Reynolds, Michael S. "The Writing of the Novel." In Monteiro, George, ed.
Critical Essays on Ernest Hemingway's A
Farewell to Arms. New
York:
G.K. Hall & Co., 1994: (31-46).
Rpt. from Hemingway's First War: The
Making of A Farewell to Arms.
(Princeton University Press, 1976).
Hemingway's manuscripts are in the
John F. Kennedy library for scholars to study. Reynolds deduced the kind
of paper used for the first draft and the kind used for the second draft, which
Hemingway wrote in pencil, revising on the second day what he had written on the
previous day. Over half of the 650 manuscript pages for the novel had
significant revisions. This chapter focuses on significant insertions into the
manuscript for
 | the St. Anthony medal that Catherine gives to Frederic as he goes to the
front |
| the out-of-body experience at the wounding |
| Frederic's discussion about love with the priest was revised to change the
focus from Frederic's values to the priest's view of love as sacrifice and the
symbolism of the high country, based on a piece he wrote five years before for
the Toronto Star. The sacrifice theme plays up Catherine as the
"hero" in the novel, claims Reynolds (34). |
| cutting a reflection on the progress of the story as Frederic was riding
the train to the Milan hospital because it sounded more like Hemingway than
his protagonist |
| Hemingway revised the several pages describing the first time Catherine
and Frederic slept together in Milan. The first draft didn't really make
clear that they "did it"; the revision cut out nearly everything but their
dialog in order to clarify that they did without giving a play-by-play. |
| Cutting out a depiction of the now-exhausted major waking on the day after
Frederic tells him good night preserves the point of view in the novel. |
| Deleting a passage of dialog during which the lieutenant, having deserted,
gets false leave papers. Dropping this convenience for Frederic makes
him more vulnerable to arrest at Stresa and so more motivated to row that
dinghy. |
| Deleting a passage about how Frederic felt after waking after the
operation minimizes the protagonist's emotions; it also deletes an allusion to
T.S. Eliot's 1925 poem "Hollow Men." |
| Deleting a passage that spans four manuscript pages also prevents Frederic
from going off on a rant against those who execute people during the night, as
well as giving Frederic experiences that Hemingway himself did not have
first-hand knowledge of. Lt. Henry's post-wounding and post-operative
night fears are evident enough from what remains. Reynolds wonders if
the executions of Sacco and Vanzetti the previous summer or perhaps even a
discussion of these executions with John Dos Passos, who used to fish with
Hemingway at Key West, might have sparked this diatribe. |
| Deleting a three-manuscript-page section after Frederic and Catherine are
in Switzerland removes another emotional passage that is premature. The
passage foreshadows and whines about Catherine's death, but the sentiment
about those who try to live makes better sense later. Reynolds observes
that such "false starts" occurred after Hemingway had written each of a series
of five complications that raise the intensity of the action in Switzerland to
the final deadly delivery scene. |
| Hemingway tried unsuccessfully to get Frederic to think of Rinaldi and the
priest as the plot intensified with Catherine. Reynolds observes that
this triad all showed some "grace under pressure" [as well as deterioration
under pressure]. |
| Reynolds also speculates that Hemingway was reading the New Testament,
especially Matthew's Gospel, during this phase of the writing, perhaps looking
for a title. Phrases like "the kingdom of heaven" and only being able to
keep something by losing it echo Matthew, but Frederic's prayer does not
follow the advice on how not to pray from the Sermon on the Mount because it
includes lots of repetition which the Recipient of the prayer hardly needs,
being omniscient. |
| Though some details about the ending of the operation on Catherine are
added, some passages about the baby are deleted or shifted to the past tense
during the time when Hemingway worked over the manuscript at Key West.
Reynolds suggests that the baby has to die, not just for convenience of the
protagonist, but because a live baby is a symbol of hope, and hope is not what
this novel is about. |
| Reynolds mentions what Oldsey depicts in detail, that the ending was
heavily revised, perhaps the most heavily revised segment of the entire novel.
The final form of the ending was written in June, 1929, months after the two
that appear in the manuscript. Reynolds counts 35 endings, including 32
that were assembled by Hemingway's fourth wife, Mary. [Hemingway himself
told George Plimpton during the Paris Match interview that he had done
39 endings to the novel.] Many of these are really fragments and not
whole endings. One has the baby alive. Reynolds reports that F.
Scott Fitzgerald, who read the typed manuscript, suggested that Hemingway use
the "killer-world" passage from earlier in the novel as the ending.
Though Hemingway tried it, typing it up with the right page numbers, he later
rejected it, Reynolds suspects partly because Fitzgerald had suggested it, and
he probably resented the wisdom of Fitzgerald's suggestions for the beginning
of Hemingway's first novel, The Sun Also Rises. |
| Reynolds looks at the ending written on June 24, 1929, ten months after
the manuscript was first "finished," and sees in the pencil strokes a "surge
of power" and a "rush to get the words down" and "relief and pleasure" as the
final ending materialized. |
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