Suggestions
Use up and down arrows to review and enter to select.Please wait while we process your payment
If you don't see it, please check your spam folder. Sometimes it can end up there.
If you don't see it, please check your spam folder. Sometimes it can end up there.
Please wait while we process your payment
By signing up you agree to our terms and privacy policy.
Don’t have an account? Subscribe now
Create Your Account
Sign up for your FREE 7-day trial
Already have an account? Log in
Your Email
Choose Your Plan
Individual
Group Discount
Save over 50% with a SparkNotes PLUS Annual Plan!
Purchasing SparkNotes PLUS for a group?
Get Annual Plans at a discount when you buy 2 or more!
Price
$24.99 $18.74 /subscription + tax
Subtotal $37.48 + tax
Save 25% on 2-49 accounts
Save 30% on 50-99 accounts
Want 100 or more? Contact us for a customized plan.
Your Plan
Payment Details
Payment Summary
SparkNotes Plus
You'll be billed after your free trial ends.
7-Day Free Trial
Not Applicable
Renews December 6, 2023 November 29, 2023
Discounts (applied to next billing)
DUE NOW
US $0.00
SNPLUSROCKS20 | 20% Discount
This is not a valid promo code.
Discount Code (one code per order)
SparkNotes PLUS Annual Plan - Group Discount
Qty: 00
SparkNotes Plus subscription is $4.99/month or $24.99/year as selected above. The free trial period is the first 7 days of your subscription. TO CANCEL YOUR SUBSCRIPTION AND AVOID BEING CHARGED, YOU MUST CANCEL BEFORE THE END OF THE FREE TRIAL PERIOD. You may cancel your subscription on your Subscription and Billing page or contact Customer Support at custserv@bn.com. Your subscription will continue automatically once the free trial period is over. Free trial is available to new customers only.
Choose Your Plan
For the next 7 days, you'll have access to awesome PLUS stuff like AP English test prep, No Fear Shakespeare translations and audio, a note-taking tool, personalized dashboard, & much more!
You’ve successfully purchased a group discount. Your group members can use the joining link below to redeem their group membership. You'll also receive an email with the link.
Members will be prompted to log in or create an account to redeem their group membership.
Thanks for creating a SparkNotes account! Continue to start your free trial.
Please wait while we process your payment
Your PLUS subscription has expired
Please wait while we process your payment
Please wait while we process your payment
Ernest Hemingway’s A Farewell to Arms deals frankly and extensively with the sexual behavior of its principle characters. What role does sex play in the novel?
It would be easy to read
Throughout the novel, Frederic and his friends talk about sex and visit brothels in a strikingly casual way. For men in the military, this behavior is just part of daily life during wartime. Frederic’s friend Rinaldi is probably the most appealing character in the whole book, and he also happens to be the most oversexed. He’s a good doctor with a great sense of humor and a positive attitude, but he also has a penchant for drinking and prostitutes. Many of the other admirable characters in the book, such as Dr. Valentini, share Rinaldi’s unsavory habits. Ironically, the characters portrayed most negatively, such as the pompous, abstemious war hero Ettore Moretti and the prudish head nurse Miss Van Campen, refrain from vices. In this way, Hemingway seems to prize certain characteristics (here, virility) that also predispose a man to certain weaknesses—at least during wartime, when marriage is impossible and there are special whorehouses set up for military officers. Nonetheless, Hemingway shows that moral vices can have dire consequences. In the end, Rinaldi contracts syphilis, a terrible disease that stems from his sexual behavior.
Frederic and Catherine’s romance follows the same pattern: Their secret affair in the hospital seems exciting and attractive to the reader most of the time, but it eventually ends in disaster. In the final chapter, Catherine dies after giving birth to a stillborn child. Both her pregnancy and her death are clearly the result of her sexual relationship with Frederic. It would be simplistic to argue that Hemingway portrays Catherine’s death as a just punishment for sexual indiscretion, but there
Catherine’s relationship with Frederic is always placed in implicit contrast to her relationship with her fiancé, who died in France. Catherine and her fiancé were engaged for eight years but the couple remained chaste. (She explains this, somewhat obliquely, to Frederic in their first meeting). By comparison, Catherine and Frederic jump into a sexual relationship very quickly, sleeping together right after they are reunited in the hospital following Frederic’s injury, and then postpone marriage indefinitely. Hemingway shows the ugly side of their affair when they spend a last night together in a sleazy hotel before he returns to the front. Catherine says she feels like a “whore,” emphasizing how far their relationship in fact is from a normal courtship or marriage. In some regards, Catherine and Frederic’s relationship functions exactly the way a good union between two people shouldn’t, as the two grow increasingly isolated from society. They lose interest in their friends and promise they won’t have to meet each other’s parents. In the end, they flee to the total isolation of Switzerland. Instead of laying the foundation for a future life, surrounded by friends, family, and a supportive community—as in a good, traditional marriage—they cut themselves off from the world as much as possible.
In a broad sense,
Please wait while we process your payment