Tragedy In Ernest Hemingway's A Farewell To Arms

The art of writing a book, is based upon the author’s goal upon which genre the author would wish for the piece to fall in. Many works of literature do not fit conveniently into just one literary genre. Such as the piece, Romeo and Juliet which was written by William Shakespeare, has the common theme the literary piece A Farewell to Arms, written by Ernest Hemingway. A Farewell to Arms as well as Romeo and Juliet share the features of a pair of “Star-cross’d Lovers” and can be classified as both a romance or tragic in nature. A tragedy is defined in the dictionary as “a drama or literary work in which the main character is brought to ruin or suffers extreme sorrow, especially as a consequence of a tragic flaw, moral weakness, or inability

Frederic walks through the rain back up to the hospital after having his supper. When the nurse tells Frederic that Catherine has had a hemorrhage, and that it is very dangerous, his demeanor drops. “I could not think. I knew she was going to die and I prayed that she would not. Don't let her die. Oh, God, please don't let her die. I'll do anything for you if you won't let her die” (282). Frederic is given hope by the doctor that Catherine would not die. However in tragedy, nothing goes well for characters. “It seems she had one hemorrhage after another. They couldn't stop it. I went into the room and stayed with Catherine until she died. She was unconscious all the time, and it did not take her very long to die” (283). From here the book ends, the end of this tragic story. Much like in Romeo and Juliet when Romeo believes that Juliet is dead, he takes his life, not knowing how to live without her. When Juliet realizes what has happened, she takes her life not knowing what to do without him. In A Farewell to Arms Catherine found someone she felt like she could not live without. Frederic feels the same way. When Catherine lays dying, she asks Frederick not to do the same things that he had done with her, to a different girl. Frederick not sure how to live without her, says that there will be no other girls.

A Farewell to Arms can be categorized to be tragic in nature built upon the plot, characters, and themes. While literature can fall into more than one category, A Farewell to Arms is more tragic than anything else. From the the incoherence of the repetitive use of rain throughout the book, to the death of the baby, as well as the death of Catherine, have the ability to distinguish as well as define this book as a tragedy. Much like the play Romeo and