War is a terrible event that can have a drastic effect on the soldiers who participate. It can destroy their lives and families, but it can also destroy the emotions of innocent civilians. In his novel, A Farewell to Arms, Ernest Hemingway exhibits this destruction with the theme of love as a response to the horrors of war and the world.
Hemingway repeatedly emphasizes the horrific devastation war has wrought on everyone involved. He begins with the opening account of cholera, which "in the end only seven thousand died of it in the army" (Hemingway 4). The use of the word "only" paints a picture of genuine horror. He makes it sound as if seven thousand isn't a lot, but it is. Hemingway, however, does not merely condemn war. Rather, he indicts the world at large for its atmosphere of destruction. "A Farewell to Arms was dominated by an atmosphere of Gothic ruin, boredom, sterility, and decay" (Aldridge 231). Henry frequently reflects upon the world's insistence on breaking and killing everyone; it is as if the world cannot bear to let anyone remain happy and safe because "nothing is allowed to seem lasting" (Wyatt 291). Indeed, whenever Henry and Catherine are blissful, something comes along to interrupt it, whether it's Henry's injury, his being sent back to the front, his impending arrest, or finally, Catherine's death from childbirth. "I suppose all sorts of dreadful things will happen to us" (Hemingway 116). In the war-torn world, tragedy is inevitable, which is why Catherine knew in the beginning that they must savor their love while they had it. With such misery confronting them at every turn, the two turned to each other. "During their first meetings in Gorizia, Catherine poignantly reveals her vulnerability, but Frederic nonetheless treats her as he would any other potential conquest, as an opponent in the game of seduction he intends to win" (Donaldson 278). Catherine plunges almost too easily into love when she first meets Henry, and Henry "does not love her as she deserves; he takes without giving" (Wagner 199).