Symbolism of Rain in Ernest Hemingways A Farewell to Arms - Essay Example

The Symbolism of Rain in Ernest Hemingway’s A Farewell to Arms We think of Italy as a sunny, warm place. We conjure images of lush vineyards and olive groves kissed by Mediterranean breezes under a gentle sun. There is a different Italy however. There is the Italy that Hemingway writes about in A farewell to Arms. The story is set in the Italian Alps during World War One. The story tells the adventures of Lieutenant Frederick Henry, an American ambulance driver with the Italian Army. Like all writers, Hemingway uses symbolism to accentuate important ideas or plot shifts in the story.

In A Farewell to Arms he uses rain to symbolize changes for the worse in Frederick Henry’s life. As the story opens, Henry describes the terrain and climate of the sector he is stationed in. Henry comments on the troops and motorcars going by splashing them. “And if the went especially fast it was probably the King. He lived in Udine and came out in this way nearly every day to see how things were going, and thing went very badly. At the start of the winter the permanent rain came and with the rain cam the cholera.

But it was checked and in the end only seven thousand died of it n the army.” In these opening pages of the story Hemingway uses rain to symbolize the bleak outlook the Italian army faces in the war. Henry faces challenges commensurate with his station in life as an ambulance driver. When Henry is wounded the day is clear. The implication is that Henry is getting away from the front and is safe for the time being As the story progresses, Hemingway uses rain as an omen of death when Catherine Barkley confesses to Frederick Henry that she is afraid of the rain because she sometimes sees herself dead in it.

Why does Hemingway use rain to foreshadow tragedy? He is commenting of the futility of the fighting and the horrors associated with warfare. As an ambulance driver himself, Hemingway uses the sunlight to symbolize the respites Frederick Henry has away from the brutality of the war and the rain to symbolize the dirty and brutal nature of the conflict. In further example during the big retreat the rain has clogged the roads. The enlisted drivers comment on the futility of the war. Their ambulance bogs down in the mud and they are forced to make their way on foot.

After Aymo is killed by their own troops and Henry witnesses other officers being executed for being separated from their regiments. Frederick Henry deserts and return to Catherine. The couple escapes to Switzerland with the aid of the hotel bartender when it is discovered, during a rainstorm, that the Italian military authorities are going to arrest Henry for desertion. At the end of the novel Catherine goes into labor. The baby is delivered by Caesarian section but is still born. Catherine bleeds to death when the doctor can’t stop the bleeding.

Catherine dies as she dreamed in the rain. Throughout the sequence it is raining. The story ends with Frederick returning to his hotel in the rain. Hemingway sets the tone of the novel with the rain and uses it to drive the story by presaging each monumental event in Frederick’s life. He manages to convey all the futility of war in staccato sentences by using the rain to illustrate the setbacks and changes in Frederick Henry’s life. A Farewell to Arms is a story of one man’s hopes and fears.

Frederick Henry doesn’t achieve his hopes but the setbacks don’t keep him from trying.