Book One-Two

A Farewell to Arms by Hemingway is quite a slow book. The first two books, or sections, of his book deal with the experiences of Lieutenant Frederic Henry. The book starts in Late summer during world war one and takes places very near to the Italian front. Henry serves as an ambulance driver along with the rest of his men. He meets with a widow named Catherine Barkley, after his friend Rinaldi convinces him to, and slowly falls in love with her, and her to him. Although Henry pretends to love her for his own benefit, however Catherine sees through the charade and acknowledges it. During an enemy artillery barge, a few of his fellow drivers are killed and he is injured. He moves to an American hospital in Milan. He arrives to an empty hospital and Catherine is transferred to his hospital. He spends a few months there, and is eventually transferred back to the front. Catherine becomes pregnant during this time, and Henry promises to marry her. In this book, there seems to be this desire for adventure and risk in Henry. Firstly, being an American, Henry had no need to join the war in the first place. He traveled to an entire different continent to join this war after all. After he is injured, his desire for adventure doesn’t leave him. He wants to speed up his recovery because he is in “a hurry to get back to the front” even though the doctor tells him he should wait 6 months(86). Even with Ms.Barkley, he even makes an adventure out of her. He describes their relationship “was a game, like bridge”(26). This game is very exciting for Henry. He wants a new and better experience than “the girls” of the whorehouse(26). It's no wonder than that Ms.Barkley “feel[s] like a whore” because in fact Henry is treating her like one(133). His primary motivation seems to be the experience, even though he does seem to be very fond with her as they spend more time together. Henry’s desire for adventure seems to be very unique in this book. When Henry comes across another American, he finds that he “threw away” the truss “so it would get bed and” he wouldn’t be forced to get back to the line(30). Far from being brave, soldiers such as the one Henry found on the side of the road want none of the adventure that Henry was after. The only difference between Henry and the others seems to be his sense of mortality. While other soldiers mutinied in order to preserve their lives, Henry believes that he “would not be killed”(31). I’m willing to bet that Henry will learn something valuable about adventure and war in general as the story progresses since his thinking doesn’t appear to reflect the reality of the situation.