Free Essays,College Free Essays,Free College Essays at Anti Essays

Zac Cornwell
Brobeck
English 11(4)
13 March 2008
Can You See Me
A Farewell to Arms features an American man named Frederic who is in the Italian army as an ambulance driver. Frederic struggles throughout the novel with the war, his love of Catherine and a painful knee injury that he assumes during the war. Hemingway uses Diction to convey a negative tone of Frederic and other characters in the novel. The diction found in this A Farewell to Arms vividly expresses the tone through Mr. Britling Sees Through It, “Enrico” (Hemingway 172), and “the game” (Hemingway 30).
Hemingway conveys the “self serving aspects of Frederic” (Harrington 2) through statements made by Frederic. Frederic and Count Greffi are talking about books, and Frederic makes a comment on how Mr. Britling “doesn’t see through it” (Hemingway 261). This comment further suggests that Frederic himself does not “see through” (Hemingway 261) his relationship with Catherine. Frederic does also not “see through” (Hemingway 261) to the lonely ending this war will bring to him. Previously Greffi asks Frederic if he had been reading anything lately, Frederic reply was “nothing” (Hemingway 260). Then Greffi makes Frederic revise this statement to “nothing any good” (Hemingway 261), after hearing Frederic’s opinion about Mr. Britling Sees Through It. This may suggest that Frederic does not want to acknowledge the title of the

Cornwell, 2
story because he subconsciously knows that he fails to “see through it” in his relationship and his future life, and that reminded him of his failures.
In the Novel Hemingway conveys a negative tone through Frederic’s friend Ralph Simmons. Simmons is a failing opera singer who was trying to start a career in Italy. His stage name is Enrico DelCredo, “ Which Roughly translates as Henry’s faith”(Harrington 3). Frederic is also referred to as “Enrico” (Hemingway 172), by the Major and Rinaldi. By being...