Images in A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway The strategically placed images in the novel A Farewell to Arms show how well Ernest Hemingway is able to prepare the reader for the events to come. Catherine Barkley, the English nurse who falls in love with Fredric Henry, an American in the Italian army, states, "I'm afraid of the rain" (125), while they remain in Milan. She goes on to explain "I'm afraid of the rain because sometimes I see dead in it...And sometimes I see dead in it" (126). The foreshadowing this provides is very disturbing and frighteningly accurate. Hemingway even continues to reinforce this feeling by saying, "She was crying. I consoled her and she stopped crying. But it kept raining outside" (126). He uses images of nature to contrast the clarity of the mountains, the danger of the plains, and the unknown of the rain. For Fredric Henry, the mountains provide a sense of security. Fredric and the ambulance drivers are eating on a small bench, waiting for the offensive to begin where they will transport the wounded to the hospital. A bomb falls nearby and shakes the ground. One comments: "'Four hundred and twenty or minnenwerfer,' said Gavuzzi. 'There are not four hundred and twenty in the mountains,' I said" (54). This gives a feeling of greater security, because larger weapons are more difficult to transport in the mountains. Fighting is also less successful in the mountains. Tactically speaking «a mountain is not very mobile» (183), so «once upon a time the Austrians were always whipped in the quadrilateral around Verona. They took them down to the plain and whipped them there" (183). Mountains don't just offer security in war; they also help Fredric and Catherine escape... middle of paper... Arms. Ed. Jay Gellens. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice, 1970. 56-64. Cowley, Malcolm. "Rain as disaster." The portable Hemingway. Ed. Malcolm Cowley. New York: Viking, 1944. Rpt. in twentieth-century interpretations of A Farewell to Arms. Ed. Jay Gellens. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice, 1970. 54-55.Halliday, E.M. “Hemingway's Ambiguity: Symbolism and Irony.” American Literature 27 (1956): 57-63. Rpt. in twentieth-century interpretations of A Farewell to Arms. Ed. Jay Gellens. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice, 1970. 64-71.Hemingway, Ernest. A farewell to arms. 1929. New York: Scribner, 1995. Peterson, Richard K. Hemingway: Direct and Oblique. Paris: Mouton, 1969.Schneider, Daniel J. "Hemingway's A Farewell to Arms: The Novel as Pure Poetry." Studies in Modern Fiction 14.3 (1968): 283-296. Rpt. in Novels for Students. Ed. Diana Telgen. Detroit: Gale, 1997.