Essay Database

1-5 The novel opens with a description of artillery-laden troops marching slowly through the rains of late summer and autumn. One of these men is the American Frederic Henry, an ambulance driver. Henry is currently in the Italian army, at the Italian front during World War I. The main action of these first few chapters begins when Henry returns from winter leave in early spring. His roommate, Rinaldi, is enamored of a British nurse, Catherine …

…Henry is characterized initially by a sort of detachment from life-though well-disciplined and friendly, he feels as if he has nothing to do with the war. These feelings of detachment are pushed away when Henry falls in love with Catherine and begins to realize the hostile nature of the world. In this way, Henry serves the function of a character who becomes initiated in Hemingway's philosophy of an indifferent universe and man's struggle against it.