Fredrick Henry Character Analysis

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Between meals, my dog likes to sit outside and eat sticks until one of my family members stops him. The sticks constantly upset his stomach, but he continues to eat them tirelessly. The vet assures us that he is being fed enough, and only snacks because he can’t stop himself when they are directly in front of him. Frederic Henry is similar to my 60 pound pit bull Milo when it comes to relationships. He continues seeking and making bonds, because of the temptation of companionship during war time, but never appears to benefit from his relationships in any way. Frederic is continuously “torn between [the] compulsion” of making bonds through the tragedies of World War I, and suffering the pain and dissatisfaction of these connections (Herndl 241) …show more content…
Although America is where Henry originates from, he is dissatisfied with his country’s inability to join the war. When questioning America’s concern with “his own sufferings”, he wonders if America would close down the major baseball leagues and fight, and decides they “probably wouldn’t”(Herndl 242; Hemingway 119). He knows America will not send troops in for many years, and he hates that “his horrific experiences of war” will be rewarded with a useless metal and a piece of paper (Herndl 242). Frederic feels similarly about the villa he stays in, reporting that coming back “did not feel like a homecoming” (Hemingway 144). The house is temporary, and fails to protect him or Rinaldi from getting hurt. It only manages to surround him with the brutalities of war, and he hates leaving Catherine for it. His final escape into Switzerland is no better, because it is supposed to allow him to “forget the war” and make “a separate peace”, but it actually surrounds him with more tragedy (Hemingway 211). It is not the beautiful land he originally gets teased with, but is actually the setting of his life’s final collapse. It teaches him not the lesson of earning happiness after suffering, but that he can “no more save Catherine than he [can] save his comrades” (Herndl …show more content…
Although Henry “had not wanted to fall in love with anyone”, he falls deeply in love with Catherine, and loses his “restraint of emotion” (Hemingway 81; Herndl 243). He hates that “some one who’s dead…loved her”, but then experiences that exact pain for himself (Hemingway 100). She is supposed to be his escape from the war and the ugliness of his past, but she brings him more pain than anything. She is a “self-inflicted wound” with punishment worse than any of his other relationships (Herndl 244). His love for her results in her pregnancy, which results in her death. Catherine is not killed “graciously like Aymo” or “given syphilis like Rinaldi”, she is killed by Frederic’s need for love (Hemingway 280). Just as Catherine “insists until almost the very end that she really will be alright”, she seems like Henry’s first relationship that will actually work out (Herndl 253). Henry is punished for his love, and walks away in the end to show his disillusionment with having relationships during war
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