Ernest Hemingway’s 1929 A Farewell to Arms is almost always captioned as a tragic romance. Is it? Tragic, yes. Romance…debatable. Is Frederick Henry a compelling romantic hero and Catherine Barkley an inspiring romantic heroine? Join Sonja and Vanessa as they run through the text (SPOILER ALERT), and give their verdict on the love story.
This show will also offer you a mini Hemingway bio, an explanation of his writing philosophy and style, and it highlights distinctions between warfare on the Western and Italian Fronts in World War 1. Vanessa also shares an overview of feminist literary critics’ takes on Hemingway’s treatment of Catherine–both supportive and disapproving.
Along the way, we discover how Catherine Barkley feels about rent-by-the-hour hotel rooms; we bump up against old-man-doctor theories, claiming the benefits of “good” alcohol during pregnancy, and stale Cheetos--of course--make a cameo.
REFERENCES:
Other Episodes of IWAW are mentioned: the reference to Tristan and Iseult is explained in IWAW S3E1; the reference to Elly and Gaunt and Paul Fussell (author of The Great War and Modern Memory) are explained in our episode on Alice Winn’s novel, In Memoriam, IWAW S3E8; to learn more about Romeo as a romantic hero, check out our 3-part series on Romeo and Juliet that starts with IWAW S3E2; Colin Eversea is the hero of Julie Ann Long’s The Perils of Pleasure, covered in IWAW S3E7; and the reference to Esther in Sarah Water’s The Paying Guests links to our next show, that drops on Friday, 8/22/25. Stay tuned!
Here is a link to Ernest Hemingway’s essay, "The Art of the Short Story" from 1959.
CORRECTION: The quote from Hemingway in which he mentions raisin bread is actually from a 1954 TIME Magazine interview that can be found here.
The audio of Hemingway's Nobel Prize Speech is a quick listen, in case you are interested, and it focuses mostly on the loneliness of a writer’s life.
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