The document discusses criticism of Ernest Hemingway's portrayal of the female character Catherine Barkley in his novel A Farewell to Arms. Some critics argue that Catherine is overly submissive and defined only by her relationship to the male protagonist Henry. However, others point out that Catherine shows strength and doubts, and that criticizing a work for how a character dies could mean considering all works misogynistic if male characters die as well. Scholars debate whether Hemingway was truly sexist in his characterization of Catherine.

1. Prepared by Naseem and Friends

2.  Ishaq Noori
 Naseem Hasrat

5.  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.

6.  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.

7.  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.

8.  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.

9.  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.


10.  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.

11.  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?

13.  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.

14.  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)

15.  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.

16.  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.”

17.  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.

18.  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.

19.  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.

20.  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.

21.  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.