A farewell to arms read the summary chapter by chapter. Summary of Farewell to Arms. The history of the novel

The action takes place in 1915-1918. on the Italian-Austrian front. American Frederick Henry is a lieutenant in the sanitary troops of the Italian army (Italian - because the United States had not yet entered the war, and Henry volunteered). Before the offensive in the town on Plavna, where the medical units are stationed, there is a lull, the officers spend their time as best they can - drinking, playing billiards, going to a brothel and making the regimental priest blush by discussing various intimate things in front of him.

A young nurse, Catherine Barkley, whose fiancé died in France, arrives at a nearby English hospital. She regrets that she did not marry him earlier, that she did not give him at least a little happiness. Rumors spread through the troops that they must expect an imminent offensive. We urgently need to set up a dressing station for the wounded. The Austrian units are close to the Italians - on the other. side of the river. Henry relieves the tension of anticipation by courting Catherine, although he is embarrassed by some of the oddities of her behavior.

First, after trying to kiss her, he gets a slap in the face, then the girl kisses him herself, excitedly asking if he will always be kind to her. Henry does not exclude the possibility that she is slightly crazy, but the girl is very beautiful, and meeting her is better than spending evenings in an officer's brothel. Henry comes to his next date thoroughly drunk and is also very late - however, the date will not take place: Catherine is not entirely healthy. Suddenly the lieutenant feels unusually lonely, his soul is dreary and sad.

The next day it becomes known that there will be an attack at night in the upper reaches of the river, and ambulances must go there. Driving past the hospital, Henry pops out for a minute to see Catherine, who gives him a medallion with the image of St. Anthony - for good luck. Having arrived at the place, he settles down with the drivers in the dugout; young Italian guys unanimously criticize the war - if their relatives had not been persecuted for desertion, none of them would have been here. There is nothing worse than war. Losing it is even better. What will happen? The Austrians will reach Italy, get tired and return home - everyone wants to go home. War is needed only by those who profit from it.

The attack begins. A bomb hits the dugout where the lieutenant and the drivers are located. The wounded Henry tries to help the driver who is dying nearby. Those who survived take him to the first aid station. There, as nowhere else, the dirty side of war is visible - blood, groans, mangled bodies. Henry is being prepared to be sent to the central hospital in Milan. Before leaving, a priest visits him, he sympathizes with Henry not so much because he was wounded, but because he finds it difficult to love. Man, God... And yet the priest believes that someday Henry will learn to love - his soul has not yet been killed - and then he will be happy. By the way, a nurse he knows - Barkley, I think? - also transferred to a Milan hospital.

In Milan, Henry undergoes a complex operation on his knee. Unexpectedly for himself, he eagerly awaits Katherine's arrival and, as soon as she enters the room, he experiences an amazing discovery: he loves her and cannot live without her. When Henry manages to walk on crutches, he and Catherine begin to go to the park for a walk or have lunch at a cozy restaurant in the neighborhood, drink dry white wine, and then return to the hospital, and there, sitting on the balcony, Henry waits for Catherine to finish work and will come to him all night and her wondrous long hair will cover him with a golden waterfall.

They consider themselves husband and wife, counting their married life from the day Katherine appeared in a Milan hospital. Henry wants them to get married for real, but Catherine objects: then she will have to leave - as soon as they start to settle the formalities, she will be followed and they will be separated. She is not worried that their relationship has not been officially legalized; the girl is more worried about a vague premonition, it seems to her that something terrible might happen.

The situation at the front is difficult. Both sides are already exhausted, and, as one English major told Henry, the army that is the last to realize that it is exhausted will win the war. After several months of treatment, Henry is ordered to return to his unit. Saying goodbye to Katherine, he sees that she is not telling her something, and barely gets the truth out of her: she has already been pregnant for three months.

In the unit, everything is going on as before, only some are no longer alive. Someone caught syphilis, someone started drinking, and the priest still remains the butt of jokes. The Austrians are advancing. Henry is now disgusted by such words as “glory”, “valor”, “feat” or “shrine” - they sound simply indecent next to the specific names of villages, rivers, road numbers and names of the dead. Every now and then, ambulances get into traffic jams; Refugees retreating under the onslaught of the Austrians are nailed to the columns of cars; they are carrying pitiful household belongings in carts, and dogs are running under the bottoms of the carts. The car in which Henry is driving constantly gets stuck in the mud and finally gets stuck completely. Henry and his henchmen continue on foot and are repeatedly fired upon. In the end, they are stopped by the Italian field gendarmerie, mistaking them for disguised Germans; Henry seems especially suspicious with his American accent. They are going to shoot him, but he jumps into the river with a running start and swims underwater for a long time. After taking in air, he dives again and escapes the chase.

Henry understands that he has had enough of this war - the river seems to have washed away his sense of duty. He's done with the war, Henry tells himself. He was created not to fight, but to eat, drink and sleep with Catherine. He no longer intends to part with her. He concluded a separate peace - for him personally the war was over. Still, it’s hard for him to shake off the feeling that boys have who have run away from class but can’t stop thinking about what’s going on at school.

Having finally reached Katherine, Henry seemed to have returned home - he felt so good next to this woman. It wasn't like this before: he knew many people, but he always remained lonely. The night with Katherine is no different from the day - it's always wonderful with her. But the war left my teeth on edge, and various gloomy thoughts pop into my head, like the fact that this world breaks everyone. And those who don’t want to break are killed. They kill the kindest, the most gentle, and the bravest - indiscriminately.

Henry knows that if they see him on the street without a uniform and recognize him, they will shoot him. The bartender from the hotel where they live warns: in the morning they will come to arrest Henry - someone reported on him. The bartender finds a boat for them and shows them the direction to sail to get to Switzerland.

The plan works, and all autumn they live in Montreux in a wooden house among the pine trees, on the slope of a mountain. The war seems very far away to them, but they know from the newspapers that fighting is still going on. Katherine's due date is approaching, and not all is well with her. Henry and Catherine spend almost all their time alone - they have no need to communicate, this war seems to have brought them to a desert island. But then going out into the world, to people, becomes necessary: Katherine goes into labor. She undergoes a caesarean section. However, it is too late - the exhausted child is born dead, and Catherine herself dies. This is how, the devastated Henry thinks, everything always ends this way - death. They throw you into life and tell you the rules; and the first time they are taken by surprise, they kill. No one can hide from either life or death.

Trying - apparently not without reason - not to remember his overseas relatives, the American G., who once went to war as a volunteer and served with the rank of lieutenant in the medical detachment of the Italian army, which, it seems, was forever mired in sluggish opposition to the Austrians in the north of the country, is by no means A misanthrope and not a cynic, although sometimes he is not averse to pretending to be one. It’s just that, having seen a lot in three front-line years, he was just as lost in the official rhetoric of reports and reports, as in the sentimental cloying of well-worn formulas, in which it is customary to clothe intimate feelings and aspirations.

Pedantically adhering to the rule of always being honest with others and never lying to himself (“I knew many women, but I always remained lonely when I was with them, and this is the worst loneliness”), who knows a lot about good drinking, cooking and fishing, G ... is equally sincere in his communications with the military doctor Rinaldi, the kindly regimental priest, ordinary Italian soldiers - drivers of the ambulance convoy and even ... his beloved - the English nurse Catherine Barkley. The same, however, as he himself, a victim of two self-deceptions - blinding by mirage love (she lost her chosen one at the front, without having time to taste the happiness of a carnal union) and mirage patriotism.

However, it is love - and happy, shared, mutual - that will become the Achilles heel of Hemingway’s “knight without fear or reproach,” who for the time being thinks of himself as invulnerable in the shell of his imaginary egocentrism. Having given G. and his chosen one several months of “lawless” love happiness in the midst of Europe engulfed in flames of the First World War, the novelist will leave the hero alone. Katherine will die in childbirth, and the child conceived in the front line will also die - the child of an unsanctioned marriage by the church of two incredibly courageous people who dared to create life in the epicenter of a monstrous hecatomb that lasted for years.

In the preface to the novel “A Farewell to Arms!”, a summary of which is outlined in today’s article, the author called the war a brazen, murderous, dirty crime. Hemingway knew about it firsthand. He participated in the First World War, after which he wrote the above-mentioned book.

One of the best works dedicated to the war is the novel “A Farewell to Arms!” The summary gives an idea of the plot, characters, and features of Hemingway’s book. The shortened version is suitable for busy people. It is also preferred by those who consider reading a waste of time, but want to have at least a superficial understanding of famous works of literature.

Is it worth reading the summary? “A Farewell to Arms!”, like other works by the best authors of the 20th century, should only be read in full,” many will say. One can argue with this statement. After all, often film adaptations or even retellings of a book prompt one to read the original - in this case, the novel “A Farewell to Arms!” itself.

Meet Katherine.
Waiting for the attack.
Attack.
In Milan.
Arrest.
End of the war.
Switzerland.

Meet Katherine

The main character is Lieutenant Frederick Henry. Events take place during the First World War. Frederic serves in the Italian army's medical corps. At first, the fighting is sluggish, and the soldiers have time to go to brothels, drink alcohol - in general, have fun. The main character meets a strange girl named Katherine. She is a nurse. In France, a girl's fiancé died.

Waiting for the coming

The Austrians are very close. Henry tries to court Katherine, but he is surprised by the girl's strange behavior. For trying to kiss, he gets a slap in the face. But suddenly her behavior changes, and she herself is ready to rush into his arms. Frederick does not rule out that the girl is slightly out of her mind. However, she is beautiful, spending time in her company is much more pleasant than in a brothel.

Attack

The soldiers go on the offensive. Along the way, the lieutenant jumps out of the car to see Katherine. She gives him a medallion with the image of a Catholic saint.

The war in the novel is shown without embellishment. It is important to say this when analyzing the work. "A Farewell to Arms!" - a book imbued with hatred of war. The author depicted neither heroism nor selflessness. Italian soldiers talk about the war in quiet moments. What could be worse than her? Even losing a war is better. The invaders will reach Italy and then return. Every soldier wants to go home.

A bomb hits the dugout where the lieutenant is. Many dead. Blood, mangled bodies, groans of the dying - all this is depicted quite realistically by Ernest Hemingway. "A Farewell to Arms!" - a work created by a man who once, in his youth, believed that a writer must certainly have military experience. But once at the front, he hated for the rest of his life all those who start the war and profit from it.

Henry is seriously injured and is sent to a Milan hospital. From a priest who visits him one day, he learns that Catherine is also being transferred there.

In Milan

Before Henry was wounded and ended up in a Milan hospital, he did not know that he was capable of love. Unexpectedly for himself, he suddenly waits for Catherine with great impatience. As soon as she enters the room, the lieutenant realizes that he loves her. A romance begins between them. Soon Frederick can already walk on crutches. He spends a lot of time with Katherine. Almost every day they go to the park, and increasingly spend nights together.

They consider themselves husband and wife. But Katherine is against marriage - in this case she will have to leave. The girl has premonitions that something terrible will happen to her.

Several months pass. Henry must return to his unit. However, he feels that Katherine is hiding something from him. He finally manages to get the truth out of her: the girl has been pregnant for three months.

Arrest

Henry fails to get to the part. On the way, he is detained by the Italian gendarmerie. The lieutenant is mistaken for a German in disguise. For some reason, the gendarmes find his American accent particularly suspicious. Frederick is about to be shot. However, he miraculously manages to escape.

End of the war

Fleeing from the gendarmes, Henry jumps into the river. The water seems to wash away the sense of military duty from him. The war is not over yet, but for Frederick it is no longer there, which explains the meaning of the title of the novel - “A Farewell to Arms!” The theme of the book can be called pacifist. Man, according to Hemingway, is not born for war, but in order to love and be loved.

Henry returns to Catherine. The war did not pass without a trace. Every now and then sad thoughts creep into my head. It is dangerous to stay in Italy for a long time. In addition, a bartender he knows reports that someone reported on Henry. In the morning they will come to arrest him.

Switzerland

The bartender finds a boat for Frederick. They decide to flee to Switzerland. The plan works. The main characters (“A Farewell to Arms!”) spend several months in Montreux, in the big wooden house. There are pine trees and mountains all around. And it seems that the war never happened. The happiness ends the day Katherine goes into labor. The child dies during childbirth. The mother dies from loss of blood. This is how the novel “A Farewell to Arms!” ends sadly, the plot of which we have outlined. The hero of the book did not find happiness even away from the war.

After the publication of the book “A Farewell to Arms!” Ernest Hemingway was told more than once that it was too tragic. But the writer believed that life is a complete tragedy. After all, its outcome is predetermined.

From the history of creation

Hemingway began work on the book in March 1928. A year later, the manuscript was sent to the editor. At the end of September 1929, the work was published and became another sensation in the world of literature. From the very beginning, the novel was perceived as a sharp anti-war book that shows the failure of a civilization that is unable to prevent armed conflicts.

Criticism

Many articles have been written about Hemingway's novel. In order to make a complete overview of them all, you will have to write a separate book. Critics paid special attention to the writer's style. One of them noted that in the novel “A Farewell to Arms!” only the war scenes are conveyed in typical Hemingway language. In the rest, “clumsy style” was noticed. Another critic argued that this work could be ranked with the best books written since the English language existed.

Analysis

Hemingway's style is truly unique. Nobody writes the way he writes. He describes events in short, chopped off phrases. He also conveys the feelings and thoughts of his characters. Hemingway's war is terrible in its simplicity. The writer does not use any colorful descriptions to convey tragedy and horror. Everything is very concise, simple. But it is precisely thanks to the restrained, cold style that the reader is imbued with the experiences of people who find themselves at the center of hostilities.

Hemingway has long been put on a par with the classics for his skill in creating situations, their descriptions, and revealing the characters' personalities. It is noteworthy that the dialogues are written somehow chaotically, it seems that crazy people are talking: fragmentary statements, a lot of repetitions, and so on. But if you think about it, people in everyday life conduct meaningless dialogues. Hemingway portrays life as it is.

As for the effect of madness in the conversations of the novel's heroes, it is worth remembering that they live during the war. A war that at that time turned out to be the most terrible in the history of mankind. The consciousness of someone who has passed through the front is often disturbed. Perhaps it is no coincidence that Hemingway wrote the strange dialogues.

Scenery

Rain accompanies the heroes on many pages of the novel. This is far from an innovative artistic method. Many writers have paid attention to how successfully and how subtly a parallel can be drawn between the state of the human soul and the state of nature. A person is in pain, and nature is crying.

Heroes

Critics have repeatedly noted that in the novel “A Farewell to Arms!” shows a kind of backstory of the main character of the work “Fiesta”. Jack Warne is a representative of the so-called lost generation. Lieutenant Henry cannot be described so unequivocally. His image in the novel is given in dynamics.

The reader sees him in the process of accumulating impressions and cultivating feelings. In the book, his life positions change. At the beginning of the novel, he is a cynical man, convinced that he is incapable of deep affection. And therefore less vulnerable. In the chapters that tell about the Swiss period, he already appears in an almost romantic image.

After the First World War, many anti-war novels were created around the world. But, unlike the general mass of similar works, in Hemingway the story of the protagonist is inextricably linked with the story of the heroine. There is also a dynamic in Katherine's character, although it does not coincide with the dynamics of the main character.

The love story of Frederick and Catherine forms the first plot line of the novel. The war is the second. But the events at the front in the work, of course, do not serve as a mere background. The war dealt a crushing blow to illusions about universal well-being. It gave rise to a social phenomenon that is commonly called the “lost generation.”

Screen adaptation

"A Farewell to Arms!" is a 1934 film that won four Academy Awards. Directed by Frank Borzage. Hemingway's work was filmed three more times. The second time - in 1957. The film was directed by Charles Vidor. Other films based on the book by Ernest Hemingway were released in 1966 and 1970. The author's title is retained in all films.

E. Hemingway
A Farewell to Arms
The novel takes place in 1915-1918. on the Italian-Austrian front.
American Frederick Henry is a lieutenant in the sanitary troops of the Italian army (Italian because the United States had not yet entered the war, and Henry volunteered). Before the offensive, there was a calm in the town on Plavna, where the medical units were stationed. The officers spend their time as best they can - they drink, play billiards, go to a brothel and make the regimental priest blush by discussing various intimate things in front of him.
In the next door

A young nurse, Catherine Barkley, whose fiancé died in France, arrives at an English hospital. She regrets that she did not marry him earlier, that she did not give him at least a little happiness.
Rumors spread through the troops that they must expect an imminent offensive. We urgently need to set up a dressing station for the wounded. The Austrian units are close to the Italians - on the other side of the river. Henry relieves the tension of anticipation by courting Catherine, although he is embarrassed by some of the oddities of her behavior. First, after trying to kiss her, he gets a slap in the face, then the girl kisses him herself, excitedly asking if he will always be kind to her. Henry does not exclude the possibility that she is slightly crazy, but the girl is very beautiful, and meeting her is better than spending evenings in an officer's brothel. Henry comes to his next date thoroughly drunk and is also very late - however, the date will not take place: Catherine is not entirely healthy. Suddenly the lieutenant feels unusually lonely, his soul is dreary and sad.
The next day it becomes known that there will be an attack at night in the upper reaches of the river, and ambulances must go there. Driving past the hospital, Henry pops out for a moment to see Catherine, who gives him a medallion with the image of St. Anthony - for good luck. Having arrived at the place, he settles down with the drivers in the dugout; young Italian boys unanimously criticize the war - if their relatives had not been persecuted for desertion, none of them would have been here. There is nothing worse than war. Losing it is even better. What will happen? The Austrians will reach Italy, get tired and return home - everyone wants to go home. War is needed only by those who profit from it.
The attack begins. A bomb hits the dugout where the lieutenant and the drivers are located. Wounded in the legs, Henry tries to help the driver dying nearby. Those who survived take him to the first aid station. There, like nowhere else, the dirty side of war is visible - blood, groans, mangled bodies. Henry is being prepared to be sent to the central hospital in Milan. Before leaving, a priest visits him, he sympathizes with Henry not so much because he was wounded, but because he finds it difficult to love. Man, God... And yet the priest believes that someday Henry will learn to love - his soul has not yet been killed - and then he will be happy. By the way, a nurse he knows - Barkley, I think? - also transferred to a Milan hospital.
In Milan, Henry undergoes a complex operation on his knee. Unexpectedly for himself, he eagerly awaits Katherine's arrival and, as soon as she enters the room, he experiences an amazing discovery: he loves her and cannot live without her. When Henry learned to walk on crutches, he and Catherine begin to go to the park for a walk or have lunch at a cozy restaurant next door, drink dry white wine, and then return to the hospital, and there, sitting on the balcony, Henry waits for Catherine to finish work and will come to him all night and her wondrous long hair will cover him with a golden waterfall.
They consider themselves husband and wife, counting their married life from the day Katherine appeared in a Milan hospital. Henry wants them to get married for real, but Catherine objects: then she will have to leave: as soon as they begin to settle the formalities, she will be followed and they will be separated. She is not worried that their relationship has not been officially legalized; the girl is more worried about a vague premonition, it seems to her that something terrible might happen.
The situation at the front is difficult. Both sides are already exhausted, and, as one English major told Henry, the army that is the last to realize that it is exhausted will win the war. After several months of treatment, Henry is ordered to return to his unit. Saying goodbye to Katherine, he sees that she is not telling her something, and barely gets the truth out of her: she has already been pregnant for three months.
In the unit, everything is going on as before, only some are no longer alive. Someone caught syphilis, someone started drinking, and the priest still remains the butt of jokes. The Austrians are advancing. Henry is now sickened by such words as “glory”, “valor”, “feat” or “shrine” - they sound simply indecent next to the specific names of villages, rivers, road numbers and names of the dead. Every now and then, ambulances get into traffic jams; Refugees retreating under the onslaught of the Austrians are nailed to the columns of cars; they are carrying pitiful household belongings in carts, and dogs are running under the bottoms of the carts. The car in which Henry is driving constantly gets stuck in the mud and finally gets stuck completely. Henry and his henchmen continue on foot and are repeatedly fired upon. In the end, they are stopped by the Italian field gendarmerie, mistaking them for disguised Germans; Henry with his American accent seems especially suspicious to them. They are going to shoot him, but the lieutenant manages to escape - he jumps into the river with a running start and swims under water for a long time. Taking a breath, he dives again. Henry manages to escape the chase.
Henry understands that he has had enough of this war - the river seems to have washed away his sense of duty. He is done with war, Henry tells himself, he was not created to fight, but to eat, drink and sleep with Catherine. He no longer intends to part with her. He concluded a separate peace - for him personally the war was over. Still, it’s hard for him to shake off the feeling that boys have who have run away from class but can’t stop thinking about what’s going on at school. Having finally reached Katherine, Henry feels as if he had returned home - he feels so good next to this woman. It wasn't like this before: he knew many people, but he always remained lonely. A night with Katherine is no different from a day - it's always wonderful with her. But the war left my teeth on edge, and various gloomy thoughts pop into my head, like the fact that the world is breaking everyone. Some become stronger when broken, but those who do not want to break are killed. They kill the kindest, the most gentle, and the bravest - indiscriminately. And if you are neither one nor the other, nor the third, then they will kill you too - only without much haste.
Henry knows that if they see him on the street without a uniform and recognize him, they will shoot him. The bartender from the hotel where they live warns: in the morning they will come to arrest Henry - someone has reported him. The bartender finds a boat for them and shows them the direction to sail to get to Switzerland.
The plan works, and all autumn they live in Montreux in a wooden house among the pine trees, on the slope of a mountain. The war seems very far away to them, but they know from the newspapers that fighting is still going on.
Katherine's due date is approaching, and not everything is going well with her - her pelvis is too narrow. Henry and Catherine spend almost all their time alone - they have no need to communicate, this war seems to have brought them to a desert island. But then going out into the world, to people, becomes necessary: Katherine goes into labor. Labor is very weak, and she is given a caesarean section, but it is too late - the exhausted child is born dead, Katherine herself dies. That’s how, the devastated Henry thinks, everything always ends this way - death. They throw you into life and tell you the rules, and the first time they take you by surprise, they kill you. No one can hide from either life or death.

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A Farewell to Arms

The novel takes place in 1915-1918. on the Italian-Austrian front.

American Frederick Henry is a lieutenant in the sanitary troops of the Italian army (Italian - because the United States had not yet entered the war, and Henry volunteered). Before the offensive, there was a calm in the town on Plavna, where the medical units were stationed. The officers spend their time as best they can - they drink, play billiards, go to a brothel and make the regimental priest blush by discussing various intimate things in front of him.

Rumors spread through the troops that they must expect an imminent offensive. We urgently need to set up a dressing station for the wounded. The Austrian units are close to the Italians - on the other side of the river. Henry relieves the tension of anticipation by courting Catherine, although he is confused by some of the oddities of her behavior. First, after trying to kiss her, he gets a slap in the face, then the girl kisses him herself, excitedly asking if he will always be kind to her. Henry does not exclude the possibility that she is slightly crazy, but the girl is very beautiful, and meeting her is better than spending evenings in an officer's brothel. Henry comes to his next date thoroughly drunk and is also very late - however, the date will not take place: Catherine is not entirely healthy. Suddenly the lieutenant feels unusually lonely, his soul is dreary and sad.

The attack begins. A bomb hits the dugout where the lieutenant and the drivers are located. Wounded in the legs, Henry tries to help the driver dying nearby. Those who survived take him to the first aid station. There, as nowhere else, the dirty side of war is visible - blood, groans, mangled bodies. Henry is being prepared to be sent to the central hospital in Milan. Before leaving, a priest visits him, he sympathizes with Henry not so much because he was wounded, but because he finds it difficult to love. Man, God... And yet the priest believes that someday Henry will learn to love - his soul has not yet been killed - and then he will be happy. By the way, a nurse he knows - Barkley, I think? - also transferred to a Milan hospital.

In Milan, Henry undergoes a complex operation on his knee. Unexpectedly for himself, he eagerly awaits Katherine's arrival and, as soon as she enters the room, he experiences an amazing discovery: he loves her and cannot live without her. When Henry learned to walk on crutches, he and Catherine begin to go to the park for a walk or have lunch at a cozy restaurant next door, drink dry white wine, and then return to the hospital, and there, sitting on the balcony, Henry waits for Catherine to finish work and will come to him all night and her wondrous long hair will cover him with a golden waterfall.

They consider themselves husband and wife, counting their married life from the day Katherine appeared in a Milan hospital. Henry wants them to get married for real, but Catherine objects: then she will have to leave: as soon as they begin to settle the formalities, she will be followed and they will be separated. She is not worried that their relationship has not been officially legalized; the girl is more worried about a vague premonition, it seems to her that something terrible might happen.

In the unit, everything is going on as before, only some are no longer alive. Someone caught syphilis, someone started drinking, and the priest still remains the butt of jokes. The Austrians are advancing. Henry is now sickened by such words as “glory”, “valor”, “feat” or “shrine” - they sound simply indecent next to the specific names of villages, rivers, road numbers and names of the dead. Every now and then, ambulances get into traffic jams; Refugees retreating under the onslaught of the Austrians are nailed to the columns of cars; they are carrying pitiful household belongings in carts, and dogs are running under the bottoms of the carts. The car in which Henry is driving constantly gets stuck in the mud and finally gets stuck completely. Henry and his henchmen continue on foot and are repeatedly fired upon. In the end, they are stopped by the Italian field gendarmerie, mistaking them for disguised Germans; Henry with his American accent seems especially suspicious to them. They are going to shoot him, but the lieutenant manages to escape - he jumps into the river with a running start and swims under water for a long time. Taking a breath, he dives again. Henry manages to escape the chase.

Henry understands that he has had enough of this war - the river seems to have washed away his sense of duty. He is done with war, Henry tells himself, he was not created to fight, but to eat, drink and sleep with Catherine. He no longer intends to part with her. He concluded a separate peace - for him personally the war was over. Still, it’s hard for him to shake off the feeling that boys have who have run away from class but can’t stop thinking about what’s going on at school. Having finally reached Katherine, Henry feels as if he had returned home - he feels so good next to this woman. It wasn't like this before: he knew many people, but he always remained lonely. The night with Katherine is no different from the day - it's always wonderful with her. But the war left my teeth on edge, and various gloomy thoughts pop into my head, like the fact that the world is breaking everyone. Some become stronger when broken, but those who do not want to break are killed. They kill the kindest, the most gentle, and the bravest - indiscriminately. And if you are neither one nor the other, nor the third, then they will kill you too - only without much haste.

Henry knows that if they see him on the street without a uniform and recognize him, they will shoot him. The bartender from the hotel where they live warns: in the morning they will come to arrest Henry - someone has reported him. The bartender finds a boat for them and shows them the direction to sail to get to Switzerland.

Katherine's due date is approaching, and not everything is going well with her - her pelvis is too narrow. Henry and Catherine spend almost all their time alone - they have no need to communicate, this war seems to have brought them to a desert island. But then going out into the world, to people, becomes necessary: Katherine goes into labor. Labor is very weak, and she is given a caesarean section, but it is too late - the exhausted child is born dead, Katherine herself dies. That’s how, the devastated Henry thinks, everything always ends this way - death. They throw you into life and tell you the rules, and the first time they take you by surprise, they kill you. No one can hide from either life or death.

A FAREWELL TO ARMS! Novel (1929) The action takes place in!915-1918. on the Italian-Austrian front.

American Frederick Henry is a lieutenant in the sanitary troops of the Italian army (Italian - because the United States had not yet entered the war, and Henry volunteered). Before the offensive in the town on Plavna, where the medical units are stationed, there is a lull, the officers spend their time as best they can - drinking, playing billiards, going to a brothel and making the regimental priest blush by discussing various intimate things in front of him.

Rumors spread through the troops that they must expect an imminent offensive. We urgently need to set up a dressing station for the wounded. The Austrian units are close to the Italians - on the other. side of the river. Henry relieves the tension of anticipation by courting Catherine, although he is embarrassed by some of the oddities of her behavior. First, after trying to kiss her, he gets a slap in the face, then the girl kisses him herself, excitedly asking if he will always be kind to her. Henry does not exclude the possibility that she is slightly crazy, but the girl is very beautiful, and meeting her is better than spending evenings in an officer's brothel. Henry comes to his next date thoroughly drunk and is also very late - however, the date will not take place: Catherine is not entirely healthy. Suddenly the lieutenant feels unusually lonely, his soul is dreary and sad.

Having arrived at the place, he settles down with the drivers in the dugout; young Italian guys unanimously criticize the war - if their relatives had not been persecuted for desertion, none of them would have been here. There is nothing worse than war. Losing it is even better.

What will happen? The Austrians will reach Italy, get tired and return home - everyone wants to go home. War is needed only by those who profit from it.

Man, God... And yet the priest believes that someday Henry will learn to love - his soul has not yet been killed - and then he will be happy. By the way, a nurse he knows - Barkley, I think? - also transferred to a Milan hospital.

The situation at the front is difficult.

Both sides are already exhausted, and, as one English major told Henry, the army that is the last to realize that it is exhausted will win the war. After several months of treatment, Henry is ordered to return to his unit. Saying goodbye to Katherine, he sees that she is not telling her something, and barely gets the truth out of her: she has already been pregnant for three months.

Henry is now disgusted by such words as “glory”, “valor”, “feat” or “shrine” - they sound simply indecent next to the specific names of villages, rivers, road numbers and names of the dead. Every now and then, ambulances get into traffic jams; Refugees retreating under the onslaught of the Austrians are nailed to the columns of cars; they are carrying pitiful household belongings in carts, and dogs are running under the bottoms of the carts. The car in which Henry is driving constantly gets stuck in the mud and finally gets stuck completely. Henry and his henchmen continue on foot and are repeatedly fired upon. In the end, they are stopped by the Italian field gendarmerie, mistaking them for disguised Germans; Henry seems especially suspicious with his American accent. They are going to shoot him, but he jumps into the river with a running start and swims underwater for a long time. After taking in air, he dives again and escapes the chase.

Katherine's due date is approaching, and not all is well with her. Henry and Catherine spend almost all their time alone - they have no need to communicate, this war seems to have brought them to a desert island. But then going out into the world, to people, becomes necessary: Katherine goes into labor. She undergoes a caesarean section. However, it is too late - the exhausted child is born dead, and Catherine herself dies. This is how, the devastated Henry thinks, everything “always ends with this - death.” They throw you into life and tell you the rules; and the first time they are taken by surprise, they kill. No one can hide from either life or death.

Frederick Henry is the main character of the novel, Lieutenant. Hemingway explores the genesis of a broken generation, tracing the process of formation of its life values. The leitmotif of this formation, which takes place in the coordinates of proud isolation in oneself and deliberate detachment from all kinds of everyday vanity (this detachment is masterfully arranged by Hemingway’s unique style of an emphatically dispassionate narrative, alien to visible emotionality), is the categorical rejection of Hemingway’s hero of falsehood and hypocrisy in anything. . Trying - apparently not without reason - not to remember his overseas relatives, the American G., who once went to war as a volunteer and serves with the rank of lieutenant in the medical detachment of the Italian army, which, it seems, is forever mired in sluggish opposition to the Austrians in the north of the country, is by no means not a misanthrope or a cynic, although sometimes he is not averse to pretending to be one. It’s just that, having seen a lot in three front-line years, he was just as lost in the official rhetoric of reports and reports, as in the sentimental cloying of well-worn formulas, in which it is customary to clothe intimate feelings and aspirations. Pedantically adhering to the rule of always being honest with others and never lying to himself (“I knew many women, but I always remained lonely when I was with them, and this is the worst loneliness”), who knows a lot about good drinking, cooking and fishing, G ... is equally sincere in his communications with the military doctor Rinaldi, the kindly regimental priest, ordinary Italian soldiers - drivers of the ambulance convoy and even ... his beloved - the English nurse Catherine Barkley.

The same, however, as he himself, a victim of two self-deceptions - blinding by mirage love (she lost her chosen one at the front, without having time to taste the happiness of a carnal union) and mirage patriotism. However, it is love - and happy, shared, mutual - that will become the Achilles heel of Hemingway’s “knight without fear or reproach,” who for the time being thinks of himself as invulnerable in the shell of his imaginary egocentrism. Having given G. and his chosen one several months of “lawless” love happiness in the midst of Europe engulfed in flames of the First World War, the novelist will leave the hero alone. Katherine will die in childbirth, and the child conceived in the front line will also die - the child of an unsanctioned marriage by the church of two incredibly courageous people who dared to create life in the epicenter of a monstrous hecatomb that lasted for years.