How Does Hemingway Use Rain In A Farewell To Arms

Inside the Thoughts of Hemingway A Farewell to Arms is a tragic tale of love that is soiled by the constant tragedy the two characters, Catherine and Frederic, face. Reading A Farewell to Arms allows the reader to enter the twisted, yet brilliant mind of Ernest Hemingway and evaluate his works. Hemingway illustrates the tragic love story through symbolism that the reader has to decipher. He uses the steady pace of rain to foreshadow upcoming doom. The use of the river symbolizes a baptism of sorts, completely renewing Frederic and his desires. The illustration of Catherine’s hair signifies a sense of safety, alone and unjudged by the world. The growth of Frederic’s beard represents the growth of a man. He is growing into a father and

Frederic’s loss of family is his inner death that Catherine talked about when she said she saw Frederic dead in the rain, too. In addition to Frederic’s emotional death, he suffered other wounds during rainfall. In an article, the author says, “The wetness of the recurring rain resembles his traumas, one after another: the immediate, warm wetness of his leg wound; the warm, sticky stream that drips down from the bleeding soldier lying above the helpless Frederic in the ambulance; the unrelenting flow of Catherine's hemorrhage” (Prescott). Rain did not come once, but instead it poured many times and brought bad news with it every time. The rain is symbolically a trademark of death and doom. The amplified rain in A Farewell to Arms revealed to the reader that something dreadful is about to happen to either Catherine or

The article titled “The Death of Love in A Farewell to Arms” explains, “For him there is no more war: ‘You were out of it now. You had no more obligation. . . . That life was over.’ What counts is being with the woman he loves: ‘I was not made to think. I was made to eat. My God, yes. Eat and drink and sleep with Catherine’” (Cain 386). He did not care for the war and all the things it brought with it. Even though the war is not done, he sees the war as a past time. Consequently, after floating in the river, his main mindset is getting back to Catherine. The river helps him become the man he should be before he becomes a father. He is transformed out of the careless man he was into a mature, respectable, and caring man to catch up to Catherine’s maturity. In fact, his worries and desires switched from the honor of being a Lieutenant to anything but the war. He did not believe in the honors of serving in the war. The river helped him get ready and set into the new world he is going to have with Catherine. The river symbolizes as a new beginning for