A Farewell To Arms Response Essay

A Farewell to Arms Constructed Responses
Arya Patel 9/6/16

1. In the beginning of A Farewell to Arms, background information is given on Frederick Henry and Catherine Barkley. Henry lived in America before he came to live in Italy. His main interest is architecture, but decides to join the Italian army as an ambulance driver after the war keeps growing. "It's not really the army. It's only the ambulance." (Hemingway 18) His two companions become Rinaldi and the priest. As for Catherine Barkley, she is a nurse from England. Helen Ferguson, one of her close friends, works with her in Gorizia. While both of them become attached to their profession, they also start to become attached to each other.
2. The first impression that arises

The mountains, plains, and the rain have symbolic significance in the novel. The mountains represent safety and happiness. The first two sentences state, “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. In the bed of the river there were pebbles and boulders, dry and white in the sun, and the water was clear and swiftly moving and blue in the channels.” (Hemingway 1) As Henry introduces his home, he describes with beauty and as if he loves living there. This is where the authorities are not searching for Frederic, and where he and Catherine spent time alone. Being a close opposite, the plains symbolize suffering and warfare. For example, this is where tons of soldiers get harmed, including Frederic. Lastly, the rain portrays death. “At the start of the winter came the permanent rain and with the rain came the cholera. But it was checked and in the end only seven thousand died of it in the army.” (Hemingway 4) Also, at the end, Frederic walks to his hotel in the pouring rain after Catherine dies after giving birth. The symbolism is crucial to this story, even though it has more evil than