A month after he arrived he was injured and spent nine months in Milan recuperating. Here, Hemingway fell in love with his nurse Agnes von Kurowski. Many of the events in A Farewell to Arms come from real experiences Hemingway had during his time in Europe. Also, many of Hemingway's characters are based on real people (Hulse 3-4). The title, A Farewell to Arms has a double meaning behind it. Essentially in the book, Frederic Henry has to bid a farewell to arms' to be with Catherine, the arms in this meaning signifying weapons and war. But in the end, he has to bid another farewell to arms' when he has to let go of Catherine when she dies, the arms in this meaning signifying love. This shows two of the major themes in the book, love and war. War in this case also symbolizes pain. Ernest Hemingway expresses the relationship between love and pain in A Farewell to Arms by using irony, characterization and symbolism.
One particular example of irony in A Farewell to Arms is the irony in Frederic Henry and Catherine Barkley's love and relationship. Robert Lewis says that in A Farewell to Arms the horrors of war and wonders of love are contrasted, and that Frederic tried to avoid death by escaping the war, but it was ironically through love that he experiences the ultimate pain, death (45). Lieutenant Henry has never loved a woman before he meets Catherine Barkley. Since they are both obligated to serving the Italian army, they can never truly escape to be ideally in love. Frederic, afraid of death, deserts the army and starts a new life with Catherine. But in the end he does not escape death at all because Catherine and the baby die, leaving him alone in a country that is not his own. At the beginning, when Lieutenant Henry first meets Catherine Barkley, there is irony in their relationship, until they learn to truly love one another. "Henry pretends to love Catherine who, in turn, substitutes him for her dead fiancé- (Lewis 43).
