Farewell to Arms”. But Hemingway jumbles up the poem within the allusion causing it to be difficult to understand which further emphasizes his feelings on the confusion of war.

            The first half of the novel the focus of the story seems to be on love, and the war is just waiting in the background. But with the retreat that Hemingway describes comes a shift in the novels themes and during the second half of “A Farewell to Arms” Hemingway brings to focus a darker and more realistic story of the war. His allusion to Tennyson’s “Sweet and Low” emphasizes Hemingway’s opinion of the war because even though the allusion to the poem is there, Hemingway seems to mix up the way the words are written, as well as throwing in allusions to similar poems. This jumble of ideas parallels to Hemingway’s point that the war is mad. The allusion starts as Henry is falling asleep while he is in the caravan of cars and he is dreaming of Catharine and says, “Blow, blow ye western wind” (197).  Henry is thinking of Catharine and wants her near him, like the speaker wants his son near him in the poem. Hemingway employs a variety of short sentences in this passage to further confuse the reader. Henry seems crazier as this thought process goes on as he says, “…the big rain down that rained. It rained all night. You knew it rained down that rained. Look at it” (197). The use of short sentences that don’t flow together help the reader call to attention that Henry is in a delusional or dreamlike state. While in this state he thinks about Catharine and imagines that she is there with him. Catharine and Henry’s relationship for the first half of the novel was the dominant focal point, and as Hemingway shifted away from the theme of love to war Henry’s thinking of that relationship is set up as a figment of his imagination while the reality of war is buzzing about Henry.

            While Henry is brought out of the reality in his delusional state he is able to analyze the war; he says, “Well, we were in it. Every one was caught in it and the small rain would not quiet it” (197). The small rain could be a symbol for the delusions of war and earlier in this scene when Henry talks about the “big rain” (197), he could be referring to the war. The “small rain that could not quiet it” emphasizes that the dreamlike state that Henry has had, and the fact that it cannot quiet it illustrates Hemingway’s idea that the war is a harsh reality and we cannot escape reality.

Down by the River: Washing Away Romantic Illusions in "A Farewell to Arms"

In “A Farewell to Arms” Hemingway uses the story of Fredrick Henry during World War One to convey his idea that many people have romantic illusions of the war which are wrong, and that there is a graver reality of war that they fail to recognize.  Hemingway conveys his theme through the use many archetypes, one of which is through his use of geography, and more specifically the floating of a river.

During the retreat Henry floats down a river in search of an escape.  Hemingway uses the river as an archetype for the changing of Henry’s illusions, and having a harsh reality set before him.  Up until this point in the novel Henry is presented as disconnected from everything, like he is just floating through the war without any consciousness. This all changes during the great retreat as Henry seems to be snapped back into reality. Hemingway starts the description of this scene with the sentence, “You do not know how long you are in a river when the current moves swiftly” (226).  Hemingway’s description of the river moving swiftly could describe Henry’s life until now. It moved so swiftly and Henry got caught up in the illusions of the war. This is further enforced as Henry describes trying to remove himself from the river as he “could see the brush, but even with my momentum and swimming as hard as I could, the current was taking me away” (227). Henry can now see the grim truth of the war as he can see the brush on the side of the river. But he can’t quite get a hold of it yet because he has been swept away by the momentum of the river and his life within the war.

Many associate rivers with washing or renewal and baptism, which is what happens to Henry during this scene in the novel. There is a renewal of psyche as Henry switches from being a part of the war to being completely washed from it. His journey washes away his commitment to the military and any obligations he had towards the war have been washed away with the river. This baptismal renewal brings about a change in what how Henry views his life. In the beginning of the novel Henry is with many different women and drinks heavily and just doesn’t care deeply about the other people associated with his life. But with this scene Henry is given a new sense of what is important in his life.  As he climbs out of the river Henry, “cut the cloth stars off my sleeves” (227). This act of stripping himself of his stars earned during the war is a representation of Henry stripping himself from the romantic ideals of the war.