Narrative Structure Outline
General Purpose: To Inform
Specific purpose: To inform my audience about how the narrative structure of A Farewell to Arms is constructed
Central idea: The narrative structure of A Farewell to Arms follows the Freytag Pyramid.
I. Introduction
A. Freytag Pyramid model of narrative structure
1. Elements of Freytag Pyramid
2. Was originally intended for Greek dramas and Shakespeare
B Thesis and preview of main points
Although Freytag’s Pyramid was created to analyze drama, the novel A Farewell to Arms contains the elements of exposition, rising action, climax, falling action, and resolution/denouement.
1. Exposition
2. Rising action
3. Climax
4. Falling action
5. Resolution/denouement
II. Main body
A. Exposition
1. Setting in wartime Italy
2. Characters
B. Rising action
1. Relationship between Frederic and Catherine
2. Frederic’s injury and recovery
C. Climax
1. Catherine’s pregnancy
2. Frederic’s realization that he will die if questioned
3. Frederic’s choice to escape
D. Falling action
1. Quiet life waiting for pregnancy to finish
2. Being away from war
E. Resolution/denouement
1. Prolonged labor
2. Child is stillborn
3. Catherine’s death
III. Conclusion
A. Hemingway was aware of conventions of Greek drama and Shakespeare’s dramas
B. The narrative structure elements of Freytag’s Pyramid are present in the novel, although it does not follow the exact linear progression that a play normally would.
Narrative Structure in A Farewell to Arms
The Freytag Pyramid when created focused on the narrative structure of Greek and Shakespearean dramas and established five stages of narrative structure. Each stage serves a specific narrative purpose. The exposition establishes the setting and major characters; the rising action gives details of the central plotlines; the climax contains the most critical actions; the falling action describes the aftereffects of the critical actions; and finally, the resolution/denouement explains the final consequences of the action on the major characters. Ernest Hemingway’s novel A Farewell to Arms is not a drama, but the novel contains the five elements of the Freytag Pyramid. Hemingway uses exposition, rising action, climax, falling action, and resolution/denouement in succession as he examines the lives of people caught up in a war.
The novel is divided into five books. The first book contains exposition to establish the setting of the novel, Italy during World War I. Book one also establishes the main character of the novel, Frederic Henry, as an American who enlisted in the Italian army so he could fight in the war. Additional exposition introduces other major characters, notably Catherine Barkley as Frederic’s love interest, and the surgeon Rinaldi as Frederic’s friend and confidante for part of the novel.
During the rising action, two major plotlines are intertwined. On a personal level, Frederic and Catherine begin a romantic relationship. In terms of the war, Frederic is wounded and must spend time in a hospital for surgery and recuperation. Catherine nurses him and their relationship intensifies. As their relationship becomes stronger, Frederic consumes large quantities of alcohol as he seems reluctant to return to the war. As part of the rising action, tension increases in anticipation of what will occur next.
The climax of the novel is twofold and as such, does not occur simultaneously. The climax to the romantic relationship between Frederic and Catherine happens when she reveals that she is three months pregnant. The pregnancy will change both their lives. The climax to the wartime plot occurs when Frederic is taken in for questioning during a retreat by the battle police, who are angry about the Italian defeat. Frederic sees that the battle police are questioning and then executing every officer. Realizing they will assume him to be a German or Austrian infiltrator and execute him because of his accented Italian, Frederic escapes and jumps into the river. This action changes the course of his life; he is now a deserter and faces grave consequences if caught.
The falling action of the novel takes place in the fourth book, when Frederic persuades Catherine to run away to Switzerland with him. They use a small boat to row across the lake from Italy to Switzerland. Because this is part of the falling action, there are some elements of humor, such as when Frederic uses a large umbrella as a sail. Once Frederic and Catherine arrive in Switzerland, the calm and quiet of their lives as they wait for the pregnancy to end reflect being away from the war; it is the equivalent of peacetime.
The resolution/denouement of the novel begins when Catherine finally goes into labor. Like the war, her labor lasts longer than anticipated and is extremely painful. As time goes by, her pain becomes increasingly intense. Her labor appears nonproductive, and so the doctor performs a caesarean section procedure. Again in parallel to the high death toll being the final result of war, the end result of the pregnancy is that the baby is stillborn, so the months of pregnancy that Catherine had endured are for nothing. As the final resolution to the relationship between Frederic and Catherine, the relationship ends because Catherine dies from hemorrhaging as a result of the caesarean section. The resolution to Frederic’s involvement in the war and his romantic relationship is that both end in tragedy: he is a deserter from a war that has brought countless deaths to soldiers and civilians, and he has neither Catherine nor their baby to be with him.
In the novel, Hemingway uses some literary allusions, such as to a poem by Andrew Marvell. As an educated man, he would have been familiar with at least the major elements of both Greek drama and Shakespearean drama. It is not clear that he was familiar with the specific concept of the Freytag Pyramid, but he could easily have mirrored the narrative structure of his novel on the narrative structure that is present in most Greek dramas and Shakespeare’s dramas. One difference is that the length of the novel makes the stages of the narrative structure not quite as tight as they would be in a drama. For example, there are places throughout the novel where some exposition occurs, such as describing the new town where Frederic and Catherine stay in Switzerland. Overall, though, the narrative structure of A Farewell to Arms follows the Freytag Pyramid in a natural progression of events and actions leading to a final tragic resolution.
