Symbolism in a Farewell to Arms Essay Example

Therefore, we can see that the novel is separated into two segments, just as the first chapter is separated in summer and fall. One of the main forms of symbolism in this novel is nature. Dryness and abundance are identified by summer. Summer is contrasted by autumn with wetness and bareness.

The first part of the story takes place in dryness up until Catherine tells Henry that she is pregnant. Once she tells him her news, the rain comes, ending the dry part of the novel: "It turned cold that night and the next day it was raining" (142). The first half of the novel is dry and sterile, while the second half is wet and sickly. The dry part is the world of success, where Henry falls in love with Catherine and the army wins some battles. The wet, 2nd half of the novel is the exact opposite: the army loses and is forced to retreat, and Henry loses Catherine.

This separation of the seasons helps to set up the transition in the plot from good to bad. "Good" is represented by the dry season, "bad" by the wet season. The first page of the novel describes the bed of the river as being "dry and white" (Page 7), an image that changes drastically by the end, where the river has turned into a raging torrent. Hemmingway also uses rain to understate the obvious, or replace emotions. For instance, when Catherine dies, there is no emotional outpouring. Instead, the novel just ends with the word "rain" as the only hint of the emotional stress that Henry is experiencing.

This kind of

understatement is even introduced at the beginning of the novel: On Page 8, it says: "At the start of the winter came the permanent rain and with the rain came the cholera. But it was checked and in the end only seven thousand died of it in the army. " In this passage, rain and death are linked for the first time, yet there is no emotional content connected to the fact that seven thousand men have died. This understatement, we come to see, is a key feature of the novel and will be used every time a death occurs. For instance, when Aymo, the driver, dies after being shot, Henry informs the reader that, "He looked very dead.

It was raining. " Those two lines embody the full extent of the emotion that Henry shows. Throughout the novel, we see that Hemmingway uses rain to replace death or emotions. This allows him to foreshadow many of the events to come. On Page 138, before getting killed, Aymo states: "We drink barbera now. Tomorrow maybe we drink rainwater" (138). Another example is Catherine's death, which is foreshadowed in a similar manner: (On Page 93), she is terrified of the rain and states that she sometimes sees herself dead in the rain. Henry comforts her and stops her crying.

However, Hemingway shows that this is a false comfort; in one of the very infrequent uses of the word "but", the chapter ends with the sentence, "But outside it kept on raining" (93). Here we are assured that the rain foreshadows Catherine's upcoming death. On Henry's last night with Catherine, they are on their way

to the hotel near the train station. The fog that has covered the city from the beginning of the chapter turns to rain, meaning Catherine's death is near. It rains almost continuously throughout chapter 27, when the Italians begin their retreat from Caporetto.

Then, the rain turns to snow one vening, holding out hope that the offensive will cease, but the snow quickly melts and the rain resumes, and so does the killing. It is raining while Henry rides the train to Stresa as a fugitive. It is raining when he arrives, and raining while Henry and Catherine spend the night together in his hotel room. Their boat trip across Lake Maggiore takes place in the rain, with an umbrella used as a sail. Ironically, the umbrella breaks, also possibly foreshadowing one of their deaths. Hemingway by this time has developed the rain symbolism to such a degree that the reader sort of gets a sense of premonition.

Finally, when Henry leaves the hospital for lunch during Catherine's delivery, (Page 226) "The day was cloudy but the sun was trying to come through"-a literal ray of hope. During the operation, however, he looks out the window and sees that it is raining. Just after the nurse has told him that the baby is dead, Henry looks outside again and "could see nothing but the dark and the rain falling across the light from the window. " Catherine infact dies of a hemorrhage from the Casearean. The baby also dies during the operation. On the last page of the novel, (Page 236), Henry leaves the hospital and walks back to his hotel in the

rain.

This symbolic phrase represents the death of the only person he has ever loved and also the sadness that Frederic is feeling. It is raining all the way from the first chapter of this novel to the last word, which is evidence of the weather's importance in the story overall. Hemingway doesn't quite trust us to detect the rain/snow pattern of symbolism and understand its meaning; therefore he underlines the significance of precipitation in his book by having Catherine tell Henry that she sees them dead in the rain. And so the weather symbolism in A Farewell to Arms is perhaps unnecessarily obvious.

Yet Hemingway's use of this literary device is hardly rote symbolism for its own sake. Rain and snow both drive his plot and maintain our interest, as we hold our breaths every time it rains in the novel, praying that Catherine will not perish during that scene. (We know that Henry will survive the rain, because he is the story's narrator. ) Thus, while writing a brutally realistic saga of life during wartime, Ernest Hemingway also crafted a novel as literary as the great-war stories that preceded A Farewell to Arms. Arguably it is as powerful as any story ever told.

Death is both brought by rain and can be considered similar to it. Catherine is the first person to make this analogy explicit when she tells Henry that she is afraid of the rain. I am afraid of the rain because sometimes I see me dead in it (126). Although Henry dismisses her words at the time, they continue to haunt the novel up until she dies.

Hemmingway uses rain as a symbol for both happiness and destruction. Whatever momentary happiness Catherine and Henry enjoy is quickly invaded by a rainstorm. One of the main forms of symbolism in this novel is nature. Dryness and abundance are identified by summer.

Summer is contrasted by autumn with wetness and bareness. The first part of the story takes place in dryness up until Catherine tells Henry that she is pregnant. Once she tells him her news, the rain comes, ending the dry part of the novel: "It turned cold that night and the next day it was raining" From beginning to end, Ernest Hemingway floods his novel A Farewell to Arms with rain and other images of water, using them not only to set the scene but as symbols for both destruction and happiness. The rain seems to always be the messenger of grim news, the omen of destruction and death.

Whatever momentary happiness Catherine and Henry are able to grasp is invaded by a rainstorm. However, Hemingway uses other images of water, such as rivers and lakes, to actually indicate joy and life. In this novel, Hemingway offers water to be both a symbol of death and ruin and a bearer of life and happiness, as this whole novel is the fight between love and war. In the novel, rain serves as a powerful symbol of the inevitable disintegration of any type of pleasure or love in life. Just as rain floods a beautiful day and darkens a blue sky, it turns all that is joyful and even hopeful into a muddy misery.

It is the emblem of sterility, the mark of

a barren life doomed for destruction. Catherine instills the dismal weather with meaning while she and Henry are lying in bed listening to the storm outside. Catherine admits to Henry, as the rain is falling on the roof, that she has a fear  Rain symbolizes death because every time rain is mentioned it is followed by death. In the beginning, the author states that when the rain comes so does cholera, a deadly disease that kills. In addition, when it was checked in the army only seven thousand died from it in the Italian army.

This symbolization is awkward because rain usually symbolizes life because the water supports life. Rain is used as a symbol for death repeatedly. In the first chapter, Frederic says that in the spring came the permanent rain, and with the rain came cholera. It is raining when Catherine dies, I believe it is raining when Frederic is wounded, and Hemingway uses it as a way of showing how death is "permanent" and ultimately, unavoidable.

The shift of seasons: a shift in a novel... from dry to rain, good to death The structure of the novel occurs largely through natural symbolism, i. . symbols drawn from nature.

This is set up in the first chapter, which shows the rapid progression of the seasons from summer into autumn. Summer is identified with dryness and abundance, a plain "rich with crops". This is immediately contrasted with autumn, where "the branches were bare and the trunks black with rain" . This miniature transition of the seasons relates to the larger transitions in the novel as a whole. For example, the first

part of the novel takes place in relative dryness up until when Catherine informs Henry that she is going to have a baby.

No sooner has she told him this news than the rains start, ending the dry part of the novel: "It turned cold that night and the next day it was raining" . Thus the novel is separated into two segments in the same manner that the first chapter is separated into summer and fall. This separation of the seasons helps to set up the transition in the plot from good to bad. "Good" is represented by the dry season, "bad" by the wet season. Thus, the opening scenes describe the bed of the river as being "dry and white" (3), an image that changes drastically by the end, where the river has turned into a raging torrent.

This contrast is explicated by the events that occur on hard versus soft surfaces. For instance, the first military operation (in which Henry is wounded) is fast-paced, with the wounded are rushed away in trucks, and everything is described as being hard, including the road and operating table. This contrasts with the second military operation, a defeat, that takes place on wet roads, with vehicles stuck in the mud, and where rivers have to be crossed instead of river beds. Thus the world of the first half of the novel is a dry, sterile version of the wet and sickly world that follows it.

Within this world, the dry part is the world of success; Henry wins Catherine and the army wins some battles. The wet world is the exact opposite: the

army loses and is forced to retreat and Henry loses Catherine. The natural world thereby provides the setting within which Henry's personal and military experiences can take place. Natural changes from dryness to wetness are paralleled in the plot by both Catherine's pregnancy and the corrupt horse races. These scenes are juxtaposed onto each other through their side-by-side placement. They define the transition from love to "marriage" and advancement to retreat, respectively.

Thus, after Catherine announces that she is pregnant, she and Henry consider themselves "married," thereby catapulting their relationship from casual to serious. Similarly, the war with Austria goes well for the Italians until Henry describes the corruption of the horse races, a corruption that permeates every level of the Italian army and political machine. After the horse races, the Italian army no longer is able to win battles; instead, the war turns into a retreat and becomes far more serious and deadly. This structure is complemented by natural symbols that substitute for emotions or feelings.

The most important of these symbols is that of rain. Rain represents death and all the accompanying emotions of grief, pain, and despair. Death is both brought by rain and can be considered analogous to it. Catherine is the first person to make this analogy explicit when she tells Henry that she is afraid of the rain. "I am afraid of the rain because sometimes I see me dead in it" (126). Although Henry dismisses her words at the time, they continue to haunt the novel up until she dies. Indeed, immediately after Henry visits her dead body in the hospital, the novel ends with the

passage: "I... walked back to the hotel in the rain" (332).

The novel thus ends with rain being used as a substitute for Catherine's death. Rain is also symbolically used by Hemingway to understate the obvious. For instance, when Catherine dies, there is no emotional outpouring. Instead, the novel ends with the word "rain" as the only hint of the emotional stress that Henry is experiencing. This form of understatement is ironically introduced right at the beginning of the novel: At the start of the winter came the permanent rain and with the rain came cholera.

But it was checked and in the end, only seven thousand died of it in the army. In this passage, rain and death are linked for the first time, yet there is no emotional content connected to the fact that seven thousand men have died. This understatement is a key feature of the novel and will be used every time a death occurs. For instance, when Aymo dies after being shot, Henry informs the reader that, "He looked very dead. It was raining. " Those two lines embody the full extent of the emotion that Henry shows. This form of understatement, where a symbol substitutes for emotions, allows Hemingway to omit key facts.

A good example of omission occurs right after Henry has been wounded. He is placed in an ambulance and driven to the hospital while the man above him bleeds to death. "The drops fell very slowly, as they fall from an icicle after the sun has gone" (61). This simple description omits all the pain and suffering and replaces them with the image

of "drops" from an icicle. Using symbols to replace death or emotions allows foreshadowing. Rain, for example, is frequently used to foreshadow death. Before getting killed, Aymo states, "We drink [barbera] now. Tomorrow maybe we drink rainwater" (191). Catherine's death is foreshadowed in a similar manner: she is terrified of the rain and states that she sometimes sees herself dead in the rain (126). Henry comforts her and stops her crying. However, Hemingway shows that this is a false comfort; in one of the very infrequent uses of the word "but", the chapter ends with the sentence, "But outside it kept on raining" (126). Thus symbols are used to foreshadow the things they substitute for. Quote 37: "It's all nonsense. It's only nonsense. I'm not afraid of the rain.

I am not afraid of the rain. Oh, oh, God, I wish I wasn't. " Chapter 19, pg. 126 Quote 70: "I sat down on the chair in front of a table where there were nurses' reports hung on clips at the side and looked out of the window. I could see nothing but the dark and the rain falling across the light from the windows. So that was it. The baby was dead. " Chapter 41, pg. 327 Quote 71: "It seems she had one hemorrhage after another.

They couldn't stop it. I went into the room and stayed with Catherine until she died. She was unconscious all the time, and it did not take her very long to die. Chapter 41, pg. 331 Quote 72: "But after I got them to leave and shut the door and turned off the light it

wasn't any good. It was like saying good-bye to a statue. After a while I went out and left the hospital and walked back to the hotel in the rain. " Chapter 41, pg. 332 10. The final paragraph of the story which relates the moments after Frederic has ordered the nurses to leave and sequestered himself in the room with Catherine's corpse: "But after I had got them out and shut the door and turned off the light it wasn't any good.

It was like saying good-by to a statue. After awhile I went out and left the hospital and walked back to the hotel in the rain. " (332)

Intro: Rain represents death and all the accompanying emotions of grief, pain, and despair. Death is both brought by rain and can be considered similar to it. Catherine is the first person to make this analogy explicit when she tells Henry that she is afraid of the rain. I am afraid of the rain because sometimes I see me dead in it (126). Although Henry dismisses her words at the time, they continue to haunt the novel up until she dies.

Indeed, immediately after Henry visits her dead body in the hospital, the novel ends with the passage: I... walked back to the hotel in the rain (332). The novel thus ends with rain being used as a substitute for Catherine's death. Using symbols to replace death or emotions allows foreshadowing. Rain, for example, is frequently used to foreshadow death. Before getting killed, Aymo states, We drink barbera now. "Tomorrow maybe we drink rainwater (191). Author Ernest Hemingway uses many different

symbols in his novel A Farewell to Arms. One of the most used symbols is nature. Nature varies from the different seasons to weather.

He uses symbols to replace any form of feeling or affection. He uses different physical features of the characters in the novel as symbolism. Symbols shape this novel in a big way. One of the main forms of symbolism in this novel is nature. Dryness and abundance are identified by summer. Summer is contrasted by autumn with wetness and bareness. The first part of the story takes place in dryness up until Catherine tells Henry that she is pregnant. Once she tells him her news, the rain comes, ending the dry part of the novel: "It turned cold that night and the next day it was raining"

Rain symbolizes death because every time rain is mentioned it is followed by death. In the beginning, the author states that when the rain comes so does cholera, a deadly disease that kills. In addition, when it was checked in the army only seven thousand died from it in the Italian army. This symbolization is awkward because rain usually symbolizes life because the water supports life. Rain is used as a symbol for death repeatedly. In the first chapter, Frederic says that in the spring came the permanent rain, and with the rain came cholera.

It is raining when Catherine dies, I believe it is raining when Frederic is wounded, and Hemingway uses it as a way of showing how death is "permanent" and ultimately, unavoidable. The Rain The rain is a metaphor for death in the story. Toward the end

of Catherine and Frederic's idyll in Milan, she tells him that she has always been afraid of the rain because she can imagine herself or him lying dead in it. He replies that he has always liked the rain and through this comment, we understand that though he has suffered a combat injury and seen men die, he has not been touched by fears of mortality.

Catherine on the other hand has been deeply affected by her fiance's death. For her, death is more immediate and palpable and the rain serves to remind her of her mortality and the mortality of those she loves. Thus the rain falls when death is almost tangible, such as when they part at the train or when Frederic narrowly escapes being shot by diving into the river. Most significantly, when Frederic leaves the hospital after Catherine has died, we are told that he walks back to the hotel in the rain. He is familiar with the emotional ramifications of death and its ability, like the rain, to fall upon anyone at any time.

Destruction and Happiness through Rain and Water" From beginning to end, Ernest Hemingway floods his novel A Farewell to Arms with rain and other images of water, using them not only to set the scene but as symbols for both destruction and happiness. The rain seems to always be the messenger of grim news, the omen of destruction and death. Whatever momentary happiness Catherine and Henry are able to grasp is invaded by a rainstorm. However, Hemingway uses other images of water, such as rivers and lakes, to actually indicate joy and life.