When they first meet, Frederic pretends to love Catherine so that she may have sex with him as the girls at the “house for officers” would, even though he does “not love Catherine Barkley nor [has] any idea of loving her” (Hemingway 26). However, he does imagine going romantically away to Milan with her, where they would “drink the capri [with] the door locked and it hot and only a sheet and the whole night and [they] would both love each other all night in the hot night in Milan” (Hemingway 32). At first, Frederic sees Catherine as merely a conquest, someone that may entertain him while he is at the mess and not in the thick of war. However, after he suffers his head wound, Frederic exhibits a completely different persona when faced with Catherine.
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As both characters struggle with and through the war, their need for love is found within each other. Catherine’s emotional raging against the war and with herself makes her easily acceptable to the love which Frederic promises, such as that he has never loved a woman like he loves her. However, Frederic is unable to produce the love Catherine desires until after he is injured and faces the deaths promised by the war. Frederic’s budding love grows quickly, and builds off of Catherine’s need for companionship. After losing her fiancé of eight years, Catherine is desperate for the relationship she has lost. Both characters lean upon each other in an attempt to establish the love for which they long for during the war. The war, in many ways, creates the interdependent love, requiring Catherine and Frederic to establish the bond which otherwise would have been broken. As both characters rely heavily on one another, their love deepens as a place of mutual understanding. Catherine hates to die because she knows that Frederic will be left alone again, as he was before they fell in love; and as Catherine knows how it feels for a romantic partner to die, she dreads Frederic’s oncoming melancholy. The interdependent love between Catherine and Frederic is what keeps them alive in a war which so actively attempts to separate and kill
As both characters struggle with and through the war, their need for love is found within each other. Catherine’s emotional raging against the war and with herself makes her easily acceptable to the love which Frederic promises, such as that he has never loved a woman like he loves her. However, Frederic is unable to produce the love Catherine desires until after he is injured and faces the deaths promised by the war. Frederic’s budding love grows quickly, and builds off of Catherine’s need for companionship. After losing her fiancé of eight years, Catherine is desperate for the relationship she has lost. Both characters lean upon each other in an attempt to establish the love for which they long for during the war. The war, in many ways, creates the interdependent love, requiring Catherine and Frederic to establish the bond which otherwise would have been broken. As both characters rely heavily on one another, their love deepens as a place of mutual understanding. Catherine hates to die because she knows that Frederic will be left alone again, as he was before they fell in love; and as Catherine knows how it feels for a romantic partner to die, she dreads Frederic’s oncoming melancholy. The interdependent love between Catherine and Frederic is what keeps them alive in a war which so actively attempts to separate and kill