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Chapter 2
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in A Farewell to Arms, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
War
Love and Loss
Reality vs. Fantasy
Self vs. Duty
Manhood
Religion
Summary
Analysis
Henry returns to Gorizia in the spring, after his leave is over. He greets his friend and roommate, Lieutenant Rinaldi, who wants to know all about Henry's adventures throughout Italy, including who he slept with. Rinaldi then informs Henry that a number of beautiful English nurses have arrived in Gorizia. Henry loans him fifty lire (Italian money) so that Rinaldi can impress one of them: Catherine Barkley.
The brotherly affection between Henry and Rinaldi is more important to them than any individual woman. In their world, friendship between soldiers is lasting, but women are only to be romanced and bragged about later. Love isn't even on their radar.
Themes
At dinner, the priest is hurt that Henry did not visit the priest's family in Abruzzi. Henry, who is drunk, thinks about what it would have been like to go hunting in cold Abruzzi, and contrasts this with his memory of what it was like to go from city to city and sleep with a different woman every night.
