analyzed by Danielle Kiowski
1. What is the genre?
Global—Worldview > Disillusionment
Secondary—War
2. What are the conventions and obligatory scenes for the genre?
Conventions
Strong Mentor Figure. The priest in Henry’s Italian army unit is his mentor. Throughout the first half of the novel, they have conversations in which the priest becomes increasingly despondent over the horrors of the war and Henry’s inability to see what truly matters — the people around him rather than the war as a whole. Once Henry leaves the priest behind by deserting the army, he is adrift without a mentor. He has some minor mentor figures, including Count Greffi, but no central guiding force.
Big Social Problem as subtext. The context is the Italian front of World War I.
Shapeshifters as Hypocrites. Henry’s roommate, Rinaldi, presents himself as a happy-go-lucky guy. He likes to party and has great hopes for his career as a surgeon. As the novel progresses, we learn that Rinaldi is deeply unhappy with his vices. He fears that he has syphilis, though no one else thinks he does, and becomes obsessive over treating himself to the point that he is actually poisoning himself and damaging his career.
Catherine’s friend, Ferguson, also acts hypocritically. She claims to be a hinderer in their love story, decrying Henry for ruining her friend’s morals. However, she enables their relationship and acts as a helper throughout the story.
A clear point of no return. Henry reaches this point on the train, after he has survived the jump into the river. He contemplates his situation on the way into town and realizes that he can’t take part in the war any longer. He has seen the horror of war, and now that he has seen it, he can never participate in the war in the same way. He then externalizes that crossed boundary by forging papers and deserting the army, so that externally, too, he can never go back to the way things were.
Ironic win-but-lose, lose-but win ending. At the end, Henry has gained what he wanted — a perfect life with Catherine — and then lost it tragically. He has gained insight into the horrors of war and personal suffering, but he believes life to be meaningless.
Obligatory Scenes
Inciting opportunity or challenge: The inciting opportunity for Henry’s change of worldview comes when he has a leave during the winter and can decide where to go. The priest of his company wants him to go to see his family in Abruzzi, and Henry wants to go. When he returns without having visited them, the priest is hurt and disappointed.
Protagonist sidesteps responsibility to respond to the opportunity or challenge: Henry justifies letting down his friend with a long internal monologue in which he convinces himself that people don’t get to do what they want to do — that the night sweeps people along without their agency.
Forced to respond, the protagonist lashes out.
Henry is forced to respond to the horror of war when he is injured by a trench mortar shell. This event is underlined as a challenge to Henry’s worldview because he was discussing the differences in his worldview and that of his soldiers just before the blast. He receives two medals for his injuries, even though he doesn’t do anything to deserve them, while the soldiers under his command are killed or injured with no reward. The war is unaffected by their sacrifice.
Instead of learning about the nature of war from the incident, Henry uses it as an opportunity to have a leave. He makes the convalescent hospital into a party, having an affair with Catherine during her night duty shifts and drinking himself into jaundice. When the priest visits him in the hospital, he observes that Henry cannot really see the war, and that the injury has made no difference in that.
Protagonist learns what their external Antagonist’s Object of Desire is. Henry starts to see this just before he is injured. He has a strategic mind, and he understands that the operation that he is supposed to support does not have enough men to make a difference in the war. It is just a distraction for a larger maneuver somewhere else, making the men involved dispensable. Still, this knowledge does not touch him personally — it is not until he is nearly executed for being a foreigner that he understands that the army does not care about him as an individual.
Protagonist’s initial strategy to out maneuver Antagonist fails. Henry’s initial strategy is to continue to seek personal enjoyment regardless of the external situation in which he finds himself. He doesn’t let being in the army touch him — he feels as secure as if he were watching the war in a film. Even after he is injured, he carries on drinking and having an affair in the hospital. This fails when the hospital director, Van Campen, realizes that he has given himself jaundice. She cancels his upcoming leave and sends him back to the front. He finds himself in a retreat, which up until that point he had considered to be the worst possible outcome. Further, he is in personal danger from the retreating Italian forces that have become paranoid in defeat. He reaches the point where he must find a new strategy.
During an All is Lost moment, Protagonist realizes they must change their black/white view of the world to allow for life’s irony. The All is Lost moment occurs after Henry narrowly avoids execution. During the retreat, rumors spread that the Germans have planted spies among the Italian forces. Seeking to avenge the defeat of their country, patriotic Italian soldiers form an ad hoc tribunal and pull officers out of the retreat line to hold them accountable for their “crimes.” They kill officers who are separated from the men under their command. Henry is with his men, but they pull him out of line because his American accent marks him as suspect. He dives into the river to avoid execution and surfaces with the understanding that the war will kill him as indifferently as it has killed his friends and the enemy.
The action moment is when the Protagonist’s gifts are expressed as acceptance of an imperfect world.
The action moment of this story is when Henry and Catherine row to Switzerland. Henry’s ability to think strategically allows him to find an avenue to evade capture and get to have his perfect life with Catherine.
However, the choice to row to Switzerland is a choice to escape and deny responsibility, not to face reality. This refusal to confront the imperfect nature of the world dooms Henry to an unhappy ending.
The protagonist’s loss of innocence is rewarded with a deeper understanding of the universe. His understanding comes too late. It is not until Catherine is dying that he realizes that his nights of fun have led him to a place where he has nothing. He sinks into disillusionment as he tells himself that he couldn’t have done anything differently — that she would have died whether they had been married or not. However, we know that it would have been very different — she would have been in a different place, with less stress, and perhaps with better medical care, and maybe she would have lived. Henry cannot bring himself to face that possibility, so he escapes into the disillusionment of believing that the world is meaningless regardless of what we do.
3. What is the point of view?
The story is told in first person by Frederic Henry, looking back on the story of the war and his affair with Catherine. He looks back on his youth from an older, more cynical point of view. It is as if he is an old man in a bar, back to alcoholism after Catherine’s death, relating how he ended up that way.
4. What are the objects of desire?
External/Conscious: Henry wants the Allies to win the war while he has a fun affair with Catherine.
Internal/Subconscious: He needs to accept responsibility for his choices and confront the horrors of war.
5. What is the controlling idea / theme?
Meaninglessness reigns when we choose selfishness over responsibility and commitment.
6. What is the beginning hook, middle build and ending payoff?
Beginning Hook – Frederic Henry, an American lieutenant in the Italian army, is wounded by a trench mortar shell and sent to Milan to recover.
Middle Build – Henry and Catherine carry on an affair during his convalescence until he is sent back to the front just in time to retreat. During the retreat he is pulled aside to be executed as a spy, so he deserts the army and the war.
Ending Payoff – Henry and Catherine row to Switzerland to avoid Henry’s arrest for desertion, where they live an outwardly content life, though Henry is still troubled by thoughts of those he left behind in the war — until the baby is stillborn and Catherine dies in childbirth, leaving Henry alone with nothing meaningful in his life.