A Farewell to Arms Themes

The senseless tragedy of war

Throughout the novel, the war is portrayed in terms of the stern realities of daily life. There is no honor in it, no glory, and often no rationale at all. This is often reflected in a satirical way. When Henry is injured, he is not really fighting; he is huddled with his men eating pasta. When Rinaldi announces to Henry that he will be awarded medals for the injury he inflicted, Henry states how he is neither worthy, nor does he want medals—highlighting his disbelief in winning “honor” from his participation in war. The conversations Henry has with the trumpeter Moretti and the loyalist Gino also prove this. The retreat from Caporetto preceding Henry’s departure from the army is ridden with absurdness, disarray, and hopeless calamity. The reader notes the frequency of people killing not the enemy but the men on their own side. Henry and Bonello have shot one of their own for refusing to help dislodge the truck; Aymo is killed by nervous Italian soldiers mistaking him for a German; the Italian battle police are executing their own. For Henry, this is the final straw and because of the futility of it all, he is able to justify his abandonment to make a “separate peace” from the war and to go his own way. One cannot really escape the mindless tragedy of war which continues to haunt the backdrop of the novel even while Catherine and Henry are together. Henry is injured, he is not really fighting; he is huddled with his men eating pasta. When Rinaldi announces to Henry that he will be awarded medals for the injury he inflicted, Henry states how he is neither worthy, nor does he want medals—highlighting his disbelief in winning “honor” from his participation in war. The conversations Henry has with the trumpeter Moretti and the loyalist Gino also prove this. The retreat from Caporetto preceding Henry’s departure from the army is ridden with absurdness, disarray, and hopeless calamity. The reader notes the frequency of people killing not the enemy but the men on their own side. Henry and Bonello have shot one of their own for refusing to help dislodge the truck; Aymo is killed by nervous Italian soldiers mistaking him for a German; the Italian battle police are executing their own. For Henry, this is the final straw and because of the futility of it all, he is able to justify his abandonment to make a “separate peace” from the war and to go his own way. One cannot really escape the mindless tragedy of war which continues to haunt the backdrop of the novel even while Catherine and Henry are together.

Doomed love

Tied up with the mindless tragedy of war is the theme of doomed love which looms throughout the novel. Overall, there is a sinister feeling of disaster soaring behind each exchange between Catherine and Henry. At the first introduction, Catherine Barkley is seen carrying her dead fiancé’s walking stick while retelling the story to Frederic Henry about losing her love in the war. Our first glimpse of Catherine tells us how she is wrapped in an aura of painfully lost love. Henry is seen as vacant—hollow from the inside and shallow from his time at war. Henry’s confession to Catherine about his love for her is fuelled purely by his interest to get her to bed—hardly the romantic beginning one expects of a great love story. As the war becomes more vivid for Henry—owing to his near-death experience—he begins to develop tender and passionate love. The intense nature of their affair invokes a sense of inevitable doom amongst the reader—the alertness Catherine and Henry show of the war, keeping them distant and making them hold on to each other in their brief time together. Catherine often warns how she is assured that their love is doomed and tells Henry that she often perceives them—herself and Henry—lying dead in the rain. Every moment of peace and love the couple grasps onto is tormented by obvious tragedy and that is how the novel concludes. The cruel war-torn landscape reflects that love brings loss and suffering.

The relationship between love and pain

In the novel, love is never without the shadow of pain. When Henry meets Catherine for the first time, she is mourning the death of her fiancé. She quickly embarks on a relationship with Henry in order to escape the pain of mourning for lost love. Similarly, Henry too seeks refuge in her to escape the harshness of the war and perhaps to feel less lonely. While the relationship starts out as a game, eventually each finds solace in the other, which tragically is temporary. The moments they share are precious precisely because the loss of love is imminent in the backdrop of the war. At the end, they achieve the safety and peace of an idyllic life in Switzerland, far removed from the war. This too is cut short when Catherine dies in labor. The tragedy in the novel lies with the fact that while Henry and Catherine’s love is indeed genuine and passionate, it is marked with pain right from the beginning and was destined to not end happily.