Literary Devices in A Farewell to Arms
Symbolism, Imagery, Allegory
There are two kinds of papers we keep see constantly in A Farewell to Arms.This kind: I had his papers in my pocket and would write his family (30.67). – Identification documents, military do...
Setting
We are given specific place names, and specific events, and even days of the week, but we must go outside the text to get the years. Luckily, Ernest Hemingway is accurate, right down to the weather...
Narrator Point of View
On the surface, Frederic Henry is the quintessential unreliable narrator. He’s always boozing, he’s going through severe trauma, and he admits to lying to other characters in the novel,...
Genre
Ernest Hemingway is a major contributor to Modernism, a genre literally born from the tragic events of World One. It was impossible to process the millions of casualties and the scope of the war...
Tone
Frederic Henry tells it all, and doesn’t spare himself. He confesses the constant drinking, the prostitutes, the lies, the desperate thoughts. In the scene where he and Aymo shoot the soldier...
Writing Style
You’ve probably heard about Ernest Hemingway’s "Iceberg Principle" or theory of omission. It’s the simple idea that the reader is to be trusted. All the reader needs is the surfac...
What’s Up With the Title?
Critics are basically in agreement that there are three straightforward interpretations of the title, though there are many different ways to analyze the novel in terms of those interpretations. Th...
What’s Up With the Ending?
We all know that A Farewell to Arms ends tragically, with the death of Frederic and Catherine’s son. One good way to see the deeper meaning of the tragedy is to look at the way the novel is s...
Plot Analysis
Who is this guy?We don’t even know the narrator’s name until after he gets wounded. And the people around him are as puzzled as we are about what an American is doing driving Red Cross...
Booker's Seven Basic Plots Analysis
Catherine is almost insane with grief over the death of her fiancé in the war. She meets Frederic, and it’s love at first sight.Booker says the hero is "in some way incomplete" in this stage,...
Three Act Plot Analysis
The narrator slowly exposes himself to us, tries not to fall in love, gets his leg torn up while eating cheese and waiting to help the men who are about to be wounded, and then does fall in love, a...
Trivia
Steaminess Rating
As we note in "The Book," A Farewell to Arms was first published in Scribner’s Magazine as a series of installments. When the issue containing the first installment of the novel came out, it...
Allusions
Author unknown, "The Black Pig" (2.16)Andrew Marvell, "To His Coy Mistress" (23.185)William Shakespeare, Othello (35.70-71)Henri Barbusse (35.133)H.G. Wells, "Mr. Britling Sees It Through" (The nov...