Farewell to Arms

A detailed Summary of Farewell to Arms

Ernest Hemingway's novel A Farewell to Arms uses nature to provide symbols that foreshadow events and also replace human emotion. "In Hemingway the symbols are implicit; they follow the laws of reality to such a degree that in themselves form a whole, full-blooded stories" (Bjorneboe). The replacement of emotions with symbols allows Hemingway to frequently understate what is really going on in the action. The symbols are used repeatedly therefore unifying the book and at points the reader even knows what the weather is going to be like. In A Farewell to Arms, Hemingway portrays his points through the natural symbols of rain, mountains, and plains.

Throughout A Farewell to Arms, rain is used not as a symbol of life but as a recurring symbol of death and despair. "The inexorable march of tragic warning which is echoed in the imagery, the rain"(Rovit 105). This is a rain associated with darkness, mud, and death. "In A Farewell to Arms the dominant state of mind- the sense of death, defeat, failure, nothingness, emptiness- is conveyed chiefly by the image of rain with all it's tonal associates, mist, wetness, dampness, river, and fog"(Schneider 286). Hemingway uses rain to foreshadow the coming of war. As winter came to an e

Also, when Frederic returns to the front Hemingway emphasizes the heat and the dust. Dust has even been blown into the Frederic's wound and has caused it not to hemorrhage profusely. In addition the not-home concept is associated with the low-lying plains, which entails obscenity, indignity, disease, suffering, nervousness, war, death, and irreligion (Baker 58). Even the cities that are full of sin and prostitutes in this novel are found on the plains. Everything evil or unfortunate takes place on the dreadful plains.

"Purity has been defiled, the life force has been thwarted and defeated. The leaves are powdered by dust; the trunks are dusty; the leaves fall early; and the empty road, bare and white except for the leaves, becomes a perfect correlative of the inner desolation"(Schneider 287).

Frederic makes this association after he returns to battle. He says that he really wanted to go the Abruzzi Mountains yet he stayed in the cities for the sin and pleasure of the prostitutes. Here Frederic seems to long for a change from sinfulness to goodness and purity. He wanted to be around polite and kindly people, with hospitality and natural beauty (Baker 59). The mountains are a place for Frederic to long for and half way through the novel he realizes that is where he needs to be and not part of the war effort.

The use of natural symbolism throughout the novel creates a powerful unity to the events of the novel. The deaths are foreshadowed by the rain and thus not only represent death but also represents pain and despa

Some common words found in the essay are:
Abruzzi Mountains, Farewell Arms, Catherine March, Book Hemingway, God Baker, Arms Hemingway, Ernest Hemingway, farewell arms, Ernest Hemingway's, baker 58, mountains halliday, virtually sentence, death despair, abruzzi mountains, symbol life, cities sin, throughout novel, represent death,

Approximate Word count = 1040
Approximate Pages = 4 (250 words per page double spaced)

Category: Novels