A Farewell to Arms

A Farewell to Arms Every man has a feel of duty to his country and has a sense of warfare to protect his land. At the same time a man has his desires which can be as meaningless as a car or as important as the love of his life. In the novel A Farewell To Arms, Frederick Henry is stuck in the conflict of choosing to follow his sense of duty or follow his heart. Those two forces are pulling on Henry so hard that he is about to be torn apart. In the beginning, Frederick starts out as an ambulance driver in Italy. He was fulfilling his duty until he met Catherine. After he met Catherine, his job turned upside down and became a daily journey to meet his love Catherine. Then it all changed with the start of the World War. With the start of the war, Fredericks sense of desire kicks in and decides to join the war. Frederick joins the war and says his goodbyes to Catherine, and he promised her to come back. “You’ve got to stay. They can’t send you away. I’m crazy in love with you,” Henry said (Hemingway 92). The way Fredrick acts towards Catherine shows how much he actually loves her, but he just feel that he can’t lay off of his duty to the war even though he was fighting in the Italian Army which is not even his country’s army. The real problem is not why some pious, humble, believing people suffer, but why some do not, says C.S Lewis. Later on Frederick realizes what he has gotten himself into. He quickly found out that war is not as glorious as most people think, but its a very cruel place and it will hit you and put you to the ground no matter how strong you are. After realizing that Frederick decides to leave the war, because the only thing that war brought him was pain. Frederick follows his heart and goes back to Catherine. However, the war affected both Catherine and Frederick physically and mentally and it was not long until Catherine passed out. With the death of Catherine, Frederick was the ashes of a man and ended up losing both his sense of duty and