A Farewell to Arms
(Ernest Hemingway)

Love

Love is central to the novel as it is the driving force for Henry. Henry’s entire world revolves around Catherine as she is all he thinks about. Even when the baby is born and Henry sees that there is something wrong he feels nothing for it, but rather rushes in to make sure that Catherine is alright.

Henry’s entire life from the moment he meets Catherine seems to be a journey to get to wherever she is under every circumstance. The love is all-encompassing and bordering on infatuation or obsession. When Catherine is gone, Henry feels as though he has nothing left in his life and he has no reaction to his love being gone.

Isolation

Isolation is an important thing for Catherine and Henry as they feel lonely when they are in a crowd together. When they are alone they feel closer and happier, and somehow less lonely than when they are surrounded by others. Catherine and Henry enjoy their isolation so much that in the months before the baby comes they spend as much time together as possible because they worry that the baby will ruin their alone time. Catherine and Henry seem to feel as though no one else understands them or the hard times they know they will face together.

Warfare

The novel demonstrates the true horrors of war, not from an outsider’s perspective but from the point of view of those who are directly involved. The connections that the men have with their fellow soldiers are beneficial to them, as is shown in Henry’s relationship to Rinaldi and the priest.

The men have to hold their relationships close, as well as their hopes and dreams for the future, or they will never get through the day to day hardships of war. While Hemingway’s descriptions of the war are historically accurate, it is not the facts that matter, but rather the men themselves and what they experience.

Courage

Some may think that the soldiers in this novel are not particularly courageous because a few of them makes the moves to escape the war but escaping is courageous just as fighting is. The men who escape risk being caught and killed, and they are running from a situation where they cannot survive. Also, the men who do fight show their courage because they are at a great disadvantage in the war especially when Austria and Germany begin to fight against the Italians. They are even courageous enough to allow themselves to experience happiness when it presents itself, even if it may be short-lived.

Rain

Rain appears regularly throughout this novel, and it nearly always brings with it destruction. The rain acts as an omen for terrible things to come. As Catherine points out, the rain means bad things for people like them. She may mean for military people, or she may mean for those who are in a relationship during times of war because of the destruction it inevitably brings. Water is not always equal to destruction, however, because the water serves as a means for Henry to escape to freedom on more than one occasion.

Diversions

Diversions make life bearable for the soldiers, as a means for escaping the horrific realities of war. The men find their diversions in alcohol, card games, brothels, and love. While Henry finds his biggest diversion in Catherine, who gives him a reason to come out of the war alive, other men, like Rinaldi, enjoy hedonism. The men pretend they are ignorant about the war because to them it is only real if they think about it. The less the men think about the war the less they have to become depressed and pessimistic about.

Abandonment

The men in the novel are forced to abandon things they genuinely care about due to their military duties. Catherine has a fear of abandonment due to the death of her fiancé who was killed in battle and thus she fears being abandoned by Henry. Henry cannot help abandoning Catherine when duty calls but he is always sure to get back to her.

Catherine even fears that Henry will leave her after she has the baby because he will not love her anymore if she has gained weight and let her hair grow out. Ironically, it is Catherine who ends up leaving Henry though she does it only in death.

Religion

The only man who truly embraces religion in the novel is the priest, and he is teased relentlessly for his dedication to his faith. The other men hold no store in religion as no God would allow the world to fall to pieces the way it does in war. The priest admits that he does not understand it but has faith regardless. Henry is the only one who does not pick on the priest though he admits his faith in religion is not the strongest either. Count Greffi says that he thought he would find religious devotion as he got older, but he discovered that to not be true.

Death

Death is something that constantly shakes Henry though he shows little emotion at any of it. He first deals with the death of Passini that he feels is his fault, then the death of Aymo by their own people, and finally the death of Catherine and their son together.

Henry does not allow himself to develop strong emotions toward many people because he feels that he will always lose them. Even his relationship with Catherine starts out with no real emotion in it. After Catherine’s death Henry still shows little emotion and cannot even say goodbye to her, perhaps because he has taught himself to expect death in the face of war.

Identity

Despite the fact that Henry is the main character of the novel, he regards himself as the least significant part. It is some distance into the book before Henry’s name is even revealed to the reader and his entire identity is as an outsider, but so is Catherine’s. Both Catherine and Henry are outsiders in Italy; Henry is an American in the Italian army and Catherine is an English woman working in an Italian hospital. It seems that Henry never truly knows who he is, except when he is with Catherine. Neither of them knows who they are as individuals, but they know who they are together.