War is the epitome of mankind’s inhumanity. It is in man’s nature to fuel the want and propensity toward war. Wars destroy nations and stability. Soldiers who fight in wars either come back in pieces or do not come back at all. The ones lucky enough to return home have changed drastically in what they feel and how they think. The horrors of war will forever haunt them. In his classic novel, A Farewell to Arms, Ernest Hemingway examines the effect of war on man’s ideals and morals amid the World War I battleground of Northern Italy.
Ernest Hemingway, born in Oak Park, Illinois, on July 21, 1899, was well nurtured by his parents as a young boy; however, he was never really adequately happy about his life. Hemingway always wanted to escape his life. His first big shot at running away from home came during World War I. Hemingway, at first, tried to join the American Army, but the Army declined him as a result of his poor health and eyesight. He later joined the Red Cross in 1918 as a volunteer ambulance diver. He worked for the Red Cross during World War I and was badly injured by shrapnel from mortar fire when he was at a post in Fossalta di Plave in Italy. As a result of his campaign in World War I warfare, Hemingway was able to experience first-hand the true nature of war and how it affected the soldiers involved. Shortly after being sent back home to America, he became a foreign correspondent for the Toronto Star. Before the war had started, Hemingway worked as a reporter and journalist for the Kansas Star (“Ernest Hemingway” 1647). His career as a journalist and reporter during this time helped to shape his very distinctive writing style. Another period of his life that greatly affected his writing style and beliefs was when he lived in France in the 1920s. During this time period, the idea of Modernism was flourishing in its popularity. Some modernist ideas, such as the incorporation of the author’s