An Apathetic World

Ernest Hemingway's A Farewell to Arms has a slight tinge of Greek tragedy. I say that only because the relentlessly depressing tales from Greek mythology stemmed from the Greek's attempts to explain all the misery that befalls people who do not necessarily deserve it. Their rationale took the form of a variety of gods who toyed with humans in childish ways. Hemingway seems to see the world like that as well.

The world goes on regardless of what Henry and Catherine do. Throughout the book, the semi-distant war rages while they try to keep what they can under control. Neither of them has any real control of what happens during this time. All they can do is play damage control; quite convenient given that Henry drives and ambulance and Catherine is a nurse. In that sense, they literally represent humans' place in the grand scheme of things: we can indulge in love all we want, but in the end, love is only a way of distracting us from the inevitable tragedy of death. Indeed, the only certainty in this world is that we will die.

Building on that idea, the end of the book provides much food for thought. Catherine giving birth to a dead baby has meanings on many different levels. Babies, of course, symbolize new life/starting anew/innocence, etc. One could look at the baby's death as a literal representation of mankind's loss of innocence. We try to create new life in the hopes of making a better world, but it is all in vain.

Catherine's death adds to the theme of life's futility and man's inability to alter the inevitable. All of Henry's love for Catherine can do nothing to save her. Is it fair that he should lose both the baby and Catherine? Of course not. But that does not matter. The world does not concern itself with any of us; it just continues on apathetically. We could be good people or bad people, it does not matter. Henry's virtues and flaws had nothing to do with Catherine's and the baby's death. Yes, one could argue that had she not gotten pregnant until after the war she may have been safer, but that's mincing minutia.

In the end, an appropriate summary of this book would be Macbeth's famous words: "Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player,/ That struts and frets his hour upon the stage/ And then is heard no more. It is a tale/ Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,/ Signifying nothing."