Love and Agony in A Farewell to Arms The vigorous and robust young man bravely advances into war, rifle in hand, image of his mother in his pocket, hair well combed, socks clean. He eagerly arrives at the sunny front and fights the enemy with valor, saving entire troops of wounded soldiers as he throws them over his shoulders and rears across the grassy meadow to safety. Between the various medal award ceremonies, he meets a radiant young nurse who cares for the blessed wounded she has saved. They fall in love, get married, give birth to beautiful war babies, and everyone goes home happy. Wouldn't it be just wonderful if war were really like this? It's not. It's war. A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway is a book about war. As a reader, when I start reading a book about death, blood, courage, and destruction, I generally don't expect a Cinderella-esque "Happily Ever After," "ah, isn't that sweet?" end. But isn't it a love story? Well yes, it's love at war. Let us not forget the circumstances that surround and confine this love. Is the tragic ending of the novel therefore valid? Well yes, after all it is war. Few good things turn out. Am I in favor of the end? Well, I certainly don't rejoice at the loss of two innocent lives, and I don't think Mr. Henry does either. There's a difference, however, between recognizing the possible realism of the story, including how the ending fits in, and personally appreciating the events that unfold within it: I for one don't have a strong desire to pack my bags and leave for the war. Pain and agony, blood and guts, bodies strewn across fields of mud are all elements that immediately turn me away. But, aside from the obvious, my biggest problem with war is that it makes characters create their own flimsy work... middle of paper... you'll never get married... you'll die then. Fight or die. This is what people do. They don't get married.' " (108). In fact, it is war. They do not get married. She becomes pregnant. She dies, like many young women in these times and circumstances, during childbirth. Is it unreasonable? Of course not. Not so Very sad. He who did he love her, however superficially it may have been, does he rejoice in her death? No. He prays for his survival and grieves. He didn't want to see his friends die on the battlefield, he didn't want to see Rinaldi die of a sexually transmitted disease transmittable, and he certainly did not want to see the death of his so-called wife and his newborn child. War does not bring pain even through fiction he can truly escape the agony. Schuster, 1929.