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...