A Showcase of Hemingway

[1] To the north we could look across a valley and see a forest of chestnut trees and behind it another mountain on this side of the river. [2] There was fighting for that mountain too, but it was not successful, and in the fall when the rains came the leaves all fell from the chestnut trees and the branches were bare and the trunks black with rain. [3] The wine yards were thin and bare-branched too, and all the country wet and brown and dead with autumn. [4] There were mists over the river and clouds on the mountain and the trucks splashed mud on the road and the troops were muddy and wet in their capes; their rifles were wet and under their capes the tow leather cartridge boxes on the front of the belts, gray leather boxes heavy with the packs of clips of thin

Tragedy is expected throughout the novel “by means of Frederic’s meditations, the foreboding events and narrative structure, and the unabashed use of omens” (Merrill 575). Rain is continuously a symbol of death and a cover up for emotions. Each sentence in the passage relates to something bigger and more significant in the novel. The short selection reflects A Farewell to Arms as a whole by using literary motifs, clever symbolism, and suspenseful foreshadowing. Hemingway does an excellent job using the Iceberg theory by giving the right one-eighth and letting the reader figure out the other seven-eighths. A Farewell to Arms is “one of the purest lyric novels ever written” (Schneider 283).

Filled with natural scenes and images, Hemingway uses thought-provoking themes throughout this selection. Autumn comes early this year and the transition from summer to autumn is a rapid one. During the fall, “the branches were bare and the trunk’s black with rain”. The transition from summer to autumn represents a more significant part of the novel. In the beginning, the weather in the novel is dry, but when Catherine reveals that she’s pregnant, all of a sudden “it turned cold that night and the next day it was raining” (Hemingway 142). The ambience was no longer one of dryness; it was actually cold and wet. Like a rollercoaster, there is a series of ups and downs throughout the novel. For example, in Book Three the war has gotten worse than ever, but later on Frederic and Catherine are enjoying their life together. Therefore, “the novels pattern is cyclical, as Frederic‘s fortunes alternately rise and fall” (Merrill 574).

The image of rain conveys “the

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