Critics and literary scholars believe that this novel is against
the war. In the novel, one can see that there is destruction, fear, and
disillusionment everywhere. “War is not won by victory,” as the saying goes, and WWI
was a terrible war with no winners." Henry, the protagonist goes through
the war's disillusionment, pessimism, and tragedy but he also has a deep love,
a contradiction that ironically mirrors the troops' and civilians' sense of
meaninglessness and despair.
As we see in the novel that characters hook up whores and drink
alcohol in order to get relief from the frustrating life caused by war. For
Henry, love is also a game when he meets and makes his sexual approach to
Catherine Barkley. There are slight changes that come when we turn the further
pages of the novel that when Henry is injured and has to spend time in the
hospital, he undergoes a little change. He becomes more active in the battle as
a result of his release from the battlefield, but he also realizes his deep
love for Catherine.
Henry recognizes the close link between love and battle when he
connects his beloved's death:” Or they killed you gratuitously like Aymo. Or
gave you syphilis like Rinaldi. But they killed you in the end. You could count
on that. Stay around and they would kill you”
The above brief but argumentative discussion vividly shows that A Farewell to Arms is an anti-war work; the plot moves quickly from naive gameplay to the phases of love and optimism, culminating in utter misery and the realization that no one wins in a war.
The novel's intense love story
reinforces the message even more by demonstrating the ironic resemblance, but
also the disparity, between the war and the message. The novel's central
message is to create love, not war.
