Free Essays - A Farewell to Arms as Historical Romance :: Farewell Arms Essays

A Farewell to Arms - historical Romance    The novel A Farewell to Arms should be separate as a historical romance.  Many people in exercise this account book could interpret this to be a war novel, when in position it was peerless of the great romance novels written in its time.  When reading this book you notice how every important event of the war is overshadowed by the healthful make do story behind it.             The love story is circled around both people, Frederic Henry and Catherine Barkley.  Frederic is a young American ambulance driver with the Italian regular army in World War I.  He meets Catherine, a beautiful slope nurse, near the front of Italy and Austria.  At first Frederics kinship with Catherine consists of a game based on his attempts to seduce her.  He does make one attempt to kiss her, and is quickly slapped by an offended Catherine.  Later in the story, Frederic is wou nded and sent to the American hospital where Catherine works.  Here he finds a part of him he has never had before, the ability to love.  This is where his feelings for Catherine become extremely evident.  Their relationship progresses and they begin a passionate love affair.             After his stay in the hospital, Frederic returns to the war front.  During this period, Hemmingway heavily indicates the love Frederic has for Catherine.  It is evident that Frederic is distracted by his love for Catherine.             During a massive retreat from the Austrians and the Germans, the Italian forces become disordered and chaotic.  Frederic is agonistic to shoot an engineer sergeant under his command, and in the confusion is arrested by the Italian military police for the crime of not being Italian.  gross out with the Army and facing death, Frederic decides he has had enough of the war he dives in to the river to escape.             After swimming to safety, Frederic boards a train and reunites with Catherine.  She is pregnant with their baby.  With the help of an Italian bartender, Catherine and Frederic escape to Switzerland, and plan to marry after the baby is born.  When Catherine goes into labor, the doctor dead discovers that her pelvis is too narrow to deliver the baby.  He attempts an unsuccessful caesarean delivery section, and she dies in childbirth with the baby.  To Frederic, her dead body is like a statue he walks back to his hotel without finding a way to say goodbye, seemingly doomed forever.