Role Playing in Ernest Hemingways A Farewell to Arms :: Farewell Arms Essays

The Role of Role Playing in Farewell to coat of arms Listening to the radio today, I heard a song written a couple years ago that reminded me a lot of the kin between Catherine and Henry in Hemingways novel Farewell to Arms. In this song, a girl asks a guy if he will be real enough to be her man. She asks this question many snips, each time changing the scenario for the worse in which she places them. Plaintively she implores, will you be strong enough to be my man? She give awayks reassurance of her mans strength by inventing billets for them to play just as Catherine and Henry invent roles in assemble to protect themselves from the discovery of their insignificance and powerlessness in a populace neutral to their well being. Role-playing by Henry and Catherine is their way to escape the realization of gentleman mortality that is unveiled by war. Hemingway utilizes role-playing as a way to look for the strengths and weaknesses of his two characters. By placing Henrys ord ered life in opposition to Catherines anatropous one, and then letting each one assume a role that will bring them closer together, Hemingway shows the pairs in exponent to accept the hard, gratuitous gauge of life. Hemingways characters revert to role-playing in order to escape or retreat from their lives. The ability to create characters that play roles, either to importanttain self-esteem or to escape, is victimized extraordinarily well in A Farewell to Arms. Hemingway is quite fricative in letting us know that role-playing is what is occurring through the thought and actions of the main characters. During Henry and Catherines third encounter, Henry thought, this was a game, like bridge, in which you say things instead of playing cards. Like bridge you had to pretend you were playing for bullion or playing for some stakes(30). This meeting becomes a twist point in their relationship for afterwards the two become more and more comfortable with their roles and easily adopt them whenever the other is nearby. This is apparent also in that they can only successfully play their roles when they are in hugger-mugger and any disturbance causes the game to be disrupted. The intrusion of the outside world in any form makes their role-playing difficult. Evidence of this difficulty is seen at the rail in Milan, where Catherine tells Henry I cant stand to see so many people(131).