In Ernest Hemingway's novel "A Farewell to Arms" the main character Fredrick Henry can be diagnosed as being a sociopath. Medically, a sociopath is an "antisocial personality disorder in which a persons' way of thinking, perceiving situations and relating to other is dysfunctional"(Mayo clinic).
In the beginning of the novel Henry watches a friend Passini get hit by a blast from a bomb. Most people would react very emotionally to this sight, however Henry does not appear to have much of a reaction from it whatsoever as he only says, " I saw there was no need to try and make a tourniquet because he was already dead. There were three others to locate"(136). There is no kind of emotion expressed in this scene from Henry; nothing about how he is…show more content… Afterwards when Henry is told the baby has died his emotional response is "So that was it. The baby was dead"(Hemingway 787). Henry has no emotion when he finds out he has a son nor when he hears that his child has died, which is not a natural reaction. In a way this can be seen as child neglect because Henry has no regards for the wellbeing of the child; Sociopaths "often neglect or abandon their families, including their children. Or, the connection looks more like ownership. They see their children as an extension of themselves, and not an individual and treat the child more like an object" which Henry seems to do (Hubpages.com). Henry has no attachment to this child. However leading up to Catherine dying Henry is very distressed and is praying that she will not die, but this is just Henry pleasing society and conforming to what others believe is a correct reaction to this situation. Henry is not genuinely devastated over his wife's death because once she is actually deceased he "[goes] out and [leaves] the hospital and [walks] back to the hotel in the rain" as his reaction to her death (Hemingway 801). This also shows that he did not truly love her or really comprehend the feeling of