respect for sweet-tempered, yet physically tough, women shows up throughout his fiction. From Catherine Barkley in A Farewell to Arms to Maria in For Whom the Bell Tolls to Renata in Across the River and into the Trees, some of his best-known female characters are gentle, passive women who endure pain, even death, without complaint. Ernest made Hadley feel “matched up and appreciated and taken care of.”
Strength
