Symbols are considered to be an artistic device. The writers do not convey their thoughts in cheaper words but they use symbols to foreshadow and make their language rich and impressive. A Farewell to Arms depends heavily on Hemingway’s symbolic technique to convey the subjective condition of his characters.
Hemingway’s use of symbols and metaphors is always sublime and
subtle. But this does not mean that his symbolism is tinged with obscurity or
ambiguity. Rather his idiomatic expressions and under-statements are quite
clear and far from being incomprehensible. The writer uses simplicity and
naturalness to decorate his narrative and to draw the attention of his reader.
The very title of the novel is itself symbolical. The title bears
two-fold symbolic meanings. The hero in the novel bids farewell not only to the
war but also to the arms of the woman he loves. He bids farewell to war because
he is disgusted with it. But he also bids farewell to the arms of his beloved
woman because she has become a victim of her cruel fate.
Throughout the novel Ernest Hemingway uses water and rivers as
metaphors. Rivers are used as symbols of rebirth and escape and rain as tragedy
and disaster.
Rivers in A Farewell to Arms represent rebirth. They symbolize a
departure from a previous life and an entrance to a new one. Henry already fed
up with the war, no longer believes in “war heroism”. While
walking with his fellow soldiers, after the retreat, he is arrested and fears
that he will be executed. "He jumps in the river with a
splash", allowing it to float him along. Thus he is able to save his
life. As a result of this plunge, his “anger
was washed away in the river along with any obligation”. When
Henry emerged from the river, it was as if he was reborn.
In the novel, rain serves as a potent symbol of tragedy. Already
beginning in the first chapter, the reader learns that "the
permanent rain brought the cholera" and that seven thousand men
have died of it. The rain degrades the Fredrick’s happiness in the hotel as he
awakens to the sound of rain and learns that he will be arrested. Rain also
falls during the troop's retreat which is symbolizing a failure. And during
their time of escape from Italy to Switzerland it is very windy and rainy. That
symbolizes how their escape would definitely be difficult.
The rain in the novel is a constant foreshadowing of the tragedy
that soon befalls the lovers. Hemingway reflects the supreme dominance
of death in the novel, and how it looms over all the protagonists’
thoughts. Catherine tells Henry:
"I'm afraid of the rain because sometimes I see me dead in
it".
This may be interpreted as the rain is an omen of death. It
is in the rain that Fredrick loses both his child and his wife, and the book
ends with the image of Fredrick, trudging back to his hotel, alone in the rain.
Besides water and rain symbols, the other symbols do play their
role in the novel. Mountains symbolize love, dignity, health, happiness, and
the good life. On the other hand, the low- lying plains serve as a symbol of
indignity, suffering, disease, death and destruction. Snow is natural symbol of
beauty and affection. Settled in Switzerland in a small villa in snow covered
mountains, Catherine herself becomes the symbol of home, happiness, security,
and comfort. Besides, autumn stands as a symbol of destruction and winter a
symbol of death. Also cholera refers to both physical and spiritual disease.
In addition to these weather images, Catherine’s hair serves as
one of the symbols of isolation and seclusion. During their sweet nights in
Milan, Catherine lets down her hair and lets it cascade around Frederic’s
head. This lovely description of hair that reminds Henry of being enclosed
inside a tent or behind a waterfall stands as a symbol of the couple’s
isolation from the world and serves as a sort of security blanket for
Henry as he thinks himself sheltered from Italian authorities.
In Ernest Hemingway's A Farewell to Arms, Frederick's narration of
the burning of ants in a log that he places on a fire is symbolic of the plight
of the soldiers in the war. As the ants are attracted towards the fire, they
come near and fall into it, and thus become a victim of its heat. Likewise the
soldiers, in their infatuation with the war, plunge and throw themselves
blindly into the war, and are deprived of their lives. Hemingway uses this
symbolic passage of the ants' death to highlight the futility of war.
This burning of ants takes on a symbolic significance. Hemingway
uses this analogy to propound his atheistic beliefs. As the ants are falling
into the fire, Frederick "remember[s] thinking at the time that it
was the end of the world and a splendid chance to be a messiah and lift the log
off the fire ", but Henry will not save the dying ants. In a
metaphorical sense, Hemingway questions if there is a God that has control over
all those characters in the novel who are surrounded by death.
To conclude, from the first chapter to the last word, the novel is
flooded with rain and other images of water. The rain almost always heralds
destruction and death; it impinges upon whatever momentary happiness the
characters have and turns it into muddy misery.