Donaldson, Scott.  "Frederic Henry's Escape and the Pose of Passivity." In
    Bloom, Harold, ed.  Ernest Hemingway's A Farewell to Arms.  New York:
    Chelsea House, 1987: 97-112.

    Frederic Henry feels guilty, says Donaldson, because he survives the war and Catherine.  At the beginning of the story, he does seem sort of passive, and when he emerges from the Tagliamento River, he is a more active person than even he lets on.  "Thinking" becomes a code word for having a sore conscience, but he really does plan his escape, though he gets the barman, the opera singer, and even Catherine to suggest the parts of the plan that he has already decided on, though he pretends with most that he is not in trouble (98-103).  Some of these observations are based on passages that Hemingway cut from the novel, as well as those left in.

When Frederic tells us his story, knowing that he has deserted, he points out repeated examples of soldiers who either did make a separate peace or suffered so much from war weariness that they wish they could (103-104 ), and every civilian he mentions after escaping seems willing to help him.  He lets the soldiers on the train think him a slacker, at least in part due to guilt (105) [rather than cause a scene and be discovered a deserter].   Only sex and liquor can help assuage his guilt for a while (106).  Though he sometimes avoids the war news, he also often seeks it out via newspapers (107).

Hemingway is not Frederic Henry; though he did fall for his nurse, Hemingway actually deserved the silver medal that he got.  Hemingway separates himself from his narrator both in and out of the novel; outside of the novel, he referred to Lt. Henry as "the inverted character."  In the novel, we see Lt. Henry's "lack of courage and competence" (109) and even his foolishness as he shoots a sergeant for not helping with ambulances he himself has gotten mired by leaving the main road and the retreat.  Guilty Frederic also holds his tongue when Ferguson accuses him of being a "snake" (111), though perhaps a "fox" is more appropriate (112).  Though Catherine tries to shield him from the world and his own guilt, "it has not been enough" (112).  "Hemingway's untrustworthy narrator remains a principal agent of both his farewells--to war as to love" (112).

I'm not sure I get Donaldson's point, or rather how much emphasis to place on Frederic's guilt as a force that shapes his narrative.  The supposed pose of passivity that Donaldson sees would be self-serving and increase the untrustworthiness of Frederic as a narrator of his own story. 

Donaldson doesn't seem to emphasize irony as the effect of Frederic's love affair.  He finally becomes able to love someone and she dies trying vainly to bear their son, who ought to be a symbol of their union, and instead becomes a symbol of all those sons--9 million of them--who became casualties of the war.

On the positive side, Donaldson does provide some aspects of what makes Frederic an unreliable narrator--his own guilt for what happened to his comrades and to Catherine, though he ignores Frederic's grief and seems to discount his bitterness.  But Hemingway has Frederic administering anesthetic to Catherine precisely to show that he shares in the culpability for her death--a scene that Donaldson completely ignores.

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