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In
Ernest Hemmingway's A Farewell to Arms, the protagonist, Frederic Henry is
both
dysfunctional and tragic. Throughout the story Henry lives up to this
description of shear
tragedy and dysfunction. The main elements that aid in
making him both tragic and
dysfunctional are: the fact that the love he and
Catherine shared at the end of the book
was doomed, this love was only "role-playing"
to him at first, and he went AWOL on the
Italian army.
The first detail
that contributes to making Henry a dysfunctional character is that
he uses
role-playing as a way of escaping the realization of the human mortality which
is
unveiled by the war. This role-playing begins on Henry and Catherine's
third encounter.
After this meeting the two become increasingly comfortable
with their roles. It is as if
their whole relationship is a "game". Neither
one of them mistakes role-playing for a
truly intimate relationship, but both
recognize that it can be a useful device for......

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Approximate Word Count: 385
Approximate Pages: 2 (250 words per double-spaced page)