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First Person POV in Hemingway's A Farewell To Arms

Uploaded by selenatrichel on Jan 08, 2007

Ernest Hemingway's A Farewell to Arms is a story written through the eyes of American Lieutenant Frederick Henry during World War I. Henry tells of his time spent in the Italian army and of his first true love-Catherine Barkley. Frederick provides such detail that a feeling of first-hand experience is left with the reader. It is not obvious whether the character Frederick Henry is directing his story to a certain audience or not, but it is very obvious that he stayed true to himself while telling it. His actions, his conversations, and even his inner-most thoughts are shared in the most unrestricted sense. He hides nothing from the reader, and that makes the story so much more poignant. When he is at the front, his fear strikes the reader in the most authentic meaning. When Henry speaks of his love for Catherine, his passion emanates from the pages and the reader can feel it, alive and real. Finally, when Henry loses Catherine and his first child, it iss as if two of the reader's closest family members have been lost. If Hemingway's novel had been written in any other point of view, much of the value of A Farewell to Arms would be lost.

Lieutenant Frederick Henry is a middle-class American who joins the Italian army and speaks Italian fluently. He manages the ambulance vehicles and the ambulance drivers on the front. His dad died before he ever entered the army, and he had been living with his mother who was remarried. Before Henry meets Catherine, he has never loved and is like most of the other soldiers in his platoon- he is a womanizer and spends most of his free time split between brothels and a bottle of liquor. Catherine is an English V.A.D at a local British hospital. She has loved one man before, but he was killed in the military. When Henry falls for Catherine, he is transformed from an immature and uncommitted boy to a responsible and stable young father. A Farewell to Arms is Lieutenant Frederick Henry's personal account of that transformation.

It is not obvious by the character Frederick Henry whether he is directing his story to a certain audience or not but it is very obvious that he stayed true to himself while telling it. Within the fist few chapters of A Farewell to Arms, Frederick Henry describes his surroundings with such detail...

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Uploaded by:   selenatrichel

Date:   01/08/2007

Category:   Literature

Length:   4 pages (921 words)

Views:   4526

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