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A Farewell to Arms
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During the First World War, Frederic Henry, an American serving as a lieutenant in the Italian ambulance corps, meets Catherine Barkley, an English nurse grieving for the fiancé she lost in the fighting. What begins as a guarded wartime courtship becomes a serious attachment while shelling, hospital treatment in Milan and Frederic’s return to duty repeatedly place private desire against military obligation.
After the Austro-German breakthrough drives the Italian army into the retreat from Caporetto, Frederic witnesses panic, summary executions and the collapse of ordinary authority. He deserts rather than submit to the military police and escapes with Catherine to Switzerland, but distance from the front cannot guarantee safety. Hemingway builds the tragedy from the contrast between intimate loyalty and the impersonal machinery of war.
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