Grace Hagenson
J. Robinson
AP American Literature
6 December 2007
Catherine Barkley: The Product of Many Failed Relationships
“You did say you loved me, didn’t you?” Catherine Barkley queried. It was but her third time seeing Frederic Henry. Because of Hemingway’s promiscuous and failed relationships with women, especially Agnes von Kurowsky, he portrays Catherine Barkley as a foolish and obsessive character throughout his semi-autobiographical novel, A Farewell to Arms. Not only does Catherine appear slightly deranged at the beginning, but she gradually becomes needier and completely devoid of individualism.
Ernest Hemingway was an American who fought for the Italian force during World War 1, as did his character Frederic Henry. Hemingway and Henry both fell in love with British nurses. In A Farewell to Arms, Catherine Barkley falls in love with Frederic Henry, and never does her love sway. However, Agnes von Kurowsky, Hemingway’s British nurse, left him for an Italian man. In addition to his relationship with Kurowsky, Hemingway was married four times. Many of the events that took place in Frederic Henry’s life were congruent with events that occurred in Hemingway’s life; however, could Hemingway’s failed relationship with Kurowsky have led to the shady characterization of Catherine Barkley?
Initially, readers are introduced to Catherine Barkley, a lonely misanthrope; she is portrayed as a slightly insane damsel in distress. When she meets Henry, Catherine launches into a monologue about her first lover who died in the war. The second time the couple is together, Catherine pleads, “You will be good to me, won’t you?” (27). Hemingway doesn’t include very many details about how Frederic Henry is feeling throughout the novel; however, when Barkley asks this foolish question, Hemingway includes, “What the hell” (27). Hemingway wrote A Farewell to Arms based mostly upon his life, but naturally he would leave out the part where his British love dumped him. Hemingway’s bitterness and disappointment at the failed relationship between him and Kurowsky led to a slightly deranged and impractical characterization. Agnes must have been crazy, why else would she leave him?
The second visage of Catherine Barkley that readers see is completely obsessive and irresolute. Henry falls madly in love with her, yet she is constantly asking him “Don’t I make you a good wife?” (115). Barkley doesn’t have any quirks of passions of her own, aside from nursing. Everything she does pertains to Henry, saying things like, “You see? I’m good. I do what you want” (106). It is obvious, however, that Kurowsky wasn’t obsessed with Hemingway, as she did dump him. Yet, Hemingway characterizes Barkley, Kurowsky’s equal in the novel, as a love-possessed guppy. Millicent Bell calls her “a sort of inflated rubber doll woman available to the onanistic dreamer,” a woman that will “pop up” wherever Henry needs her (Spanier).
Although Catherine is completely void of any individualism, she is still a loveable character. Hemingway includes some favorable characteristics despite his bitterness towards his older, idolized, British nurse. Catherine shows a sense of humor when she says, “Don’t be cross darling. It was awfully funny. You looked about twenty feet broad and very affectionate holding the umbrella by the edges.” Nonetheless, Catherine is still the epitome of an infatuated, selfless, and pathetic girlfriend. She has no regard for her own wishes, as evident when she says things like “I’ll go any place any time you wish” (252). Catherine Barkley holds no very specific traits of her own, everything that Frederic loves, she loves. Everything that Frederic hates, she too hates. Leo Gurko said Catherine becomes Frederic Henry’s “leechlike shadow,” the siren luring the young man to his destruction through her isolating love (Spanier). The possibility exists that Hemingway, still bitter about Kurowsky’s love affair, portrayed Catherine, (Kurowsky’s equivalent) as an infatuated girlfriend. It is even more plausible that Hemingway’s fanatical characterization of the woman in his novel was due to other relationships. Hemingway was married four times, and was in presumably far more failed relations. Scores of women were obsessed with Heminway, just not Agnes con Kurowsky.
All in all, Hemingway creates a mystical woman. Catherine Barkley, a woman who plays a fatal game of seduction, falls madly in love with Frederic Henry, and is completely content with living within the cult of domesticity. A Farewell to Arms is far from picturesque. Yet Catherine Barkley is quite the pleasing character. Besides her sorrow from her first love dying in the war, Catherine is a chauvinist’s perfect woman: she loves Frederic, and will do whatever it takes to make their relationship work. Out of spite for Agnes von Kurowsky, and out of experience with many faulty relationships with various women, Hemingway’s portrayal of Catherine Barkley is skewed.
