A Farewell To Arms
(Ernest Hermingway)
The novel A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway is a book in which the values of love and peace are demonstrated as against the ugly modern diseases of hatred and war.
The very title A Farewell to Arms sums up the plot which is a departure or farewell on two levels.
On one level it is a giving up of war for a life of peace and on another level it is losing love (Henry loses Catherine through her death in a difficult delivery).
Hemingway?s preoccupation with complex symbols and the characteristic undercurrent of strong emotions concealed in simple narrative makes the discerning reader see war and its machines as symbols of an invincible fate that pursue Henry when he tries to escape them.
When Henry finally retires on a mountain retreat to live a life of love and peace with Catherine who is in the last stages of her pregnancy, the same fate seems to pursue them in another form.
The emotional support and comfort that Catherine provides to Henry are snatched away when she dies in childbirth.
The ending of the novel is open to a number of interpretations, such as; was Henry a loser having being defeated at the hands of fate or was he a winner. Did the death of Catherine mean that all was lost?
Henry in the last pages of the novel is seen standing in the rain and a dog is nosing about the empty cans. Does the rain augur a new beginning for Henry or does the dog symbolize the absurdity of human existence where human beings are chasing emptiness in the form of illusions.
Sami Rafiq, Reader, Dept. of English, Faculty of Arts, Aligarh Muslim University, Aligarh, India
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