A Farewell to Arms, Book I Questions

A Farewell to Arms Study Guide

 BOOK ONE

Chapter I

The following instructions are for questions 1 – 4.

Hemingway earned the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1954 because of his unique writing style. Each of the following passages from the first chapter in this story illustrate a different element of his writing style. Decide which element or elements of style are present in the passage and briefly defend your choice.

Hemingway’s style:

• His sentences and vocabulary are simple and spare, departing from the flowery writing style of the past.

* Hemingway’s writing is full of sensory details, which are presented to the reader as facts, just as a newspaper presents the facts in a story.

• His writing style changes to reflect the changing states of mind of the characters. Look for this change when the inner feelings of a character are presented as a “stream of consciousness,” or when the character is drunk. At these times, Hemingway breaks away from his normal simple sentence structure to include long, flowing sentences. These sentences often have both rhythm and repetition to help the reader experience the feelings of the character.

• Although his sentences are often choppy and simple, Hemingway effectively uses understatement to help the reader understand the atmosphere of war and the feelings of his characters.

1. “At the start of the winter came the permanent rain and with the rain came the cholera. But it was checked and in the end only seven thousand died of it in the army.”

2. “There was fighting in the mountains and at night we could see the flashes from the artillery. In the dark it was like summer lightning, but the nights were cold and there was not the feeling of a storm coming.”

3. “The trunks of the trees too were dusty and the leaves fell early that year and we saw the troops marching along the road and the dust rising and leaves, stirred by the breeze, falling and the soldiers marching and afterward the road bare and white except for the leaves.”
4. “There was fighting for that mountain too, but it was not successful, and in the fall when the rains came the leaves all fell from the chestnut trees and the branches were bare and the trunks black with rain.”

Chapter II

1. How does the reader know that Frederic Henry is an officer in the army?
2. Briefly describe the relationship between the priest and the officers in the bawdy house. What does this relationship suggest to the reader about the impact of the war on human values?
3. At the end of this chapter Frederic Henry is going on leave. He is given the option of staying with the lieutenant’s family, going to Naples to be with beautiful girls, or going to the priest’s hometown of Abruzzi. Which of these three options do you think Frederic Henry will select? Support your answer with incidents from the story.

Chapter III

1. Briefly identify Rinaldi. Be sure to include Frederic Henry’s opinion of him.

Answer questions 2 and 3 using the following passage from the story.

“I had wanted to go to Abruzzi. I had gone to no place where the roads were frozen and hard as iron, where it was clear cold and dry and the snow was dry and powdery and hare-tracks in the snow and the peasants took off their hats and called you Lord and there was good hunting. I had gone to no such place but to the smoke of cafes and nights when the room whirled and you needed to look at the wall to make it stop, nights in bed, drunk, when you knew that was all there was, and the strange excitement of waking and not knowing who it was with you, and the world all unreal in the dark and so exciting that you must resume again unknowing and not caring in the night, sure that this was all and all and all and not caring.”

2. What elements of Hemingway’s unique style, as described in Chapter I, Question 1, are present in this passage?
3. Why didn’t Frederic Henry go to Abruzzi as the priest suggests? What does Frederic Henry’s behavior on leave tell the reader about the impact of the war on his moral values? What about his mental and emotional state?
4. What does the priest “know” in the following passage from the book? “He had always known what I did not know and what, when I learned it, I was always able to forget.”

Chapter IV

1. How does Frederic Henry feel when he discovers the ambulances and their drivers continued to function in his absence?
2. Briefly describe Catherine Barkley. What is the significance of the riding stick she carries?
3. What evidence is there that Catherine is disillusioned by the war?

Chapter V

1. What new information does the reader learn about Frederic Henry’s background in this chapter?
2. Define “carabinieri.” What is going to happen when the new road over the mountain is completed?
3. What does Catherine mean when she says the women at the front are on “very special behavior”?
4. What are Frederic Henry’s goals concerning Catherine at the beginning of the evening? How does Catherine confuse him, so that at the end of the chapter he refers to her as his “friend”?

Chapter VI

1. What is ironic about the way Frederic Henry is required to dress?
2. Why does Catherine give Frederic Henry a hard time for not contacting her for three days?
3. What evidence is there in this chapter that Catherine is not crazy, but only playing a game with Frederic Henry? What kind of game is she playing? Who is actually in control?

Chapter VII

1. How does Frederic Henry try to help the soldier who is limping along the side of the road? What do the efforts on the soldier’s behalf say about Frederic Henry’s attitude toward the war?

Use the following information about Hemingway’s typical hero to answer questions 2 and 3.

Hemingway’s heroes have many recognizable and consistent traits. These include:

• a general loss of faith in conventional morality; the Hemingway hero is cut off from the traditional values of home and family.
• the ability and desire to do his job well.
• the belief that no matter how much trouble life gives a person, he must never let his suffering show, except for fears, which surface at night.
• a belief that the world is generally a cruel place.
• he demonstrates that men and women can find moments of meaning and happiness despite the cruelty of the world.

2. Find a passage in this chapter which proves that Frederic Henry feels cut off from his home in the States.
3. Select one of the other traits common to Hemingway heroes and prove that Frederic Henry possesses it.
4. Locate a passage in this chapter that demonstrates Hemingway’s use of stream of consciousness.
5. At the end of the chapter, Frederic Henry goes to visit Catherine, but she is unavailable. How does he feel about Catherine at this point in the story?

Chapter VIII

1. Why does Catherine give Frederic Henry the St. Anthony medal? How does she feel about him at this point in the story?
2. What literary technique is Hemingway using in the following excerpt from the story? What is implied in this passage about the effectiveness of the church during wartime?

“The saint hung down on the outside of my uniform and I undid the throat of my tunic, unbuttoned the shirt collar and dropped him in under the shirt. I felt him in his metal box against my chest while we drove. Then I forgot about him. After I was wounded I never found him. Some one probably got it at one of the dressing stations.”

3. In what ways does Frederic Henry’s description of the scenery change as he gets near the battle area?

Chapter IX

1. Why do you think the ambulance drivers stop talking when Frederic Henry enters the dugout?
2. In what ways does Frederic‘s opinion on how to stop the fighting differ from the opinions of the other ambulance drivers?

3. Find a sentence in the description of the shelling which illustrates Hemingway’s stream of consciousness style of writing.
4. Why does Frederic Henry get his wounds dressed before the other men?
5. Hemingway includes two horrible deaths in this chapter. Briefly describe these deaths and speculate on why they are so graphically presented at this point in the story.

Chapter X

1. How does Frederic Henry’s conversation with Rinaldi show Henry’s changing views concerning the war, women, and the church?

Chapter XI

1. What does the priest mean when he says to Frederic that the latter is “…nearer the officers than you are to the men”?
2. Find a passage in the chapter where the priest defines love.
3. Some critics believe Abruzzi represents Hemingway’s vision of paradise. Cite incidents from this chapter to prove or disprove this theory.
4. Sometimes foreshadowing is very subtle. What future event do you think Hemingway foreshadows in this chapter?

Chapter XII

1. Find an example of understatement in this chapter where Frederic Henry coolly and simply details the horrors of war.
2. Why is he going to Milan? What surprise will be waiting for him there?