A Farewell To Arms Rhetorical Analysis

The rain is the key of the story making everything feel sad, nervous and curious. The author tries to create as horrific a setting as possible. In the quote, “March rain drilling his jacket and drilling his body and washing away the blood that poured from his open wound.” makes me feel spooked. I can imagine a person lying on his side with blood spilling out, washing away by the rain creating a red puddle. For example, if Andy was lying in a field of grasses, with no clouds, clear blue sky and the sun brightly shining, I will would not feel as frightened reading the story. The rain was also a good thing as it helped Andy remember the good moments in his life, in the lines, “The rain was soothing somehow”, “Rain is sweet, I'm Andy” these lines tell me Andy is realising he’s dying that’s when he remembers the time he danced in the rain with Laura. He wants to forget about the gang ‘Royal’ but only think of Laura in the last few moments before dying. In these moments time seems slow and painful because the rhythm of the rain, there Andy’s having regrets about joining the gang who cost him his life. He thinks about how young he was and the life he wanted to live in the future. His whole face and body are hot but it’s cooled by the raindrops symbolising how much Andy loves the rain and thinks it’s soothing thing washing away his blood and accepting he’s dying

“Bodies bleed in his novel, at times uncontrollably, and Frederic's narrative likewise suffers at times from troubling and uncontrollable outflow” (Dodman 98). These soldiers are bleeding uncontrollably, which shows the physical destructiveness of war, but these doctors are more greatly emotionally traumatized by witnessing these soldiers bleeding out and dying and knowing that there is not much they can do to save them. Just as the bullets and bombs have caused the soldier’s “uncontrollable outflow” of blood, Hemingway’s novel suffers from “uncontrollable outflow” because of the traumatizing events he witnesses.

He had just suffered a major loss and dealt with it in the only way that he knew; through alcohol. Although drinking at this point was not actually mentioned directly, we can nevertheless assume that he was going to make this connection just because of the setting in the rain. This book had many examples of symbolism and they all point to the fact that there is always a terrible price to pay for weak actions or for blind love.

One of the first items the author states is that all symbolism is intentional, there are no accidents when it comes to analyzing famous literature. He describes certain authors like James Joyce and T.S. Elliot as “intentionalists” or writers who purposely try to control every part of the story through symbolism. The author Thomas Foster teaches us never to overlook anything in a novel even if it be little things like the color shirt they are wearing or what the weather is like outside. Building more off the last statement, precipitation, whilst being a little detail added into a story, holds a lot of important roles in moving the story along and even providing hardships for characters to overcome. Even more than that though, he says “It’s never just rain”, rain provides as a symbol in the story so that if someone is in the rain it’s almost as if they are being cleansed.

A Farewell to Arms, by Ernest Hemingway, is a story about love and war. Frederic Henry, a young American, works as an ambulance driver for the Italian army in World War I. He falls tragically in love with a beautiful English nurse, Miss Catherine Barkley. This tragedy is reflected by water. Throughout the novel Ernest Hemingway uses water as metaphors. Rivers are used as symbols of rebirth and escape and rain as tragedy and disaster, which show how water plays an important role in the story.

“I have walked out in rain -- and back in rain.” from “Acquainted with the Night” shows the depression of the character because most of us relate to rain as an emotional moment and makes us feel vulnerable. When it rains, the whole atmosphere becomes very gloomy and sad, and the author is trying to express the characters sadness.

Alvarez uses the weather as a symbol for different things throughout the novel. In one scene the weather might depict happiness, love and good fortune. However, in other scenes the weather could indicate destruction or bad luck for the Mirabal family. The descriptions of rain bring unpleasant and destructive outcomes. Alvarez describes the aftermath of Trujillo’s dinner party with a huge rainstorm that took days to go away the party ends with Minerva slapping Trujillo and leaving the party soon after. Minerva then describes in great detail the weather during the days after the party. She states “ rain is falling and night is falling in as we pass, the soil soggy with drowned seeds” the rain is a symbol of the fear that is going through the girls heads as they contemplate what Trujillo and his men could be doing to their father(116). This rain also symbolises destruction as it “destroys” things as it was falling and causes floods throughout the whole island. Another instance in which rain is used to foreshadow and symbolise something different in the novel was when the sisters were on their way to pick up their father.Alvarez writes “we’ve traveled almost the full length of the island and can report that every corner is wet” the wet and muddy grounds represents the terrible news that is soon to come to the mirabal family (117). The description of the

Ernest Hemingway wrote A Farewell to Arms, a celebrated historical fiction, amidst a time of war and personal suffering. Hemingway believed at this time that “life is a tragedy that can only have one end” (Hemingway, VIII). He continues further, calling war a “constant, bullying, murderous, slovenly crime” (Hemingway, IX). Hemingway also suffered at home, in addition to his issues regarding the state of the world. His wife had just endured a difficult pregnancy and delivery, which contributed to the last bitter chapter of his story. Keeping in mind the tortured and surly mental state of Hemingway, it is difficult to swallow the idea that he would write a wholesome, well founded love story that attracts people. To some readers, A Farewell to Arms tells of a whirlwind romance between an ambulance driver and a nurse that is based on an unbreakable foundation of love, trust, magnetism, and compassion. Anxious modernists, like Trevor Dodman who are cited in Joel Armstrong’s nonfiction text, will come up with a remarkably different outlook on this tragedy. With aid from “‘A Powerful Beacon’ Love Illuminating Human Attachment in Hemingway’s A Farewell to Arms”, the loveless relationship between Frederic Henry and Catherine Barkley will be seen as rushed, meaningless, and mentally destructive to the parties involved.

In Hemingway’s novel multiple characters fall in lost love. The characters think they are in love, but in the end they aren’t. Hemingway introduces us to multiple relationship and characters. Through these relationships the author shows the struggle of friendships and relationships and the connection of love through the generation is gone. The love they feels faded, friendships are lost and not reconnected. Lost love, in multiple ways is shown and expressed in the novel. In Hemingway’s novel love gets lost in many aspects.

After spending some months in their snowy cabin in Switzerland, Catherine is finally just a month away from labour. The decision is made when the rain comes: “‘Let’s see how the weather turns out.’ It rained for three days. The snow was all gone now on the mountain-side below the station. The road was a torrent of muddy snow-water. It was too wet and slushy to go out. On the morning of the third day of rain we decided to go into town.” (Hemingway 263). The rain is what causes them to move into the town where Catherine dies in labour. Also, the description of the rain being so miserable gives a very melancholy feeling to the reader. Henry mentions that the rain prevented them from going out, reinforcing that rain has a direct negative effect on their lives. In the article “A Farewell to Arms”, Keith Neilson further expands on Hemingway’s use of rain: “Hemingway associates the plains and rain with death, disease, and sorrow; the mountains and the snow with life, health, and happiness. Catherine and Henry are safe and happy in the mountains, but it is impossible to remain there indefinitely. […] When Catherine and Henry descend to the city, it is, in fact, raining, and she does, in fact, die.” (Neilson 3). This further shows the rain’s foreshadowing of negative events because of how it coincides with Henry and Catherine moving to the city. Also, there are other natural symbols such as the snow, mountains, and plains that act with and against rain. Since this shift to rainy weather coincides with Catherine being a month away from going into labour, it foreshadows her and their daughter’s death at the end of the novel. In summary, rain foreshadows Catherine’s death when it coincides with Catherine being close to

The theme of the book is that all humans struggle in life and eventually die. Frederic tries to cheat this. He tries to live in a romantic world with his love, where they will never feel pain. He wants to drink all day, make love all night, and fish in the meantime. His utopia is taken away when the war hits close to home yet he does his best to remain detached. He tries once more to retreat into a romantic world with Catherine in Switzerland. Yet once again he is confronted with death. Hemingway is showing that man cannot escape his destiny. He is also showing the

The rain appears whenever complications arise in the novel. First, it appears in the war as a “permanent rain and with the rain came the cholera” (FTA, 4). When Henry promises to love Catherine, she says she is “afraid of the rain because sometimes I see me dead in it” (FTA,126). When he left her to go to war, he said goodbye and “stepped out into the rain” (FTA, 157). Finally, Henry said goodbye to a dead Catherine and “walked back to the hotel in the rain” (FTA, 332). Every time tragedy comes to Henry, it begins to rain. The rain is a constant symbol of the failure that awaits Henry. Malcom Cowley, contributor to Twentieth Century Interpretations of A Farewell to Arms, explains, “The rain becomes a conscious symbol of disaster.” Henry is always facing uncertainty with his love, which is a central part to Hemingway’s literature. Wilson even states, “The uncertainty, nevertheless, almost become a constant, the horror almost taken for granted.” Henry is always uncertain about if he made the right decision. Even in Switzerland, Henry knows “that they were still fighting” (FTA, 291). The complications and hopelessness of life always lurk in the back, constantly coming to him in the rain. The rain gives Henry the remainder that his meaning will not prevent tragedy, furthering the nihilistic belief that meaning serves no

Hemingway's world is one in which things do not grow and bear fruit, but explode, break, decompose, or are eaten away. It is saved from total misery by visions of endurance, by what happiness the body can give when it does not hurt, by interludes of love which

Ernest Hemingway’s A Farewell to Arms tells the tale of two young, star-crossed lovers in the midst of World War I. A powerful romance and stirring history of the war, this semi autobiographical novel meshes the contrasting worlds of love and war, setting war as the backdrop of love. The novel’s portrayal of love is an issue that has attracted critical debate, prompting many academics to reflect on its existence, form, and role in the plot. Joel Armstrong is one such academic. His literary criticism entitled, “‘A Powerful Beacon’ Love Illuminating Human Attachment in Hemingway’s A Farewell to Arms,” asserts that love is the centering principle of the novel, and that the narrative’s world is one in which “love illuminates all of life” (Armstrong 79). As Armstrong asserts, love is the centering principle of A Farewell to Arms because it serves as an anchor for Frederic Henry and Catherine Barkley during the tumultuous events of war, motivates them to go through significant struggles, and works along with loss to lend more meaning to significant events in the plot.

“Cat in the rain” begins by defining the setting, using strong imagery of the postwar period of Italy the 1920’s. Hemingway puts emphasis on a war