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II INTERNATIONAL SCIENTIFIC CONFERENCE OF YOUNG RESEARCHERS 

366 

 Qafqaz University                         

          18-19 April 2014, Baku, Azerbaijan 

WOMEN ROLE DURING WAR IN THE NOVEL “A FAREWELL TO ARMS” BY ERNEST 

HEMINGWAY 

Kamala SALIMBAYLI 

Qafqaz University 

[e-mail] 

 

Ernest Hemingway is one of the most outstanding American short story writer, non-fiction writer, journalist, novelist, 

poet, and dramatist.  His style had a strong influence on 20th-century fiction, while his life of adventure and his public 

image influenced later generations. Hemingway was born in Oak Park, Illinois in July 21, 1899. After high school he 

reported for The Kansas City Star. Then Ernest volunteered to drive ambulances for the American Red Cross in Italy. After 

moving to Ketchum, Idaho, like his father, Ernest Hemingway was found dead of a shotgun wound in the head at his home 

in July 2, 1961. (1) Hemingway wrote most of his work between the mid-1920s and the mid-1950s, and won the Nobel 

Prize in Literature in 1954. He published seven novels, six short story collections and two non-fiction works. A Farewell to 

Arms, For Whom the Bell Tolls, In Our Time, A Moveable Feast, The Old Man and the Sea, Short Stories of Ernest 

Hemingway, The Sun Also Rise are his the most famous works.  

His war experiences formed the main idea of his novel “A Farewell to Arms”. He used some of his lifetime 

experiences in his novel “A Farewell to Arms”. This is Hemingway’s autobiographical works that written during the Italian 

campaign of World War I and published in 1929.(2) This novel  is about a love affair between the American Lieutenant 

Henry who is autobiographical prototype of Hemingway himself and Catherine Barkley who is inspirited by real nurse 

Agnes von Kurowsky against the backdrop of the First World War. Lieutenant Frederic Henry is a young American 

ambulance driver serving in the Italian army during World War I and meets Catherine Barkley, an English nurse and the 

love interest of his friend Rinaldi. When Henry is wounded on the battlefield, he is brought to a hospital in Milan to recover 

and Catherine took care of him. During that period, their love becomes powerful and real. After pregnancy of Catherine the 

couple moves to Lausanne. They wanted leave all negative faces of the war and live in peace. But Catherine died during the 

born of their child, and Henry went back to his hotel hopeless. (3) 

“A Farewell to Arms” is not only a novel that shows negative sides of the war, but also the novel shows the difficulties 

of the war for women. During war period, women face in the workface and some difficulties that bear most of the emotional 

pain of the parting. Women have played many roles in the military. Thousands of women served as nurses and in other 

support roles in the major armies during World War I (4). There aren’t very many women in A Farewell to Arms, but the 

ones we do meet are unforgettable characters. In many ways they fulfill traditional female gender roles, or even female 

stereotypes – they are all either nurses or prostitutes which are mostly strong, daring, and often full of love. Catherine 

Barkley is one of the most important characters in the novel “A Farewell to Arms”.  Hemingway’s depiction of women is 

comparing them in their historical and biographical context.  Catherine is a brave woman and traveled to a foreign country 

to help take care of wounded men. She is the modern woman who has rejected all traditional rules. She has no religion. She 

devotes herself to her man and love even in difficult war situation. It is obviously that she said these words to Henry: "There 

isn’t any me. I’m you. Don’t make up a separate me." (5) But Catherine is important feminine role for Henry during war, 

because in this situation she was the only thing that stimulated Henry against the war. So, Catherine’s death made Frederic 

see that everything is vain and empty. This novel shows the most difficult situation like the war became unbearable and 

tedious, and all victories became unpleasant, senseless and meaningless without women and their role.