Gee!! I Wish I Were a Man: How Fetterly Disregarded Women's History in "A Farewell to Arms"

            In her article, “A Farewell to Arms’: Hemingway’s “Resentful Cryptogram,” critic Judith Fetterly argues that Catherine Barkley from A Farewell to Arms is a weak unnecessary character who disgraces women everywhere by being a doormat to the male soldiers in her life. I disagree with Fetterly’s argument about Catherine because the very characteristics that Fetterly sees as weak, actually act as a buffer for Frederic Henry as she balances his character flaws. The minute amount of mistreatments she does deal with both show her strength and accurately depict the way women were treated during World War I. Also, without Catherine, there wouldn’t be much of a storyline in the novel. In this novel, Hemingway needed characters that could express the horrors of war for those who are involved. He chose Frederic Henry to demonstrate the men’s pain and suffering, and Catherine Barkley to demonstrate the women’s. Catherine’s impact on Henry begins almost immediately after their first meeting. She asks if Henry has ever been in love and he says no. She explains that her fiancée had been killed in the Battle of Somme and admits that “he could have had anything he wanted if [she] would have known” (19). This dialogue begins to show readers what a good self-less heart Catherine possesses compared to the hard closed-off heart of Henry. As their relationship progresses, she teaches Henry how to love another and how to be a good person.

            While I do admit that the nurses in the story, especially Catherine, do endure some mistreatments, I do not believe that this makes them weak or disgraceful the way Fetterly does. In her argument, Fetterly states that “in the male world of the Italian front women are seen solely in sexual terms and relegated to a solely sexual role.” She believes that this portrayal of Catherine is the result of her lack of strength. However, enduring the sexual advances and condescending attitudes, all while keeping her sanity and fulfilling her job, express the great mental and emotional strength of Catherine. Fetterly also fails to realize that this treatment was normal for female nurses during WWI. In fact, women didn’t even have the right to vote in America until 1920; two years after the war was over.

            Finally, Catherine’s character is essential to the storyline for the simple fact that if she did not exist exactly the way she does in the novel, there would be no story. If she were the raging feminist that Fetterly desires, Henry would not have fallen in love with her and A Farewell to Arms would just be another boring biography of WWI.

Blog #1 - Archetypes

In A Farewell to Arms, Ernest Hemingway uses the archetype of snowy weather to express safety. Throughout most works of literature, snow is used as a symbol of death and despair; everything in nature dies or disappears into hibernation during winter. Hemingway plays on the oxymoron that encompasses snow (it is hard and soft, wet and dry, solid and liquid), and uses that irony to shift the usual portrayal of snow and ice to one of safety and hope; creating Hemingway’s own oxymoron of snow in the process. This irony is present in the third chapter, page thirteen, when Frederic Henry converses with the Priest about his hometown of Abruzzi. It is the middle of World War I and the globe is in chaos. Henry is an American soldier enlisted in the Italian army who finds himself caught in the midst of a devastating war. Henry longs to escape this cruel, repetitive cycle where he wakes up each morning knowing “that that was all there was.” The snow-blanketed town of Abruzzi presents a potential safe haven for Henry because he has never been to a place where there are “hare-tracks in the snow and the peasants took off their hats and called you Lord and there was good hunting.” The fact that the peasants would refer to Henry as Lord, coupled with the coincidence that Abruzzi is the hometown of the Priest (a man of God), suggests that Hemingway is paralleling Abruzzi to Heaven.  Of course, there is no safer place than Heaven so the comparison cements the town of Abruzzi and the white powder covering it as symbols of safety throughout the novel.

The safety of the snow, however, does not only pertain to Henry in this book. Also, in this particular paragraph, snow embodies a temporary relief for the Priest as well. During their conversation, while Henry is describing Abruzzi as a “place where the roads were frozen and hard as iron, where it was clear cold and dry and the snow was dry and powdery,” the Priest is experiencing a safe haven of his own. Differing very much from the other officers, Henry treats the Priest like an equal. He converses with the Priest in a casual, friendly manner. Their relationship stands in stark contrast to the relationship between the Priest and the other officers who do nothing but taunt the Priest. This dialogue regarding Abruzzi allows the Priest a few brief moments, free of embarrassment. As soon as they are done discussing, however, the Priest’s sanctuary ends and the other officers in the mess hall resume his humiliation by shouting, “’Priest not happy. Priest not happy without girls.’”