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The Context in A Farewell to Arms

a short student analysis of context in Hemingway's novel.


What influences the author to write a book? It is either his or her experiences, or what is happening in the world at that time.
What was the major influence for Ernest Hemingway to write A Farewell to Arms? There were two. One was World War I, and the other, his 'love affair' with Agnes Von Kurowsky.
At this time, Hemingway lives in Key West, Florida, but the book was published by Jonathon Cape Ltd in Great Britain.

The basic storyline of A Farewell to Arms is that Frederick Henry, an American in the Italian ambulance service, is serving on the Italian Front in World War I. He gets injured in the legs and is sent to a hospital where he finds Catherine Barkley, a nurse he met earlier on in the story, and falls in love with her. When he is sent back to the front, there is a disaster, and whilst he is returning, he finds he is a wanted man. He decides to flee to Switzerland and take Catherine Barkley with him.

What is happening at the world, is called the context. The main event in society which influenced A Farewell to Arms was World War I. The novel was published in 1929, and World War I was from 1914 to 1918, since then the world has been (and still is) recovering from that great disaster.
World War I had great consequences on the world. It brought many changes in society. Many young men died during the war, but this affected France more than any other country, because it's population dropped, because of a low birth rate. Millions of people were affected. Some who had fled the areas because of war returned to homes which they fled to find houses, farms, or villages destroyed. Others became refugees as a result of changes in governments and national borders.
Urban areas grew, because many people did not return to their old way of life, like peasants settled in cities instead of returning to farming. Women had gotten jobs in offices and factories while the men went to war, and now that they had had some independence, they were reluctant to give it up. Many countries gave women a right to vote after the war.
Society had become more democratic. The upper classes which traditionally governed the countries, were now losing some of their power and the fighting men, the veterans of the war, came to demand a say in running it.
World War I shattered the bravado and, you might call it, the snob attitudes of European civilisation. Many questioned their right to force their culture on the rest of the world - and in my opinion, are right to do so. One of the better outcomes of World War I, is that it shattered the belief of superiority of the European civilisation.
During the war, the peoples views changed from one of optimism at the beginning - a view that it would be a quick war, and that they would win it easily (both sides had this view). But when the war started, the view of optimism quickly switched to one of pessimism. The death and destruction had an effect on all.
People's assumptions about the world, life, religion and social order had been shaken after the war. No longer were the upper class the only ones in demand for governance, but also those who had faced the dangers of the war.

Also, the war was between the Allies and the Central Powers. There were several neutral countries. When Frederick Henry and Catherine Barkley flee, they flee into a neutral country.

'""Switzerland is down the lake, we can go there.""'
Pg. 179

This is where Henry and Catherine decide to go to Switzerland. During World War I, Switzerland was a neutral country. Henry and Catherine are in Italy, near the Italian front, and the closest neutral country to there was Switzerland, so it only seemed logical that they should go there.

As Frederick Henry moves throughout the Italian countryside, he sees a country ravaged by the war. He stays in many abandoned farm houses, eating and drinking what was left behind by fleeing citizens.

'The farmhouse was deserted. I looked back down the road, the farmhouse was on a slight elevation above the plain, and we could see over the country, and saw the road, the hedges, the fields and the line of trees along the main road where the retreat was passing.'
Pg. 144

This is a spot where Henry and two other ambulance drivers are retreating and looking for a place to stay. The turn off the main road and find the deserted farmhouse, left by civilians fleeing from the dangers of the war.

During the war, there were a great many casualties. The injured were brought to hospitals run by the different countries. In one of these hospitals, Ernest Hemingway met Agnes Von Kurowsky, as in A Farewell to Arms, Frederick Henry meets Catherine Barkley, the character based on Von Kurowsky.

'The British hospital was a big villa built by Germans before the War. Miss Barkley was in the Garden.'
Pg. 17

This is where Henry first meets Catherine Barkley, in the British Hospital with his friend Rinaldi. Of course, Hemingway first met Von Kurowsky in a hospital when he was injured, and Henry later meets Catherine again, injured in a different hospital.

Though all of this had an influence to Hemingway's work, most of the novel is still based on personal experience.
Hemingway himself was an ambulance driver in the war, and he himself was injured. When he was injured, as stated before, he was brought to a hospital where he met Agnes Von Kurowsky, the woman whom he based Catherine Barkley on.
Basically, the whole book was based on Hemingway's experience in World War I.

Hemingway's novel A Farewell to Arms was based on his own experiences in World War I, though the setting in the novel is taken directly from it, like the abandoned farm houses. The chaos and destruction in any war was present in his novel, and so was the fear when the attacks came, and when they were facing the 'enemy.'






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