a feminist criticism of a farewell to arms

Following finishing A Farewell to Arms, I found it difficult to reconcile Judith Fetterley’s feminist attack from the novel with my own personal viewpoints. I agree that Hemingway really does kick ladies to the suppress in his characterization of Catherine, but my reasons for pinning this offense on Tolstoy are different from hers’. Although she means well, Fetterley makes the silly claim that by portraying Catherine as an angelic, selflessly loving “woman to end almost all women,  Hemingway hide misogynistic perceptions and a deep-seeded hatred towards the XX chromosome.

This kind of claim is definitely not supported by the text.

Whenever we look at Tolstoy through the contact lens of his own terms, we find that his misogyny does not early spring from a “too good to be true portrait of Catherine, but rather in his tendency to players her down into the dirt-Catherine is a based mostly, baby-manufacturing trap that stifles Lieutenant Holly: “Poor, poor dear Cat. And this was your price you paid for sleeping together.

This was the finish of the trap (320). It really is his penchant for sexual intercourse and his requirement of womanly comfort that keeps Holly coming back to Catherine, not several notion of “love or perhaps true connection.

This is Hemingway’s misogyny, nevertheless unintentional, unmasked. But to get a true feeling of this “anti-Fetterley feminist perspective of the book, it is important too look at the particulars of Hemingway’s construction of Catherine-facts that stand in immediate opposition to Fetterley’s stated attacks. To begin with, Catherine is definitely not Fetterley’s unique and unattainable goddess-she is a subject in Henry’s universe, a feast of sensations but nothing more. She actually is akin to good food and good beverage: “‘I was made to eat. My personal God, yes.

Eat and drink and sleep with Catherine’ (233). Indeed, Henry’s thoughts about Catherine, the two when he are at the front or perhaps by her side, mingle with longings for good wine beverage and reflections on sumptuous meals. In Henry’s globe, a good Capri would be great, a nice chunk of dairy products would be grand, and sleeping with Catherine would be sublime. These things all equate to the satisfaction of basic individual needs. Every so often, Henry feels a grumbling in his loins-a periodic food cravings for the “cheese between Catherine’s thighs.

Hemingway dissolves Catherine in to the least common denominator-the subject, devoid of that means or actual importance (when Henry basically hungry). How can Catherine be an angel, as Fetterley claims, when she is simply an object, a tiny, rocklike satellite tv orbiting World Henry? This kind of leads us to another facet of Hemingway’s remedying of Catherine. In the novel, she actually is a completely reliant and submissive, obedient, compliant, acquiescent, docile slave to Henry wonderful desires-she is positioned firmly under his back heel. This is obvious from her dialogue: “‘I’m good.

Usually are I great? You don’t desire any other women, do you? ¦ You see? I am just good. I really do what you want’ (106). Through her terms, we get a sense that the just thing that concerns Catherine is the level of Henry’s pleasure. She needs his endorsement; he is the start and end of her world. This kind of dependency resurfaces many times in the novel. In Milan, Catherine works their self to the cuboid all day, so that she can have sex with Henry all night. Throughout this era, her very best worry is the fact she won’t tack to the girls that he has already established in the past: “‘I’ll say what exactly you wish and I’ll carry out what you want and then you will never want any other girls’ (105).

When she’s pregnant, her thoughts and concerns still center completely around Henry’s happiness: “‘But after she actually is born and I’m slim again I’ll cut it (her hair) after which I’ll be a fine new and different girl for you’ (304). Even during her lengthy and demanding labor, Catherine’s single worry is that she’s a burden about Henry: “‘Oh, I wanted thus o have this baby without making trouble, now I’m most done and gone to pieces and keep in mind that work’ (322). Fetterley may possibly claim that this kind of amounts to “selfless-love,  but I think this term gives Catherine (and Hemingway) too much credit. Catherine, as portrayed in the text, seems more like an obedient dog then a virtuous, unselfish being of light; she is like a mutt that serves its master because it has no 1 else and cannot survive on its own. At the conclusion of the novel, Hemingway succeeds in representing Catherine while both a subject and a docile subject in Lieutenant Henry’s empire.

This building diminishes Catherine’s character and allows Holly (and Hemingway) to view her and the baby completely in terms of the burden that they entail. They may be a “trap-flames that burn up the sign that “Henry the ant scurries about on. This makes it much easier for Hemingway to kill off Catherine and wash Henry’s hands of all responsibility-the last pieces in the misogynistic challenge. This severe take can be described as more tenable alternative to Fetterley’s feminist disorders on the story.

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