Symbolism in "A Farewell to Arms" by Ernest Hemingway

[student`s name] [professor`s name] [Course] [Date of submission] Symbolism in Ernest Hemingway`s A Farewell to Arms First published in 1929, A Farewell to Arms is one of the most celebrated novels of Ernest Hemingway. It is also considered as a semi-autobiographical novel inspired by Hemingway`s experience in the Italian campaigns during World War I. A Farewell to Arms offers powerful descriptions of life during and after wars, how people tried to live a normally despite the terror and deaths they had to endure. Stoic and masculine, Frederic Henry discovered strong passions and emotions for Catherine Barkley. But as the war raged on, Henry had to be prepared to lose a loved one, as well as be ready to bring with him the memory of beauty and love. The use of nature and contrasts To find a deeper meaning to the work A Farewell of Arms, one has to understand the symbolic structure utilized by the author. "Hemingway`s structure for the novel is developed a series of contrasting situations indicating a continuous dichotomy [labeled as] home and not-home … [which] can further [be] extended and viewed as a sense of normalcy (home) versus the absurd (not home)" ADDIN Mendeley Citation{86d09b59-d91b-4d9c-a369-27d84796ab6a} CSL_CITATION { "citationItems" : [ { "id" : "ITEM-1", "itemData" : { "author" : [ { "family" : "Macdonald", "given" : "Michael John" } ], "container-title" : "Explicator", "id" : "ITEM-1", "issue" : "1", "issued" : { "date-parts" : [ [ "2008" ] ] }, "page" : "45-48", "title" : "Hemingway's \"A Farewell to Arms\"", "type" : "article-journal", "volume" : "67" }, "uris" : [ "/documents/?uuid=86d09b59-d91b-4d9c-a369-27d84796ab6a" ] } ], "mendeley" : { "manualFormatting" : "(Macdonald 46)", "previouslyFormattedCitation" : "(Macdonald)" }, "properties" : { "noteIndex" : 0 }, "schema" : "https://github.com/citation-style-language/schema/raw/master/csl-citation.json" } (Macdonald 46). For this particular novel, Hemingway utilized various elements of nature to show such contrasts and hanges in the character`s emotions and disposition are mirrored by their surrounding. Summer was abundant but dry, it brought no adventure for Henry while autumn, bare and wet, brought him tears and pain. Bloom says that Hemingway`s use of nature as symbolism is no surprise as he is one author well-known for his "love of open water and other wild places in nature" ADDIN Mendeley Citation{8defa532-5445-4db4-a46c-02c836f3468b} CSL_CITATION { "citationItems" : [ { "id" : "ITEM-1", "itemData" : { "author" : [ { "family" : "Bloom", "given" : "Harold" } ], "id" : "ITEM-1", "issued" : { "date-parts" : [ [ "2010" ] ] }, "publisher" : "Infobase Publishing", "publisher-place" : "New York", "title" : "Bloom's Guides: A Farewell to Arms", "type" : "book" }, "uris" : [ "/documents/?uuid=8defa532-5445-4db4-a46c-02c836f3468b" ] } ], "mendeley" : { "manualFormatting" : "(Bloom 31)", "previouslyFormattedCitation" : "(Bloom)" }, "properties" : { "noteIndex" : 0 }, "schema" : "https://github.com/citation-style-language/schema/raw/master/csl-citation.json" } (Bloom 31). The use of contrasting words like dry leaves and swiftly moving water, all try to capture the essence of paintings. The endless dust and falling leaves all serve as a reminder of the biblical adage, "from dust to dust", that while one side wins a battle, all parties have lost the war. People will die, properties will be damaged, societies will be ruined. By using dust and brown leaves as images, Hemingway portrays the human condition during the war - brown, bare, hopeless and meaningless. Chapter 1 opens with the following words, "In the late summer of that year we lived in a house in a village that looked across the river and the plain to the mountains…the plain was rich with crops…and beyond the plains the mountains were brown and bare" ADDIN Mendeley Citation{ab5cc421-c5b6-4782-9fe3-7a7a54b8c444} CSL_CITATION { "citationItems" : [ { "id" : "ITEM-1", "itemData" : { "author" : [ { "family" : "Hemingway", "given" : "Ernest" } ], "edition" : "Kindle Edi", "id" : "ITEM-1", "issued" : { "date-parts" : [ [ "1997" ] ] }, "publisher" : "Scribner", "title" : "A Farewell to Arms", "type" : "book" }, "uris" : [ "/documents/?uuid=ab5cc421-c5b6-4782-9fe3-7a7a54b8c444" ] } ], "mendeley" : { "manualFormatting" : "(Hemingway 1)", "previouslyFormattedCitation" : "(Hemingway)" }, "properties" : { "noteIndex" : 0 }, "schema" : "https://github.com/citation-style-language/schema/raw/master/csl-citation.json" } (Hemingway 1). The author positioned the main character on a kind of lookout point which effectively conveys feelings of detachment ADDIN Mendeley Citation{8defa532-5445-4db4-a46c-02c836f3468b} CSL_CITATION { "citationItems" : [ { "id" : "ITEM-1", "itemData" : { "author" : [ { "family" : "Bloom", "given" : "Harold" } ], "id" : "ITEM-1", "issued" : { "date-parts" : [ [ "2010" ] ] }, "publisher" : "Infobase Publishing", "publisher-place" : "New York", "title" : "Bloom's Guides: A Farewell to Arms", "type" : "book" }, "uris" : [ "/documents/?uuid=8defa532-5445-4db4-a46c-02c836f3468b" ] } ], "mendeley" : { "manualFormatting" : "(Bloom 31)", "previouslyFormattedCitation" : "(Bloom)" }, "properties" : { "noteIndex" : 0 }, "schema" : "https://github.com/citation-style-language/schema/raw/master/csl-citation.json" } (Bloom 31). But for several scholars, this is just another example of Hemingway`s style: "lean, understated, evocative, spare and without emotion" ADDIN Mendeley Citation{8defa532-5445-4db4-a46c-02c836f3468b} CSL_CITATION { "citationItems" : [ { "id" : "ITEM-1", "itemData" : { "author" : [ { "family" : "Bloom", "given" : "Harold" } ], "id" : "ITEM-1", "issued" : { "date-parts" : [ [ "2010" ] ] }, "publisher" : "Infobase Publishing", "publisher-place" : "New York", "title" : "Bloom's Guides: A Farewell to Arms", "type" : "book" }, "uris" : [ "/documents/?uuid=8defa532-5445-4db4-a46c-02c836f3468b" ] } ], "mendeley" : { "manualFormatting" : "(Bloom 31)", "previouslyFormattedCitation" : "(Bloom)" }, "properties" : { "noteIndex" : 0 }, "schema" : "https://github.com/citation-style-language/schema/raw/master/csl-citation.json" } (Bloom 31). The opening chapter utilizes imagery and imagination to evoke emotions from the reader because the narrator himself does not provide an input. The description of the plains evoked a feeling of ease which meant that the people in the villages went about their ordinary lives - planting and harvesting, never minding the war happening in the nearby mountains. Their lives were comfortable and abundant, with food always on the table. This was the picture painted by Hemingway, a world where "there is no place for llusions or intimations of a supernatural order" ADDIN Mendeley Citation{4ddefc89-a24b-4a06-838a-62b89dc8d995} CSL_CITATION { "citationItems" : [ { "id" : "ITEM-1", "itemData" : { "author" : [ { "family" : "Dekker", "given" : "George" }, { "family" : "Harris", "given" : "Joseph" } ], "container-title" : "PMLA", "id" : "ITEM-1", "issue" : "2", "issued" : { "date-parts" : [ [ "1979" ] ] }, "page" : "311-318", "title" : "Supernaturalism and the Vernacular Style in A Farewell to Arms", "type" : "article-journal", "volume" : "94" }, "uris" : [ "/documents/?uuid=4ddefc89-a24b-4a06-838a-62b89dc8d995" ] } ], "mendeley" : { "manualFormatting" : "(Dekker and Harris 311)", "previouslyFormattedCitation" : "(Dekker and Harris)" }, "properties" : { "noteIndex" : 0 }, "schema" : "https://github.com/citation-style-language/schema/raw/master/csl-citation.json" } (Dekker and Harris 311). This was a "normal" place, where people went about their own way. But then a question of what`s real and what`s not arises when one discusses of the happening in the nearby mountains, where the rugged edges and cliffs brought about a new reality - one that contrasted deeply with the landscape, as well as the life in the plains. Here, the fighting was at full speed. For people in the village, however, the war was unreal, "In the dark it was like summer lightning, but the nights were cool and there was not a feeling of a storm coming" ADDIN Mendeley Citation{ab5cc421-c5b6-4782-9fe3-7a7a54b8c444} CSL_CITATION { "citationItems" : [ { "id" : "ITEM-1", "itemData" : { "author" : [ { "family" : "Hemingway", "given" : "Ernest" } ], "edition" : "Kindle Edi", "id" : "ITEM-1", "issued" : { "date-parts" : [ [ "1997" ] ] }, "publisher" : "Scribner", "title" : "A Farewell to Arms", "type" : "book" }, "uris" : [ "/documents/?uuid=ab5cc421-c5b6-4782-9fe3-7a7a54b8c444" ] } ], "mendeley" : { "manualFormatting" : "(Hemingway 1)", "previouslyFormattedCitation" : "(Hemingway)" }, "properties" : { "noteIndex" : 0 }, "schema" : "https://github.com/citation-style-language/schema/raw/master/csl-citation.json" } (Hemingway 1). There were indications of the fighting but it was too far away to be noticed. Days were idyllic, and plain, except for the passing of the troops, no adventure ever happens to the people in the village. But as the fighting in the mountains degenerate and the troops have started losing, the villagers have also experienced a change in the weather - the rain has started and leaves have fallen to the ground - autumn has arrived. Everything was wet and brown, it was a premonition of something terrible. Life was soon to change as the war could no longer be restrained in the mountains, and was starting to move towards the plains. The peaceful life of the villagers are bound to come in disarray. Winter and permanent rain came, and with it was cholera and death. While there were victories to celebrate, forests of oak trees have been decimated and were indication that life in the village may still be comfortable, but it was not the same. The sense of normalcy (home) described by Macdonald was apparent in Hemingway`s description of summer at the plains, but this normalcy was also an aberration at the time of war, where destruction and loss abound. The picture of the mountains, the so-called reality of war is chaotic. "The question of what is ‘real` and what is ‘illusion` permeates the novel" ADDIN Mendeley Citation{86d09b59-d91b-4d9c-a369-27d84796ab6a} CSL_CITATION { "citationItems" : [ { "id" : "ITEM-1", "itemData" : { "author" : [ { "family" : "Macdonald", "given" : "Michael John" } ], "container-title" : "Explicator", "id" : "ITEM-1", "issue" : "1", "issued" : { "date-parts" : [ [ "2008" ] ] }, "page" : "45-48", "title" : "Hemingway's \"A Farewell to Arms\"", "type" : "article-journal", "volume" : "67" }, "uris" : [ "/documents/?uuid=86d09b59-d91b-4d9c-a369-27d84796ab6a" ] } ], "mendeley" : { "manualFormatting" : "(Macdonald 46)", "previouslyFormattedCitation" : "(Macdonald)" }, "properties" : { "noteIndex" : 0 }, "schema" : "https://github.com/citation-style-language/schema/raw/master/csl-citation.json" } (Macdonald 46) - which "reality" is authentic? Is it the life in the plains or the contrasting routine in the mountains? What reality does Frederic subscribe to? Reality and Illusion A year passes between Chapter 1 and 2, and no character has been identified by name yet, A young soldier has made friends with many soldiers from the troops, but unlike the others he does not "join in the sexually explicit teasing of the reverent and good-natured priest, nor does he offer any opinions about the war or Italian opera" ADDIN Mendeley Citation{8defa532-5445-4db4-a46c-02c836f3468b} CSL_CITATION { "citationItems" : [ { "id" : "ITEM-1", "itemData" : { "author" : [ { "family" : "Bloom", "given" : "Harold" } ], "id" : "ITEM-1", "issued" : { "date-parts" : [ [ "2010" ] ] }, "publisher" : "Infobase Publishing", "publisher-place" : "New York", "title" : "Bloom's Guides: A Farewell to Arms", "type" : "book" }, "uris" : [ "/documents/?uuid=8defa532-5445-4db4-a46c-02c836f3468b" ] } ], "mendeley" : { "manualFormatting" : "(Bloom 32)", "previouslyFormattedCitation" : "(Bloom)" }, "properties" : { "noteIndex" : 0 }, "schema" : "https://github.com/citation-style-language/schema/raw/master/csl-citation.json" } (Bloom 32). This again reiterates his stoic stance, the protagonist was merely an observer, but he has not been personally touched by the war. Like the villagers in the plains, he went about his day following routine, but note the differences in the routine between these two place. In Chapter 3 Frederic was with other soldiers, living in the barracks in the mountains but he kept looking back to his village, "the town with the hill and the old castle above it in a cup in the hills with mountains beyond, brown mountains with a little green on the slopes" ADDIN Mendeley Citation{ab5cc421-c5b6-4782-9fe3-7a7a54b8c444} CSL_CITATION { "citationItems" : [ { "id" : "ITEM-1", "itemData" : { "author" : [ { "family" : "Hemingway", "given" : "Ernest" } ], "edition" : "Kindle Edi", "id" : "ITEM-1", "issued" : { "date-parts" : [ [ "1997" ] ] }, "publisher" : "Scribner", "title" : "A Farewell to Arms", "type" : "book" }, "uris" : [ "/documents/?uuid=ab5cc421-c5b6-4782-9fe3-7a7a54b8c444" ] } ], "mendeley" : { "manualFormatting" : "(Hemingway 4)", "previouslyFormattedCitation" : "(Hemingway)" }, "properties" : { "noteIndex" : 0 }, "schema" : "https://github.com/citation-style-language/schema/raw/master/csl-citation.json" } (Hemingway 4). This was the structured world, one with picturesque landscapes, but for a man like Frederic who has seen and heard too much, it was no longer a reality he could identify with. Sure, it was his hometown, and it was a wonderful sight to behold, but he had no illusions that this town will be saved from the carnage. He knew that beneath the silence it registers, something else was hiding. Initially the young soldier wanted to go on leave somewhere more peaceful, but he ended up "indulging in the transient pleasures of alcohol and impersonal sex" ADDIN Mendeley Citation{8defa532-5445-4db4-a46c-02c836f3468b} CSL_CITATION { "citationItems" : [ { "id" : "ITEM-1", "itemData" : { "author" : [ { "family" : "Bloom", "given" : "Harold" } ], "id" : "ITEM-1", "issued" : { "date-parts" : [ [ "2010" ] ] }, "publisher" : "Infobase Publishing", "publisher-place" : "New York", "title" : "Bloom's Guides: A Farewell to Arms", "type" : "book" }, "uris" : [ "/documents/?uuid=8defa532-5445-4db4-a46c-02c836f3468b" ] } ], "mendeley" : { "manualFormatting" : "(Bloom 32)", "previouslyFormattedCitation" : "(Bloom)" }, "properties" : { "noteIndex" : 0 }, "schema" : "https://github.com/citation-style-language/schema/raw/master/csl-citation.json" } (Bloom 32). His awkwardness at seeing the priest present his ambivalence towards the purity that the priest presents. One may say that the priest has found his purpose in life (since he needs to have a "call" from the divine before entering priesthood") while Frederic, who is at the prime of his life but there was nothing that could make him happy and fulfilled. This was spring, a time of resurrection, so to speak, as trees which "died" during the autumn find new life. Fresh leaves start to emerge, braving the cold weather and harsh light. It is not yet the time to bloom fully, but there is a feeling of an impending change, and Frederic, who has gone stoic, is feeling restless and confused: "I tried to tell about the night and the difference between the night and the day and how the night was better unless the day was very clean and cold and I could not tell it, as I cannot tell it now" ADDIN Mendeley Citation{ab5cc421-c5b6-4782-9fe3-7a7a54b8c444} CSL_CITATION { "citationItems" : [ { "id" : "ITEM-1", "itemData" : { "author" : [ { "family" : "Hemingway", "given" : "Erne...