Coping

I was very confused while reading this book as to why a war plot suddenly jumps into a happily ever after gone terribly wrong. I didn't understand how Hemingway was able to connect the dots. When this book opened, I saw the storm clouds in the distance and thought this is a foreshadowing of the events of the war. But the more I read, the more I found descriptions of major war events always seem to get glazed over. For example, when Frederick Henry jumps into the river to escape being shot, Hemingway mentions the guns shooting at Henry only as an after-thought. There had to be a reason for this, I thought. Further into the book, quotes like this began to pop as I read them:

"The world breaks everyone and afterward many are strong at the broken places. But those that will not break it kills. It kills the very good and the very gentle and the very brave impartially. If you are none of these you can be sure it will kill you too but there will be no special hurry."- chapter XXXIV

All of the characters within the novel are coping with their worlds being broken, as this quote suggests will happen. It's like the characters are anesthecizing themselves. If you look, all major characters drink alcohol (and often). The preacher uses God as his way of coping with the war. Rinaldi uses sex. Henry and Catherine use love as an escape war and for Catherine, the death of her fiance. The major characters all seem to have a way of taking the focus off of the pain. Unfortunately, its only a matter of time before the storm catches up with them. The very good (the preacher), the very gentle (Catherine), and the very brave (the soldiers) are gone. Henry is left alone and its raining when the book ends.

When looking at it like that, this book seems to make more sense. It's not just a book about war. It's a book about being broken by the world.