Getting the Feels

The relationship between Frederic and Catherine sparked much interest in me. It seemed very complicated as I constantly found myself trying to decipher their feelings for each other, for their words and thoughts seemed to contradict their actions. Some believe Catherine Barkly to be a crazy woman and Frederic to be a man with a high sex drive willing to overlook Cat’s love at first sight craziness, but I believe it to be so much more than that.

            Frederic says he doesn’t love her (30) but seems to spend a lot of time thinking about her. He wants to spend the night with her and imagines lustful encounters with her. Does this mean he lied about lying when he said he loved her? More than likely not. We all know us as humans are able to get the feels without getting the feels inside—in other words, sex before falling in love is not a new thing. When Frederic said he didn’t love her, I believe he was telling the truth at the moment.

            I found his character to be very strange. When first reading the opening chapters, I thought he was disgusting, as he was using Catherine, saying whatever sly words would get him into bed with her. I immediately became very fond of Cat when she called him out on his lies. Just when he thought she was being crazy, she was actually being really clever. Did she love him when she asked him if he loved her? Probably not, I think she merely was testing the waters, trying to see how far Mr. Henry would go to try to get with her.

            Nonetheless, I do believe their loveless infatuation with one another developed love along the way—it simply took a while for them to get there. Catherine was not crazy, she was a typical girl. She longed for the love that she had never gotten to experience, and Henry longed to escape the war he was in the mist of. Catherine had this image of love in her mind that she wanted to fulfill, a love that she had lost with her fiancé who was blown to bits. Even his injury/death was not how she pictured it to be, and it disappointed her. Meanwhile, Henry has lost feeling and purpose for the life he is living—depicted in his constant consumption of alcohol and his fearlessness on the front line.

I believe Catherine and Frederic were capable of fulfilling each other’s needs. Henry was giving Catherine the love she had longed for and Catherine was perhaps giving Henry a real escape from the war. Sadly, Cat’s life ended abruptly and Henry failed to completely and sincerely envelop himself in the love that he was, contrary to his beliefs, capable of. The war had left Henry lonely and hollow, and perhaps had done the same to Catherine, as she experienced the loss of her first love. It’s strange how the war had taken so much away from both characters, but also managed to give them so much.