Farewell To Arms Rain

Ernest Hemingway demonstrates the underlying meaning of rain as it is consistently present in crucial parts of the novel. In the novel, A Farewell to Arms, rain represents the characters’ feelings, the inevitable doom, and foreshadows death.

The characters’ feelings are expressed thoroughly throughout the novel, and the timing of rain proves a correlation between the two. In times filled with anguish or sadness, rain happens to be present, arriving shortly after a tragedy. When one of Frederic Henry’s soldiers, Aymo, is killed, the death instantly changes the atmosphere and mood of all the remaining soldiers. “He looked very dead. It was raining,” (Hemingway 214). Aymo’s death changed the feelings of everyone around quickly because he was a friend to nearly everyone. Describing how gray and cloudy it was is used to symbolize the anxiety and fear felt before Aymo’s death. After he passed

Despite what each character engages in, the fate of them was already predetermined, meaning that they were all bound to die sooner or later. During the beginning of the novel, it is expressed that a permanent rain came during the start of the winter, which brought cholera as well (Hemingway 4). An epidemic of cholera broke out leading to thousands of deaths, which expresses the connection between rain and death. A connection is obvious because the permanent rain is the reason for the demise of thousands. In addition, Catherine, one of the protagonists, struggles with the fear of rain. “I’m afraid of rain because sometimes I see me dead in it,” (Hemingway 126). Despite Frederic’s claims that everything would be okay, she still passes away on a rainy day, showing how the way someone dies is uncontrollable. Both events and rain are proven to be inescapable and far beyond human control, illustrating the symbolism of