The theme poem “Go and Catch a Falling Star” by John Donne, reflects the attitude of Henry in A Farewell to Arms. Both the speaker and Henry have negative attitudes towards women, although Henry’s changes over the course of the book. More specifically, Donne warns about the hardships of finding an honest and pure woman, while Henry actually experiences those hardships.
Throughout his poem, Donne challenges the audience to impossible tasks including hearing “mermaids singing” and getting “with child a mandrake root” (Donne) .Donne makes the statement that one could do all of these before finding a good woman. These challenges parallel Henry’s journey in the beginning of the novel. Although Donne’s tasks are exaggerated, Henry goes through a lot that one might deem hard or impossible, including fighting in a war across the sea for a foreign country. During his time in the war up to the beginning of the novel, Henry spent lots of time with prostitutes. Having this be his only interaction with women, it built on his beliefs that there aren’t any honest or pure women in the world. Henry traveled across Italy looking for passion, mostly in the form of love, and only found alcohol and prostitutes.
“He should have fine girls. I will give you the addresses of places in Naples. Beautiful young girls..”
Ernest Hemingway, A Farewell to Arms
Similar to Henry, the speaker in “Go and Catch a Falling Star” has searched for love and has been left disappointed. This had led him to doubt the purity of women as a whole, differing from Henry who only doubts the ability to find love. The fact that Henry has gone through all of these experiences and still hasn’t ever found love, drives him to the same mindset at Donne. Even for a while after meeting Catherine, Henry still carries this mindset. He has found the perfect woman yet still doubts that he could ever love her.
A Farewell to Arms 