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The book A Farewell to Arms, written by Ernest Hemingway, is a classic novel about the love story of a nurse and a war-ridden soldier. It captures the inspiring trials and tribulations of the disillusioned soldier caught between love and war. Driving an ambulance on the Italian front in World War One, Frederick Henry discovers his values as he realizes his love for Catherine Barkley, an innocent English nurse. In A Farewell to Arms, various story elements are developed: the conflicts that occur internally and externally within Frederic's life, the characterization of Frederic Henry, the use of symbolism, and the dominating theme of love during a widespread war.
Love and war is an important theme in the book, and the relationship between Frederic and Catherine is explored by Hemingway. Frederic's ambulance driver, Passing, expresses his thought on the war: It doesn't finish. There is no finish to war... War is not won by victory...
One side must stop fighting" (50). The love between Catherine and Frederick must outlast long separations, life-threatening war-time situations, and the uncertainty of each other's whereabouts or condition. This love story plays out in war-torn Italy during World War One, where Italy is battling Austria. The novel portrays Henry as a drunk who travels from one house of prostitution to the next. Henry feels detached from life and is on a quest for identification in which he gives a particular insight about how he feels about women: clear, cold, and dry (38). Henry loves to play the role of a womanizer and is an American fighting a war in another country.
Henry meets Catherine Barkley, near the front between Italy and Austria-Hungary. Catherine suffers during this war before she meets Henry because she loses her fianc during the war. At first Henry wants to seduce Catherine. He tells her that he loves her but she catches on to his game.
The priest offers some advice to Henry about love: "What you tell me about in the nights. That is not love. That is only passion and lust. When you love you wish to do things for. You wish to sacrifice for.
You wish to serve" (63). Henry is severely wounded on one of his runs and is sent to the American hospital where Catherine works. This is where he actually begins to fall in love with her. Henry fully recovers and returns to the war-front where the Italians start to fall apart. Henry decides he has had enough of the war and runs into the river to escape after he is arrested by the battle police for the crime of not being Italian.
After swimming to safety, Henry boards a train to reunite with his love Catherine who is pregnant with his child. Henry and Catherine plan to get married soon after the baby is born while they are safely in Switzerland. Henry is awakened one morning by Catherine because she is having severe pains so they rush to the hospital where she requires having a caesarean. A nurse informs Henry that the baby does not survive and that Catherine has a hemorrhage.
Henry wants to be by Catherines side but the nurse does not let him in the room and he knows that Catherine will not survive. Henry sits outside in the hall where he begins to pray to God, Dont let her die. Oh God, please dont let her die. Ill do anything for you if you wont let her die You took the baby but dont let her die. That was alright but dont let her die.
Please, please, please dear God, dont let her die (330). The nurse signals him to come into the room and he approaches Catherine and begins to cry by her side. Catherine dies from her birth labor. After a while he leaves the hospital and walks back to the hotel in the rain. Henry has lost something of great value and realizes death is the end and, when it comes, there is nowhere to go. He accepts death as the end of existence.
Henry and Catherines relationship shows the support they have for one another through the trenches of love and war. No matter what happens in life or in death, love is a hard thing to let go. The symbolism in A Farewell to Arms is very much apparent. Rain, like water, is often used in literature as a symbol of a new life or a fresh beginning.
In A Farewell to Arms, Hemingway uses rain in a non-traditional way. He uses rain to establish a negative, depressive tone to accompany scenes in which death occurs. Rain also serves as a life-affirming symbol, one which baptizes Henry when he decides to desert the Italian army. It is raining outside almost every time something bad occurs, such as the army's retreat or Catherine's death, and serves to mark these events as random occurrences, just like rain itself. Hemingway uses rain in the scene when Henry leaves the train station to go back to war.
It rains hard the entire night that Henry leaves: Outside the mist turned to rain and in a little while it was raining hard. We heard raining on the roof (125). The use of rain in this scene causes a feeling of unhappiness. Hemingway also uses rain as part of the scene before Catherine and Henry are about to find out some terrible news. Before the barman enters their hotel room, Hemingway describes the weather outside as violent and stormy: That night there was a storm. I woke up to hear rain lashing the window-panes.
It was coming through the windows (264). The use of rain in this scene is a warning of the imminent negative news Henry is soon to discover, that the Italian Army is going to arrest him. Rain also surrounds the death of Catherine and their stillborn child. It is raining before Catherine goes into labor, the whole time she is in the hospital giving birth, and after both Catherines and her childs death. The setting outside while Catherine is in labor is dark and dreary: I could see nothing but the dark and the rain falling across the light of the window (327). Hemingway uses rain as a warning that terrible events are soon to occur and to a...
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Research essay sample on World War One Farewell To Arms
