Jess

__Ernest Hemingway used his experiences from World War I to enhance the plot of //A Farewell to Arms.//__ Parallels can be drawn throughout the entire novel between Henry's and Hemingway's experiences. Both were Americans serving in the Italian army, both were wounded and went to Milan, and both fell in love with a nurse. These many similarities, however, are also slightly different. There is no question that Hemingway based events in the novel off of his real experiences, but //A Farewell to Arms// is by no means an autobiography. The book does not focus on the experience of war. Instead, it is more focused on the after-effects. Minor changes to the events themselves make the novel unique, while the factual basis strengthens the plot with authentic feeling.

//A Farewell to Arm//s contains many similarities between Henry and Hemingway, the first being that Henry, like Hemingway, was an American in the Italian army. Henry was an ambulance driver for the Red Cross, just like Hemingway was. Thomas Putnam stated in his article on Hemingway that "during the First World War, Ernest Hemingway volunteered to serve in Italy as an ambulance driver with the American Red Cross. In June 1918, while running a mobile canteen dispensing chocolate and cigarettes for soldiers, he was wounded by Austrian mortar fire." Anders Hallengren drew the connection between Henry’s wound and that of Hemingway. "There is a parallel in Hemingway's life, connected with the occasion when he was seriously wounded at midnight on July 8, 1918, at Fossalta di Piave in Italy and nearly died. He was the first American to be wounded in Italy during World War I." Also like Henry, Hemingway received a medal for his deeds when he was wounded. "Despite his injuries, Hemingway carried a wounded Italian soldier to safety and was injured again by machine-gun fire. For his bravery, he received the Silver Medal of Valor from the Italian government—one of the first Americans so honored." In his book, //Ernest Hemingway: a Reconsideration,// Philip Young compared Hemingway’s wound with Henry’s. "Hemingway could make himself walk, and he picked up the living but legless Italian and carried him back toward the trenches. On the way, however, an Austrian searchlight caught him in its beam and a heavy-caliber machine gun opened up on him, hitting him once in the foot and once in the knee (I 'leaned over and put my hand on my knee,' Lt. Henry said. 'My knee wasn't there. My hand went in and my knee was down on my shin.') When he got to the dressing station, the Italian was dead and Hemingway himself for a while considered past help. When he was finally attended to, 227 fragments of steel were taken from his right leg alone." Henry, like Hemingway, was wounded while delivering supplies by machine gun fire after they were hit by a mortar shell. Both tried to save one of their friends, and both got a medal for it. Both men also were wounded in the knee and foot. This particular aspect of the plot is most closely related to Hemingway's actual experiences. Though Henry delivered cheese and Hemingway delivered chocolate and Henry did not carry a legless Italian, the basic events are the same and the feeling is real.

One of the other main similarities between Hemingway’s life and his fiction was the character of Catherine Barkley. According to Harold Bloom, "The love affair... takes something from the writer's experiences with his nurse, Agnes von Kurowsky, and something from his love for Hadley Richardson, and even Pauline Pfeiffer's cesarean operation..." Karen Rood went into more detail with drawing comparisons. "The novel's heroine, Catherine Barkley, is based in part on Agnes von Kurowsky, the nurse whom Hemingway had been infatuated with in Milan... Some of Catherine Barkely's characteristics were also drawn from Hadley Hemingway, and Catherine's death from complications of childbirth reflect Pauline Hemingway's experiences during the birth of Patrick Hemingway." When Hemingway was wounded on the front, he went to Milan to recuperate. He met Agnes there and fell in love with her. Unfortunately, the love was not mutual and Agnes left him for an Italian officer. Catherine is in part based off of Agnes because she was Henry's nurse in Milan like Agnes was Hemingway's. Agnes did not, however, have Hemingway's child. One of Hemingway's wives, Pauline, did that. She had to have a cesarean like Catherine, and also experienced complications during the operation. Unlike Catherine, however, Pauline and her baby made it through the birth. The real experience of the anxiety of a risky operation paired with fictional Catherine Barkley and her story made //A Farewell to Arms// that much more powerful.

Though there are many similarities between Hemingway's life and //A Farewell to Arms//, the novel is not an autobiography. Hemingway used events in his life as //inspiration// for his work, not for factual basis In the words of Harold Bloom, "He did go to Italy and see action, but not the action he describes. He did fall in love with a nurse, but she was no Catherine Barkley... Still, there is much that must represent authentic recall in the book. Innumerable small details and a sense of general conditions in battle, the character of the Italian landscape, the Italian soldier, the ambulance corps..." What makes //A Farewell to Arms// inspired by truth rather than pure truth are the slight differences between what happens to Henry and what actually happened to Hemingway. Both were wounded, but in a slightly different way. Both fell in love with a nurse, but it was not mutual in both cases. In some ways, Henry is Hemingway's alter ego. In real life, Hemingway didn't get the girl. Agnes did not love him back, she left him for an Italian officer. In //A Farewell to Arms,// Henry and Catherine were madly in love and even had a child (Though both Catherine and the child died in the end.) Also, the events based on fact in the novel are not the focus of the plot. "The war is a circumstance, not a primary subject of the novel," says Dewey Ganzel. By //supporting// the plot with real events and real feeling, Hemingway creates a story that is believable and that really emphasizes what war does to those who were involved in it.

Hallengren, Anders. "A Case of Identity: Ernest Hemingway." //Nobelprize.org//. 28 Aug. 2001. Web. 15 Mar. 2010. .


 * "There is a parallel in Hemingway's life, connected with the occasion when he was seriously wounded at midnight on July 8, 1918, at Fossalta di Piave in Italy and nearly died. He was the first American to be wounded in Italy during World War I."
 * "Hemingway's seeming insensitive detachment is only superficial, a compulsive avoidance of the emotional, but not of the emotionally tinged or charged."

"Ernest Hemingway - Biography." //Nobelprize.org//. Web. 15 Mar. 2010. .
 * After the United States entered the First World War, he joined a volunteer ambulance unit in the Italian army. Serving at the front, he was wounded, was decorated by the Italian Government, and spent considerable time in hospitals.

Putnam, Thomas. "Hemingway on War and Its Aftermath." //National Archives and Records Administration//. Spring 2006. Web. 16 Mar. 2010. .


 * "Had the enemy mortar attack been more successful that fateful night, the world may never have known one of the greatest writers of the 20th century. Conversely, had Hemingway not been injured in that attack, he not may have fallen in love with his Red Cross nurse, a romance that served as the genesis of //A Farewell to Arms,// one of the century's most read war novels."
 * "During the First World War, Ernest Hemingway volunteered to serve in Italy as an ambulance driver with the [|American Red Cross]. In June 1918, while running a mobile canteen dispensing chocolate and cigarettes for soldiers, he was wounded by Austrian mortar fire."
 * "Despite his injuries, Hemingway carried a wounded Italian soldier to safety and was injured again by machine-gun fire. For his bravery, he received the Silver Medal of Valor from the Italian government—one of the first Americans so honored."
 * "Recuperating for six months in a Milan hospital, Hemingway fell in love with [|Agnes von Kurowsky], an American Red Cross nurse."
 * "I remember all these things happening and all the places we lived in and the fine times and the bad times we had in that year," Hemingway wrote in a 1948 introduction to //A Farewell to Arms.// "But much more vividly I remember living in the book and making up what happened in it every day. Making the country and the people and the things that happened I was happier than I had ever been. . . . The fact that the book was a tragic one did not make me unhappy since I believed that life is tragedy and knew it could only have one end. But finding you were able to make something up; to create truly enough so that it made you happy to read it; and to do this every day you worked was something that gave a greater pleasure than any I had ever known. Beside it nothing else mattered."

PICTURES: __http://www.jfklibrary.org/Historical+Resources/Archives/Audiovisual/Ernest+Hemingway+Photographs+Gallery/Wars+1917+-+1945/__

Ganzel, Dewey. "A Farewell to Arms: The Danger of Imagination." //Sewanee Review// 79.4 (1971): 576-76. //JSTOR//. Web. 24 Mar. 2010. .

"The war is a circumstance, not a primary subject of the novel."

Bloom, Harold. //Ernest Hemingway's A Farewell to Arms//. New York: Chelsea House, 1987. Print.

"The love affair... takes something from the writer's experiences with his nurse, Agnes von Kurowsky, and something from his love for Hadley Richardson, and even Pauline Pfeiffer's caesarian operation..." (115)
 * (Pauline had had a difficult delivery like Catherine, but she didn't die)

"He did go to Italy and see action, but not the action he describes' he did fall in love with a nurse, but she was no Catherine Barkley... Still, there is much that must represent authentic recall in the book. Innumerable small details and a sense of general conditions in battle, the character of the Italian landscape, the Italian soldier, the ambulance corps-- all impressed themselves upon Hemingway..." (113)

Rood, Karen. "American Writers in Paris, 1920-1939." //Dictionary of Literary Biography//. Vol. 4. Detroit: Gale Research Company, 1980. 188-89, 208. Print.

"Hemingway was severely wounded when an Austrian shell hit the forward listening post where he was passing out supplies to Italian troops. He carried another wounded man across an open area, but his right knee was hit by machine-gun fire before he reached the command post. A few weeks later he celebrated his nineteenth birthday in a hospital in Milan, and at about the same time the Chicago newspapers told the story of his being the first American wounded in Italy." (188)

"The good companions made the rounds of the cafes and bars in Milan while Dorman-Smith recounted his wartime adventures, some of which Hemingway later used in his fiction. During his nine-month recuperation Hemingway had the freedom to experience the peaceful side of life in northern Italy." (189)

"The novel's heroine, Catherine Barkley, is based in part on Agnes von Kurowsky, the nurse whom Hemingway had been infatuated with in Milan... Some of Catherine Barkely's characteristics were also drawn from Hadley Hemingway, and Catherine's death from complications of childbirth reflect Pauline Hemingway's experiences during the birth of Patrick Hemingway." (208)

Young, Philip. //Ernest Hemingway a Reconsideration//. University Park: Pennsylvania State UP, 1966. Print.
 * http://books.google.com/books?id=eYpnW0tpWtcC&printsec=frontcover&dq=Philip+Young+Ernest+Hemingway:+A+Reconsideration.&ei=NsCmS9T_LZikyAS0sPD3CA&cd=1#v=onepage&q=&f=false

"Hemingway could make himself walk, and he picked up the living but legless Italian and carried him back toward the trenches. On the way, however, an Austrian searchlight caught him in its beam and a heavy-caliber machine gun opened up on him, hitting him once in thie foot and once in the knee (I "leaned over and put my hand on my knee," Lt. Henry said. "My knee wasn't there. My hand went in and my knee was down on my shin.") When he got to the dressing station, the Italian was dead and Hemingway himself for a while considered past help. When he was finally attended to, 227 fragments of steel were taken from his right leg alone." (164).

"In life Catherine Barkley, the heroine of the novel, was Agnes H. von Kurowski..."


 * Intro**
 * Ernest Hemingway used events in his life as motivation for events in his novels. The events themselves were always slightly different, but a lot of them were based off of real experiences in Hemingway's life.


 * Paragraph 1 & 2** --- AFTA: American in the Italian army, Hemingway vs. Henry
 * "There is a parallel in Hemingway's life, connected with the occasion when he was seriously wounded at midnight on July 8, 1918, at Fossalta di Piave in Italy and nearly died. He was the first American to be wounded in Italy during World War I."
 * "During the First World War, Ernest Hemingway volunteered to serve in Italy as an ambulance driver with the [| American Red Cross] . In June 1918, while running a mobile canteen dispensing chocolate and cigarettes for soldiers, he was wounded by Austrian mortar fire."
 * "Despite his injuries, Hemingway carried a wounded Italian soldier to safety and was injured again by machine-gun fire. For his bravery, he received the Silver Medal of Valor from the Italian government—one of the first Americans so honored."
 * "Hemingway was severely wounded when an Austrian shell hit the forward listening post where he was passing out supplies to Italian troops. He carried another wounded man across an open area, but his right knee was hit by machine-gun fire before he reached the command post. A few weeks later he celebrated his nineteenth birthday in a hospital in Milan, and at about the same time the Chicago newspapers told the story of his being the first American wounded in Italy." (188)
 * "Hemingway could make himself walk, and he picked up the living but legless Italian and carried him back toward the trenches. On the way, however, an Austrian searchlight caught him in its beam and a heavy-caliber machine gun opened up on him, hitting him once in thie foot and once in the knee (I "leaned over and put my hand on my knee," Lt. Henry said. "My knee wasn't there. My hand went in and my knee was down on my shin.") When he got to the dressing station, the Italian was dead and Hemingway himself for a while considered past help. When he was finally attended to, 227 fragments of steel were taken from his right leg alone." (164).


 * Paragraph 3** --- AFTA: Hemingway's women, Catherine vs. Agnes and Hemingway's other wives
 * "Recuperating for six months in a Milan hospital, Hemingway fell in love with [| Agnes von Kurowsky], an American Red Cross nurse."
 * "The love affair... takes something from the writer's experiences with his nurse, Agnes von Kurowsky, and something from his love for Hadley Richardson, and even Pauline Pfeiffer's caesarian operation..." (115)
 * "The novel's heroine, Catherine Barkley, is based in part on Agnes von Kurowsky, the nurse whom Hemingway had been infatuated with in Milan... Some of Catherine Barkely's characteristics were also drawn from Hadley Hemingway, and Catherine's death from complications of childbirth reflect Pauline Hemingway's experiences during the birth of Patrick Hemingway." (208)


 * Conclusion**
 * Though there are many similarities between Hemingway's life and his books, the books are not autobiographies. Hemingway used events in his life as //inspiration// for his work, not for factual basis.
 * "He did go to Italy and see action, but not the action he describes' he did fall in love with a nurse, but she was no Catherine Barkley... Still, there is much that must represent authentic recall in the book. Innumerable small details and a sense of general conditions in battle, the character of the Italian landscape, the Italian soldier, the ambulance corps-- all impressed themselves upon Hemingway..." (113)

Hemingway's life compared to Henry's

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernest_Hemingway
 * Hemingway was an American ambulance driver on the Italian front and was injured
 * "On July 8 he was seriously wounded by mortar fire, having just returned from the canteen to deliver chocolate and cigarettes to the men at the front line."
 * This is like when Henry was injured while bringing the cheese to his fellow ambulance drivers! Henry was also wounded by a mortar shell
 * Despite his wounds, Hemingway carried an Italian soldier to safety, for which he received the [|Italian Silver Medal of Bravery].
 * Henry didn't really do this, but he himself was carried and he also got a silver medal
 * He sustained shrapnel wounds to both legs; underwent an operation at a distribution center; spent five days at a field hospital; and was transferred to the Red Cross hospital in Milan for recuperation
 * Like Henry!!
 * Hemingway spent six months in hospital, where he met and fell in love with [|Agnes von Kurowsky], a Red Cross nurse. Agnes and Hemingway planned to marry, but she became engaged to an Italian officer in March 1919
 * Agnes is like Catherine except Henry didn't meet Catherine //in// the hospital. They did sort of plan to marry
 * Catherine didn't leave him in the way that Agnes left Hemingway but she did leave him by dying
 * Hemingway had many wives
 * Maybe Henry //did// leave the hospital and continue to have a love life like Catherine wanted him to!

__Research vs Analysis__ - text - text - literature - literature - quotes

- expert opinion - your opinion

__Rubric__
 * 1) Order words for emphasis-- beginning of paragraph and end of paragraph
 * 2) Use strong, active verbs (never use the passive where you could use the active)
 * 3) Take it easy on the "ings"