Free Essays - Role Playing in A Farewell to Arms :: Farewell Arms Essays

Role Playing in A Farewell to Arms In Hemingway's novel, A Farewell to Arms, the principle characters, Henry and Catherine, are forced by the war to face the fact of human mortality. As a defense mechanism, the two main characters, and several others, turn to "role-playing" as a way to escape reality. Hemingway utilized role-playing as a way to explore the strengths and weaknesses of the characters. By placing Henry's ordered life in opposition to Catherine's topsy-turvy one, and then letting each one assume a role which will bring them closer together, Hemingway shows the pair's inability to accept their own mortality. John Stubbs' has written an essay that examines the "role-playing" that Henry and Catherine use to protect themselves from the discovery of their insignificance and "powerlessness...in a world indifferent to their well being..." Stubbs begins by showing other examples, notably in In Our Time and The Sun Also Rises, in which Hemingway's characters revert to role-playing in order to escape or retreat from their lives. The ability to create characters who play roles, he says, either to "maintain self-esteem" or to escape, is one Hemingway exploits extraordinarily well in A Farewell to Arms and therefore it "is his richest and most successful handling of human beings trying to come to terms with their vulnerability." As far as Stubbs is concerned, Hemingway is quite blatant in letting us know that role-playing is what is occurring. He tells that the role-playing begins during Henry and Catherine's third encounter, when Catherine directly dictates what is spoken by Henry. After this meeting the two become increasingly 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 private and any disturbance causes the "game" to be disrupted. The intrusion of the outside world in any form makes their role-playing impossible, as evidenced at the race track in Milan, where they must be alone. The people surrounding them make Catherine feel uncomfortable and Henry has to take her away from the crowd. He goes on to describe how it is impossible for them to play the roles when they are apart and how they therefore become more dependent upon each other's company. Stubbs goes on to explain how, "neither mistakes role-playing for a truly intimate relationship, but both recognize that it can be a useful device for satisfying certain emotional needs.