TOPIC: CATHERIN'S WEAK CHARACTER IN ‘A

FAREWELL TO ARMS” ACCORDING TO

SCOTT.FIDZERALD

Prepared by Naseem and Friends

GROUP MATES

Ishaq Noori Naseem Hasrat

ISHAQ NOORI

MAIN CHARACTERS MAP

CATHERINE Catherine Barkley  An English nurse in Italy, Mourning for her lost fiancé in the Battle of

the Somme. Falls in love with Henry, Emotionally damaged, she can’t marry

Henry, but remains with him in an idealized unio.

CATHERINE Through the constant understatements

and deprecating humor in her dialogue, even at moments of extreme danger, she reveals herself to be a stoic match for Henry.

The female side of the Hemingway hero, who does much and says little.

CATHERINE’S CHARACTER THE WEAK LINK BY DIFFERENT CRITICS

Many critics of Hemmingway feel that Catherine’s character is not fully believable for the reader.

Much has been written regarding Hemingway’s portrayal of female characters.

With the advent of feminist criticism, readers have become more vocal about their dissatisfaction with Hemingway’s depictions of women.

CATHERINE’S CHARACTER THE WEAK LINK BY DIFFERENT CRITICS According to critics such as Leslie A.

Fiedler, tend to fall into one of two categories:

Overly dominant shrews, like Lady Brett in The Sun Also Rises,

Overly submissive confections, like Catherine Barkley in A Farewell to Arms.

Leslie Fiedler maintains, was at his best dealing with men without women; when he started to involve female characters in his writing, he reverted to simple stereotypes.

CATHERINE’S CHARACTER THE WEAK LINK BY DIFFERENT CRITICS In the 1970s and 80s, critics J. Fetterly

and Millicent Bell argued that the character of Catherine in A Farewell to Arms helps prove that Ernest Hemingway was sexist and a misogynist.

He hated women and that the character of Catherine proves it.

CATHERINE’S CHARACTER THE WEAK LINK BY DIFFERENT CRITICS

Later female critics, most notably, Sandra Whipple, argue the opposite.

Catherine helps prove that Hemingway loved women and understood them deeply.

Catherine is even the real hero of the story.

CATHERINE’S CHARACTER THE WEAK LINK BY DIFFERENT CRITICS Fetterly's claim is that Catherine’s death at the

end of the novel proves that Hemingway thought that "the only good woman is a dead woman."

We find this a bit of a stretch. Women die all the time in books. That doesn’t make their authors women-haters. And way more men die in the novel than

women. Does that make Hemingway a man-hater, too?

NASEEM HASRAT

SOME QUERIES ABOUT CATHERINE'S WEAK LINK CHARACTER So why do some critics think this

beautiful and brave nurse is merely a male fantasy?

Why do they think she’s not her own person and that she gives up her own identity to get Frederic to love her?

Um, maybe because she kind of tells Frederic stuff like that all the time.

HERE ARE A FEW EXAMPLES:

On religion: "You’re my religion. You’re all I’ve got" (19.37).

On her pregnancy: "I’ll try and not make trouble for you. I know I’ve made trouble now. But haven’t I always been a good girl until now?" (21.68).

On her self: "There isn’t any me. I’m you. Don’t make up a separate me."(18.21-21)

SOME REASON ABOUT CATHERINE’S WEAK LINK CHARACTER Catherine really is what those critics

say! She totally worships Frederic like a god and will do anything to get him.

She thinks her pregnancy is "trouble" because it isn’t part of Frederic’s fantasy of her.

She admits she’s not "real," but rather just a part of Frederic.

CATHERINE’S CHARACTER THE WEAK LINK BY FITZGERALD Even F. Scott Fitzgerald, author of The

Great Gatsby felt that Catherine’s character was the one ‘weak link’ of the novel.

One of their reasons is that she is too willing to please Henry.

F. Scott Fitzgerald said, “Catherine was the weak link in A Farewell to Arms and I think I’m inclined to agree. She seems to be slightly unnatural, maybe a bit one-dimensional. What is she really like? I’ve no idea.”

CATHERINE’S CHARACTER THE WEAK LINK BY FITZGERALD F. Scott Fitzgerald, one of Hemingway's

contemporaries. He is famous for mind-numbingly (so

extreme or intense as to prevent normal thought) pointless books.

Although The Great Gatsby is still better than anything Hemingway could have ever dreamed of writing), called Catherine's character the "weak link" in A Farewell to Arms

Which I suppose is better than having that hateful British woman call her that.

CATHERINE’S CHARACTER THE WEAK LINK BY FITZGERALD Although I hate to pick sides in this

situation, since choosing between Hemingway and Fitzgerald is like asking whether you would rather eat fried feces or grilled feces.

We do have to agree with Mr. Fitzgerald on this matter.

Fitzgerald should be an expert on weak female characters.

CATHERINE’S CHARACTER THE WEAK LINK BY FITZGERALD A Farewell to Arms certainly supports

such a reading: it is easy to see how Catherine’s blissful submission to domesticity, especially at the novel’s end, might irritate contemporary readers.

such lines as “I’m having a child and that makes me contented not to do anything”

Suggest a bygone era in which a woman’s work centered around maintaining a home and filling it with children.

CATHERINE’S CHARACTER THE WEAK LINK BY FITZGERALD In fact, Catherine’s resistance holds out

much longer than Henry’s. After Henry emphatically states that he

loves her and that their lives together will be splendid.

Catherine exhibits the occasional doubt, telling him that she is sure that dreadful things await them and claiming that she fears having a baby because she has never loved anyone.

CATHERINE’S CHARACTER THE WEAK LINK BY FITZGERALD Privy only to what Catherine says, not to

what she thinks, the reader is left to explain these infrequent drops in her otherwise uncompromised devotion.

Her feeling of dreadful things, for instance, may simply be a general alarm about the war-torn world or residual guilt for loving a man other than the fiancé whom she is mourning as the book opens.

ANY QUESTION ??NO

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