A Farewell To Arms Henry A Hero

A Farewell To Arms Henry A Hero

Appearances Can Be Deceiving: The Hero in A Farewell To Arms



Throughout literature, heroes are faced with challenges they have to overcome through courageous acts. The character of a hero has to follow certain ethical codes created by the society which do not leave any space for the hero to break them. Superficially, the main character in A Farewell To Arms, Frederic Henry, appears to be a traditional hero; however, if we track the character's actions closely, we can conclude that he is just the opposite of one, or an anti–hero. Henry is portrayed by the author as a self–serving individual whose actions lead him to making quite unorthodox decisions which further reinstate him as an anti–hero.

Traditionally, in novels, heroes believe that they should fight for justice or a higher purpose at the risk of their life. Nonetheless, Frederic Henry, or rather the anti–hero, does the exact opposite as he fights for self–preservation instead of a higher purpose, especially through self–inflicting wounds and running away. This pattern can be traced back to Henry's ... Show more content on Helpwriting.net ...We can notice the above mentioned outlook on war at the very beginning of the book through his actions where Henry openly admits to Catherine that he does not know why he enlisted in the war. She asks him "[...]Why did you do it?" to which he replies with, "I don't know," I said. "There isn't always an explanation for everything." Or as BODIŞTEAN(2012) puts it "He makes this decision on the spur of the moment and tries to justify it by saying that 'things... cannot be explained', 'I don't know. I was a fool', or simply by the fact that he was in Italy when the war broke out."(285) A behavioral pattern occurs as he repeats his words in a similar fashion when he is looking for Catherine several chapters later, "It's not really the army. It's only the

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