y met his love, Catherine Barkley, also a nurse, before he was shot and hospitalized. In both cases, the relationships with these women were strengthened while the men were hospitalized. Another difference is that Hemingway's romance was short-lived, while, the book seemed to indicate that, Henry's romance, though they never married, was strong and would have lasted. In A Farewell to Arms, Catherine and her child died while she was giving birth, this was not the case with Agnes who left Henry for an Italian Army officer. It seems to me that the differences between the two men were only surface differences. They allowed Hemingway to call the novel a work of fiction. Had he written an autobiography the book would probably not have been well-received because Hemingway was not, at that time, a well known author. Although Hemingway denied critics' views that A Farewell to Arms was symbolic, had he not made any changes they would not have been as impressed with the war atmosphere and with the naivete of a young man who experiences war for the first time. Hemingway, because he was so private, probably did not want to expose his life to everyone, and so the slight changes would prove that it was not himself and his own experiences which he was writing about. I believe that Hemingway had Catherine and her child die, not to look different from his own life, but because he had a sick and morbid personality. There is great power in being an author, you can make things happen which do not necessarily occur in real life. It is obvious that Hemingway felt, as a young child and throughout his life, powerless, and so he created lives by writing stories. Hemingway acted out his feelings of inadequacy and powerlessness by hunting, drinking, spending lots of money and having many girlfriends. I think that Hemingway was obsessed with death and not too sane. His obsession shows itself in the morbid death of Miss Barkley and ...
