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Hemingway gives few facts about his hero. Henry is young (exactly how young you don\'t know), American, a student of architecture, and apparently without strong family ties. His grandfather, who regularly sends him money, seems to be the only relative he keeps in touch with. The rest of what you learn about him has to come from observing how he acts and reacts.
Henry\'s a good example of the developing character. When you first see him, he\'s an aimless kid out for an adventure. He\'s casually joined the Italian ambulance corps, mostly out of curiosity, and he throws himself into the rough, rootless military routine. He jokes, he drinks, he whores. Excited by this existence, he sees it as a glamorous if somewhat nasty antidote to an ordinary American peacetime life.
He does show some glimmers of another, more sensitive side to his personality. For example, in Chapter 2, when the other officers tease their priest, Henry feels sympathy for the man. But even though he doesn\'t join their cruel humor, he does nothing to stop them.
Even his relations with Catherine, the woman he eventually comes to love deeply, start in an atmosphere of indifference. Rinaldi, remember, has to drag him along to meet the British nurses. And even when he meets her, he first thinks of her only as a possible sexual conquest.
As the story progresses and Henry comes face to face with realities--of war, of death, of love--he changes. By the time he\'s caught in the massive, chaotic retreat later in the book, he\'s learned a lot. He stops parroting the official party line, defending the army and the war; he comes to distrust authority. Army life, once adventurous, is now absurd and dangerous. Having no stake in the war, he leaves it. \"It was not my show any more,\" he reasons.
And in his relationships with other people, he realizes that human beings need each other, that superficial relationships are just that. He regrets having to leave Rinaldi and the priest but takes comfort in having Catherine and in being able to escape the war and build a new life with her. Tragically, destiny won\'t allow him that opportunity. Bereft, he ends up as an empty cynic who takes life as well as he can; that\'s all.
Henry has come a long way from the young man who joined a foreign army because he had nothing better to do.
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