A Farewell to Arms | Themes

A Farewell to Arms Themes

Identity

In A Farewell to Arms, one of the themes of Frederic Henry's adventure as an ambulance driver during World War I is identity. This theme compounds other themes that Hemingway is exploring through the war story. Identity is important to the story because it expresses the general question of the individual in the postwar world. The First World War raised some unsettling questions about the values the war generation had inherited. People began to question the validity of their national leaders and institutions which seemed to have led directly to such an incredible loss of life and economic devastation. Frederic represents, for Hemingway, this questioning of what is man that he can cause such awful destruction and human suffering.

Frederic's identity is displaced by the late introduction of his name to the reader, the fact of his being an American in the Italian army, and his constant play with...
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