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

The Role of Role Playing in Fare rise up to Arms Listening to the radio today, I perceive a song written a couple years ago that reminded me a lot of the relationship between Catherine and total heat in Hemingways unfermented Farewell to Arms. In this song, a girl asks a guy if he will be strong enough to be her man. She asks this question mevery times, all(prenominal) 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 seeks reassurance of her mans strength by inventing roles for them to play just as Catherine and Henry invent roles in order to protect themselves from the discovery of their insignificance and powerlessness in a world indifferent to their well being. Role- contend by Henry and Catherine is their way to escape the realization of human mortality that is unveiled by war. Hemingway utilizes role-playing as a way to explore the strengths and weaknesses of his two characters. By placi ng Henrys ordered life in opposition to Catherines upside-down one, and then letting each one assume a role that will bring them close-set(prenominal) together, Hemingway shows the pairs inability to accept the hard, gratuitous quality 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 honor self-esteem or to escape, is exploited extraordinarily well in A Farewell to Arms. Hemingway is quite blatant in letting us know that role-playing is what is occurring done 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 said things instead of playing cards. Like bridge you had to pretend you were playing for money or playing for some stakes(30). This meeting becomes a turning point in their relationship for afterwards the two become progressively comfortable with their roles and e asily adopt them whenever the other is nearby. This is apparent also in that they can only successfully play their roles when they are in private 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 racetrack in Milan, where Catherine tells Henry I cant stand to see so many people(131).