Do you wish that you could control events that happen in your life? Do you wish that you could look into the future and see what is going to happen next? In the book "A Farewll to Arms" by Ernest Hemingway, Frederick Henry wishes that he could do both. Henry is an ambulance driver for the Italian army in World War I when he meets a beautiful girl named Catherine Barkley. Catherine falls in love with Frederick, but all Frederick wants is sex. Then Frederick and Catherine meet again in hospital in Milan where he finally starts to fall in love with her. They are now spending a lot of time together and Catherine is pregnant. After Frederick is almost healed, they flee to Switzerland to escape from the police who are looking for Frederick to take him back to the front. Throughout this love story there are happy and sad times that the couple can't control but have to deal with as best they can. The theme of this story is people do not have power to control the events of their lives.

The last chapter of the book, Book Five, is both a happy and a heart-breaking time. It's finally time for Catherine to have their baby. Catherine is excited and can't wait to see her child, but she is in labor for over 24 hours and having very strong pains. She ends up having a cesarean because of her fatigue and the baby's position. After the baby's birth, Catherine starts to hemmorhage. She becomes sick and ends up dying. (p. 331) "It seems she had one hemorrhage after another. They couldn't stop it. She was unconscious all the time and it did not take her very long to die." Frederick wished he could have been in control of this event because he finally found the love of his life but she was gone forever.

Another uncontrollable event was the baby. The umbilical cord was wrapped around his neck, causing death before birth. (p. 327) "He was dead?" Frederick asked the nurse. "They couldnt start him breathing. The cord was caught around his neck." And so Frederick even lost his baby boy, as the last part of Catherine was taken away from him. If he could have controlled this event, he could live happily with part of his family.

Frederick's life was finally coming together. He had a beautiful wife and was going to have a son. But everything went wrong in an hour and he was back to being alone. I believe in the saying "Things happen for a reason, even if they are bad. Something good will come out of it." Maybe things were really never going to work out with Catherine and she died for a reason. If you wish you could change one event of your life for the better, what would it be?

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