Frederick Henry, A Farewell To Arms And The Allegory Of "Home

A Farewell to Arms is Hemingway's famous antiwar novel, which is his representative work in his early literary career. It deals with the imperialist war and its eternal impact upon the younger generation both physically and psychologically. Since the novel came out in 1929, critics at home and abroad, have given various comments on this novel, especially on the hero. Some adopt the attitude of negating Henry to say that he is an escapist, an egotist, a hedonist, a pessimist and a pragmatist while the others hold the idea that Henry is a Hemingway code hero who does not yield to fate and "keep grace under pressure." But this thesis does not make any absolute conclusion to judge whether Henry is good or bad, just to analyze his behaviour and psychology to know that he is no more than an ordinary person who wants to have a home belonging to him. In other aspect, this thesis explores a truth hidden in this novel. That is: Hemingway himself also searches his "home" just like Henry does in his psychology. This thesis consists of four chapters:Chapter One introduces Hemingway and this novel, and also reviews the different opinions to this novel's protagonist-Frederic Henry. As A Farewell to Arms is an autobiographical novel, in which Henry is the incarnation of the author himself, Hemingway penetratingly expresses his attitude toward the capitalist society and even the whole life through Henry's mouth. So Henry's thought and action is closely related with Hemingway's own experience, including his war experience and love story and even his parent's influence on his childhood. All of these are the reasons to cause Henry and Hemingway to search the "home."Chapter Two is the main part of this thesis. It includes three sections. The first section presents the process in which Henry searches his "home," in which Henry's attitude towards the war plays an important role. There are many "homes" in the novel, such as the priest's hometown, the whorehouse and the hospital. But none of them is the home that he is looking for. He admires the priest's home that is "a clean, cold and dry place," but it is impossible to find such place in this rotten world full ofblood and war and corruption. For the latter two, he dislikes both of them. He wants to have a home that can really belong to him. The second section is about Henry's finding his "home" - his lover named Catherine Barkley. He doesn't fall in love with her at first sight. At first, Henry treats his relationship to Catherine like a game "where a man plays for stakes but doesn't know what these stakes are." Later, when he does become deeply devoted to Catherine, and he feels that where there is Catherine, there is a home. The third section is that Henry loses his "home" at last because Catherine dies of dystocia and their baby as the symbol of their home also dies. The novel ends when Henry "walked alone back to the hotel in the rain."Chapter Three introduces the role of rain in Henry's search for "home" and provides a new understanding to the rain in the end from the religious perspective. The sound of rain continues in background accompaniment until Catherine dies in the hospital ward. The use of rain in this novel is very clear. It rains from the beginning to the end and it creates a tragic atmosphere, in which the characters' fate closely relates with the rain that works as a symbol of disaster telling the readers what will happen to the heroes and suggesting Henry's final ending.Chapter Four is the conclusion of this thesis. Everyone desires to have his own home, Henry isn't exceptional and he is also an ordinary person. So the readers accept him not as the hero in the fictional world but as one member living around them. What has happened on Henry also happens on them, they share sadness and happiness with Henry. Henry's tragedy no longer belongs to himself, but to the whole human society. So no matter whether the people living in wartime or in peaceful time will obtain the significant enlightenment - where there is war, there is no home and no happiness.