The Realisms of War in Book 3
In his first novel, A Farewell to Arms, Ernest Hemingway revealed the inhumanity of war in the most compelling and convincing manner, due to his personal experience of a military reporter who fought in the troops during the Italian campaigns at the time the First World War. Told from the first person, that of American Frederic Henry, a Lieutenant in the ambulance corps, the narration describes the realisms of war in its many dimensions and demonstrates its disastrous impact on human beings and the world they live in.
Book 3 of the novel starts with a description of the landscape that serves as the setting for human actions throughout the book; it is as dismal and depressing as all the events taking place in its setting and enhances the feeling of futility of all and any efforts people are taking. Muddy roads impede transportation; people coming from the battlefield were “wet to the skin and all were scared.”Henry who is back to his unit from the hospital will have to endure the trying experience of retreat to come to a decision of deserting the troops to have the right to live a normal life.
The realisms of war in book 3 show war as various human actions contrary to any logics, and, moreover, making it impossible for people to follow humane principles. Instead, war brings out the worst in human nature, no matter whether people obey orders of their military command or are forced to violate them under the actual circumstances of unusual situations. Not many of them are capable of realizing the realities of war in general; those who are, however, oppose the official quasi-patriotic propaganda. Henry confesses of being “embarrassed by the words sacred, glorious, and sacrifice”, he finds such words obscene. The priest talking to Henry brings up an important point of the futility of war and victories in it, for the winning part steps up the combat making the war longer and resulting in more casualties, with neither side eventually winning it. According to the priest, “it is in defeat that we become Christians”, and people become gentler only when they are beaten.
Henry has to retreat with Italian troops after the Austrians break through the lines of the troops, having won another battle, and in the course of this retreat the enormity of barbarous and senseless killings that is part and parcel of warfare is revealed. The wounded cannot be all evacuated; cars take the hospital equipment and “as many as they can [of the wounded] and leave the rest.” Military command is inefficient; they fail to use the benefits of “fine positions for defense along the low mountains”, “nothing had been done about organizing them for defense”.
Human life becomes worthless; military commanders will not go into details to see if the soldier or officer is actually to blame for what looks like a case of insubordination. Henry kills one of the two engineering sergeants who wanted to leave the position realizing …