A Farewell to Arms is a novel that is set during World War 1. It is the story of two lovers, Henry and Catherine and the impact of the war on their life and love. The novel has several strong themes that are continuous throughout the books. Tragedy The novel ends with Catherine’s death and Henry walking alone back home in the rain. He has lost his baby and the love of his life. When authoring the book, Hemmingway said “The fact that the book was a tragedy did not make me unhappy since I believed that life was a tragedy and it could only have one end” (Hemmingway, 1948, vii-viii) The author referred to the novel as his Romeo and Juliet. Unlike other forms of tragic narratives where the character suffers as a result of his wrong decision, Henry suffers for committing himself to love. He makes the decision that the readers desire him to make. He decides to be with his love, and at the end, it turns out to be a sad affair when Catherine dies. As one reads the book, they sense an inevitable doom for the two lovers. The story will not end with them escaping to Switzerland to live a peaceful life. When the tragedy occurs, the readers come to concur with the author’s thoughts on life. It is indeed a tragedy (Merril, 1974). The tragedy is inevitable similar to the way Macbeth could not be forgiven his sins and restored to virtue or Lear be allowed to live his days with the faithful Cordelia. The author from the beginning of the story creates tragic expectations which must be fulfilled for the piece of literature to succeed. The author creates a sense of foreboding in several ways. When Henry thinks Catherine’s courage, he concludes that “If people bring so much courage to this world the world has to kill them to break them so of course, it kills them…it kills the very good and the very gentle and the very brave impartially” (Hemmingway, 1948, pg258-259) When the lovers are in Switzerland and the seasons change from summer to autumn, Catherine also has a bad premonition. She tells Henry “I’m afraid of the rain because sometimes I see me dead in it.”(Hemmingway, 1948, pg131). The rain in the novel is symbolic of the tragedy that will occur. The pattern of the book’s narrative structure is also a premonition of danger in the future. In the first book, Henry is deep in the war experiencing its horrors. In book two life gets better as he is off the battleground and taken to Milan. He meets Catherine and falls in love. However, in book three, it again changes, and he is back to the war. In book five and six, the couple escapes into Switzerland; however, the reader knows that it will not end well. He waits for the cyclic pattern of peace and turmoil to be fulfilled. War’s devastating effects From the beginning, as the author narrates the story in the setting of World War 1, the reader is shown the horrors and trauma of war. In the second chapter, the landscape is described as “the forest of oak trees on the mountain beyond the town was gone. The forest had been green in the summer when we had come into the town, but now there were stumps and the broken trunks and the ground torn up.”(Hemmingway, 1948, p6). The war changes the landscape from fruitfulness to barrenness. The first dialogue shows the baiting of a priest by Italian officers. Henry is blown up while consuming a piece of cheese. As he is being transported to the hospital, a dead