A Farewell to Arms Frederic Henry Quotes

The priest is visitor number two to Frederic’s sickbed. We see how hurt he is by the captain’s jokes. But the joke is only half about masturbation. The captain is also implying strongly that World War I is proof either that God doesn’t exist, or that God is evil. Either way, the priest becomes a bad guy, for loving God. But Frederic loves him. And their love is complicated.

Frederic is talking about marriage, but Catherine is suggesting, as she does many times in the novel, that marriage for them is anti-climactic. Since they are already so close that they are a single person, formal marriage seems pointless.

This sentence is ambiguous for sure, because Frederic uses the word "like" instead of "love," but, unless one takes a cynical approach, it actually expresses a deep love for Aymo.

Notice how smoothly Frederic brings things around from the battlefield of literal war, to the battlefield of the bedroom. We can pretty well imagine what he means by "old screws" but he makes it clear when he adds "bedsprings" to the mix.

This is probably the first time Catherine and Frederic have sex together outside of his hospital bed. Part of why she feels like a whore is because she knows that not just any hotel would let them get a room for a few hours, married or not. When they have sex in the hospital it seems like part of her nursing duties in a way, and therefore acceptable.

We don’t know if Frederic ever gets over this feeling. We can see that if he hadn’t deserted, he would probably be dead, but Frederic isn’t sure it was worth it. He possibly even thinks Catherine’s death is punishment for his "cowardly" act. Interestingly, he has sympathy for other "deserters," like the man who is on the run and afraid to seek medical attention for his hernia because he thinks they will send him back to the battlefield.

We love how Frederic describes Aymo’s use of the "F" word, and there is no doubt what he means. When Frederic uses it himself a few lines later, it’s even funnier. We wonder if the editors or Hemingway chose not to put the actual word in. If it’s Hemingway, than we can assume that Frederic uses the word, but won’t use it when narrating this story for some reason.

This implies that Frederic sometimes dreams in other languages. Perhaps more important is the dream that he’s talking about. Frederic and Catherine’s bond is so tight that they can reach each other in dreams.