As I suggested in class, Frederic Henry is changing. We can see the change almost from the outset of Book Three. A less skilled writer than Hemingway would tell us about the changes, perhaps by having the narrator say something like “I saw things differently now” or “I had changed.” Hemingway is subtler than that. Describe some of the changes you see in Henry’s character and discuss how Hemingway conveys those changes to us.
A more complex question than it first appears: who is the enemy in Book Three?
We have talked about how Henry is not an intrusive narrator. He does not comment much — or at least does not judge or editorialize much — on what he witnesses or experiences. He reports. Part of the effect of that reportage is that the book initially seems a little formless. One thing happens, then another happens, and Henry tells us about them just as he deals with them, which is stoically. If, as I have suggested, a narrative is an attempt to impose order on the complexity and chaos of human experience, Hemingway resists the urge to allow Henry to make sense (in the common phrase) of what he goes through, at least for the reader. But that does not mean Hemingway has not carefully structured this book, or that it does not have a coherent theme or message. Henry is not Hemingway, despite some biographical similarities. Consider how the events in these chapters build up to Henry’s desertion. Do they make sense, or do they seem random? What conclusions about the novel’s theme can you draw from them?