A Farewell to Arms: Imagery 5 key examples

The priest's invitation to meet his family is kind and heartwarming, so the reader nearly expects the place to be as lush and inviting as the people. However, the novel describes Abruzzi as a dry and serious place with more snow than Gorizia. On the other hand, the dank and sinful cities that Henry visits are lush and whirling, even despite the cold-hearted company.

In Abruzzi, Henry could have been “hard as iron,” but in the city, he can dissolve into the “smoke of cafés” and pretend that he doesn’t exist, that he is untouchable by the war. This is Henry's true idea of a leave: a place where he can disassociate from the war and its burdens.  

One would expect the danger to occur during the battle itself, so this scene comes about unexpectedly. Unlike the glorified injuries that soldiers receive in battles, Henry gets hit while eating with his fellow soldiers. Getting hit by a mortar shell while doing something as mundane as eating macaroni and cheese, though, undermines the gravity and glory of war. It is so sudden and unceremonious that it is almost darkly humorous, demonstrating the absurdity and senselessness of World War I.

Moreover, the sharp shift from discussing Henry’s “piece of cheese” to the "screaming" and splintering world around him takes the reader by surprise. The simile comparing the exploding shell to "a blast-furnace door sw[inging] open" and the ensuing visual and auditory imagery make the moment even more shocking and vivid. The jarring escalation in imagery, in particular, mirrors the shock that accompanies an explosion. This is one of the more emotive and dramatic moments in the novel, made ironic by its banal prelude.

This imagery here is visual as well as auditory. The passage applies both soft and hard words to the ambiance of the battlefield, such as “puff” and “crack.” These contrasting descriptors demonstrate the inner turmoil that Henry feels about the war, his teetering loyalty towards the cause and the Italian Army itself. The novel captures the sounds, feelings, and sights of explosives from afar, almost as if the destructiveness of war is something beautiful to be admired. But the imagery also reads as somewhat mechanical, as if implying that Henry is gradually numbing to all of the destruction. He appears to be merely reciting facts and trying to distance himself from what he believes to be a senseless war.

When Henry first deserts the army and escapes World War I, he finds Catherine in the town of Stresa, where they settle down and hide away from the world. Nothing else exists for Henry and Catherine outside of their love for each other. In this description, the beauty of the land and the water emphasizes how removed from the war Stresa truly is and how desperately Henry and Catherine long to stay in their haven forever. The scene depicts the town and the surrounding nature as calm and uneventful: the water is smooth and clear, the fish and trees are sparse. The imagery of Stresa contrasts the carnage of the battle sites like Pavla and Bainsizza. 

The snow mountains and villas are initially hidden by the darkness of night but are then revealed by the moonlight. Out of the darkness, the villas shine white and the mountains are capped with white snow. The shift from dark to light mirrors Henry and Catherine's search for safety and peace from the war. The couple escapes the darkness of Italy in hopes of finding the light of Switzerland. Once the moon comes out again, the story describes everything the characters see as white: "white-caps," "white villas," and "white roads." To Henry and Catherine, Switzerland is a figurative white flag that signifies their surrender. They have given up on the war and are surrendering themselves to their own happiness.