A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway

A Farewell to Arms is a love story, a war story, and a story of a young man’s life-changing experiences of both war and love. It deals with World War I, but its concerns are universal. The relevance of the novel is striking. Unfortunately, war seems to be a perennial of human history; high school seniors, on the brink of entering the “real world,” are often aware that they may find themselves in combat in the future. The novel, with its direct style and thoughts about war, love, life, and death, appeals equally to both male and female readers. The main character, Frederic Henry, is a strong representative of what has come to be known as “the Hemingway hero”—intelligent, terse, stoical, strong, but also hiding a sensitive streak that responds to beauty and love. Frederic experiences the horrors of war to the fullest, yet finds a powerful, life-changing love. Ernest Hemingway carefully weaves together war and love, showing that in both facets of the story, death is universal, unavoidable, and inexorable, as it is in real life.

About the Series:

Novel/Drama curriculum units contain complete lesson plans with preliminary and follow-up work, teacher notes with plot summary, background, and rationale, ready-to-use worksheets, and suggested answers for student questions. These study guides encourage the development of thinking, reading, speaking, research, and writing skills as well as critical thinking skills such as analysis, synthesis, and evaluation.