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 bli

Love is a pleasurable diversion that distracts lovers from the outside world; the two often tell each other not to think about anything else, as it is too painful. Because of this diversion, Henry tells Catherine “I do love you” because even though he really doesn’t at that moment, he feels it’s the only way to forget about the war (Hemingway 31). Catherine’s hair also helps Henry and Catherine feel protected from the cruel outside world. “She had wonderfully beautiful hair and I would lie sometimes and watch her twisting it up…” (Hemingway 114). Catherine’s hair is a symbol of the safe haven love can create in times of strife. She and Henry hide behind her hair to block out anything that may come between them. The major problem with such escapist love is, as Henry and other characters point out several times, one does not always know the stakes of love until it is over, or that one does not know about something until one has lost it. “You cannot know it unless you have it” (Hemingway 72). This statement is made about how Henry doesn’t realize how much in love he is with Catherine yet and he won’t until it is too late. “Love is always something had on leave, stolen from fate. Throughout, Frederic treats his love for Catherine as something already over, as recollection (Wyatt 291). Henry hardly allows himself to think of life without Catherine while he is in love because for a long time “the love he feels is almost entirely sexual and derives from the pleasure she gives him” (Donaldson 278).

The theme of Ernest Hemingway’s novel is love as a response to the horrors of war and the world. “Despite the frequency of their appearance in the same books, love and war

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