A_Farewell_to_Arms

A Farewell to arms is a war/romance novel. The main character, Henry is an American lieutenant who is fighting in World War I in a small Italian Village. Later a friend of Henry’s, Rinaldi, introduces him to his friend Catherine, a British nurses aid. He quickly falls in love with her and starts to spend a lot of time with her. As everything starts to clear out, Henry with his three ambulances go to a post in the mountains. They then were attacked their first night there, wounding Henry’s legs. He is later sent to an American hospital in Milan. Catherine goes with her friend Miss Ferguson to take care of Henry. After he is operated on, he starts walking on crutches and takes Catherine out to places. She later confesses to him that she is pregnant which doesn’t really upset Henry but make him worry a little because he will be leaving to Gorizia soon. During one night there was an Austrian attack, forcing them to leave which causes a big traffic jam. Once attacked by Italian officers, Henry jumps into a river, floats for a while and jumps into a train to Milan. Catherine and Henry are reunited in a town near the border of Switzerland and are later arrested but get out of it. Later the two of them stay in Montreux where Catherine goes into labor and is rushed to the hospital. Henry later finds out that she has hemorrhaged and the baby was born dead. Then sadly Catherine later dies from repeated hemorrhaging. To me I would say that the closing scene is important to the novel because even though it seems like a tragic ending, it kind of really isn’t as tragic as it seems. This is because Henry and Catherine still had a very good relationship and loved each other so much and were always there for each other. So the ending kind of shows more of how well of a relationship they had. One main important symbol that the author uses in his novel is the “rain”. The rain in this novel symbolizes death and darkness. At first Henry never really thought anything of the rain before until Catherine brought it up in a conversation one day. Catherine tells Henry that she doesn’t like the rain because she thinks that she sees dead people in it. “It’s all nonsense. It’s only nonsense. I’m not afraid of the rain. I’m not afraid of the rain. Oh oh, God, I wish I wasn’t.” Henry comforts her as she starts crying after she tells him this. He tells her to not worry about the rain for it’s only rain, but little did Henry know that Catherine was actually speaking the truth. The rain seems to always be the messenger of grim news. There was rain when Henry and his crew got attacked, there was rain when Henry was about to be shot to death, there was rain when Henry and Catherine were about to be captured by the soldiers, and there was rain when Catherine and their baby died. Frederic Henry is the protagonist of this novel. He is a lieutenant who fell in love with a nurse named Catherine Barkley. Once he met her his life changed forever. He risked his life to escape from the war and moved to a different country just so he could be with her. One antagonist of this novel is World War I because the war is what keeps Henry away from Catherine for so long. That is why Henry ran away from it. Another antagonist of this novel is Henry and Catherine’s baby. When Henry and Catherine got the news that they were going to have a kid, they weren’t too pleased about it. Having a kid meant that they wouldn’t have as much time with each other. "We knew the baby was very close now and it gave us both a feeling as though something we’re hurrying us and we could not lose any time together." The baby is also what took Catherine’s life away which left Henry all alone. One source that reminded me of A Farewell to Arms was the movie Dear John because it is also a war/romance movie. The main character John, like Henry is also a soldier fighting in a war. He falls in love with a young woman who is also blonde like Catherine.