Theme in A Farewell to Arms

Love and Marriage

Directions: These passages all refer to love in some way. Your task is to look up each passage, confirm the note, and add your own notes on what some of these passages have in common. Feel free to supplement this limited list with other references.

page     instances                                                 your notes

19 C.B. engaged 8 years vs. F.H.'s
never being in love

26 slap vs. chess game

27 "a strange life"

30 love lie to C.B. & role playing: bridge

41 lonely without C. B. & empty:
foreshadowing of ending

66 Rinaldi on goddesses, good girls,
and women

72 priest's definition of love

91 "When I saw her I was in love
93 with her" & "God knows...":

    Does F.H. love C.B.?

105 the wise lie

114-115 the marriage dilemma

116 "We love each other": true?

132 together alone; lonely in crowd

137 "nothing left to lose"

139 the biological trap

157 innocent & simple vs. "wrong"

170 Rinaldi's jealousy

232 what you do not love & whom you do

248 Fergy:"Why don't you get married?"

249 togetherness

257 nothing else

259 faint with love

263 "Love...is a religious feeling."

293 married, if they have the child

297 2 = 1

320 "the price you paid for sleeping
together"; "the same if we had
been married fifty times"

321 "get fond of it maybe" (contrast
Lt. H's lack of feeling for baby on 325)

330 "Don't touch me" vs. "You touch me
all you want."

331 "our things with another girl"?

331 "dear, brave, sweet" (compare "good,
gentle, & brave on 249)

"Mrs. Henry"
331 "I'll come and stay with you nights"

332 vs. "It was like saying good-by to a statue."

Assembling a thesis: What was C.B.'s motive for getting involved with Lt. H.? What were his motives? What were "the stakes" that nobody mentioned (page 31 vs. page 331-332)?

If Frederic were offered a chance to relive his time with Catherine, knowing that the outcome would be the same, do you think he would take it? Would she?

What is love, then, as depicted in this novel?

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