In her review of Joshua Goldstein’s War and Gender: How Gender Shapes the War System and Vice Versa, Francine D’Amico writes: “War is constructed as a test or signifier of manhood/masculinity: victory is confirmation of male identity, defeat is emasculation. Femininity is constructed to reinforce the ‘man as warrior’ construction, both in support roles as nurse, mother, or wife and in opposition as peace activist: all confirm militarized masculinity.” Building on this observation, this chapter asks whether war fiction and poetry support and reinforce these popularized conceptions, or whether they offer opposing or more complex views. Examining some of the most classic and popular war novels of the twentieth century such as Erich Maria Remarque’s All Quiet on the Western Front, Ernest Hemingway’s A Farewell to Arms, and Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway, this chapter shows that these popular war novels of the twentieth century do not promote “militarized masculinity” but focus instead on the physical, psychological, and emotional cost of war by portraying its devastating effects on both men and women.