Filed under: Uncategorized
Sarah Grenier
Ms. Robinson
Hon English III
12/5/2007
Key to the Kingdom: Hemmingway’s Nonessentials to a Happy Life
What makes each hectic day more valuable than the preceding ones? Is it triumph? Is it love? Is it the American Dream? In George Peele’s poem “A Farewell to Arms,” he establishes his three constituents to a prosperous and satiating life: “Duty, faith, love, are roots, and ever green.” Ernest Hemmingway ironically adopts the same title, A Farewell to Arms, for his book to exploit duty, faith, and love as superficial transient elements of life. Duty is demeaned by situational irony; faith is bashed by characterization and figurative language. Drastically, a motif, a symbol, and indirect characterization unmercifully flay love.
In comparison to his brutality against love, Hemmingway almost weakly degrades duty because of the blind following the word often invokes. Frederic Henry, the protagonist in A Farewell to Arms, is American but he is taken as a German in disguise and “ordered to be shot” (224). This situational irony undermines an axiom that duty to a country is honorable and glorious; because, the officers who rightfully earn their status are tactlessly taken for granted. This irony reflects Hemmingway’s belief that duty is an unrealistic, ambiguous term, due to the abstract definition, that causes many unnecessary deaths. Soldiers’ duty is also abused by those who “make money out of it” from the war is softly whispered in the expensively furnished studies of presidents (51). One is able to credit this interpretation because of the cynical tone taken on by soldiers when discussing the war and the just abandonment of duty to the Italian Army by Bonello and Frederic Henry.
Religion and faith, which shape a plurality of the world’s population, are audaciously mocked by the characterization of their proxy, the priest, and a simple yet bold metaphor employed by Catherine Berkley. The “small, brown-faced, and embarrassed” priest is taunted due to this love of God and the speculation of masturbation (68); “Five against one!” (15). Hemmingway mocks the stand-in for religion to imply that practices of the faithful are unnatural and inane, like the Saint Anthony necklace that does not protect Frederic against immediate hazards. Direct and indirect characterization expounds on the priest’s personality to create a shy and awkward portrait; these unfavorable attributes continue to demean God’s message of faithful duty by calling his devotees pathetic. Furthermore, Catherine claims “you are my religion” when speaking to her husband, Frederic (116). By use of this metaphor, faith condescends to a frivolous notion other than its usual serious and holy context. These literary devices bring faith and religion off of their gold pedestal and place them on the examination table while the human-psyche sharpens its scalpel.
Lastly, Hemmingway utilizes a metaphor, a symbol, and characterization, and calamity to rape love of plausible recognition. For example, the narrator metaphorically dubs love a game, specifically bridge, which challenges the accepted opinion that love should not be played with. Also, rain, which symbolizes peril in the book, frequently develops a gloomy atmosphere around Catherine and Frederic’s relationship. It haunts the duo in numerous settings: the mountains, the hospital, and even on the boat to Switzerland. The symbol alludes to the misfortune or problem to ensue. Furthermore, depicting Catherine as a detached, subservient woman to her quasi-husband is undeniably quixotic in a love-bound relationship; giving her this person makes their love superficial as she acts like a Stepford wife.
The final crack of the whip resonates through the climax and the unemotional resolution; Hemmingway implies that love perpetually ends in calamity with this line, “And this is the price you paid for sleeping together. This is what people got for loving each other” (320). Notice the arrangement of “sleeping together” mentioned before “loving each other” that subtly hints at their respective importance. In addition, the entire conversation between the desensitized Frederic and the doctor after Catherine died shows no devotion to Catherine, their child, or their love. These examples imply that love is a bad joke which Hemmingway experience first-hand while in the Italian Army.
In essence, duty, faith, and love are not the constituents to a gratifying life according to Hemmingway who explains himself through a fictional allegory of this own experiences. He employs numerous literary devices in realistic situations to credit his beliefs contrary to George Peele’s. One of the few mentions of anything palatable in life states, “Good whiskey was very pleasant. It was one of the pleasant parts of life” (310). Maybe the only essential ever accepted by Hemmingway was a bottle.
