Season of the Soldier: A Look at How Autumn Sets the Mood for A Farewell to Arms

Ernest Hemingway utilizes a vivid image of the main character's service during the fall in order to emphasize a weary and rugged atmosphere that is prevalent through much of the novel A Farewell to Arms.Chapter 25 begins "in the fall" when Henry rides into Gorizia where the trees are "all bare" and "the roads [are] muddy" (Hemingway 163). When the adjectives, "bare" and "muddy" come to mind, the reader often gets an image of a dreary and rugged terrain, a terrain that, in this particular case, is a literal battlefield. Anyone who has ever served in war knows that the uneven, worn battlefield plays a significant role in setting the mood for the great or war battle ahead, and the autumn weather further emphasizes the weary mood of Henry's place of service. In literature, according to How to Read Literature Like a Professor by Thomas C. Foster, the presence of autumn is often associated with "decline and middle age and tiredness" (Foster 178). Although perhaps not quite as dismal as the bitter wrath of winter, autumn paves the path for drearier conditions ahead, from the withered, leafless trees to the bleak, gray skys. In order to set the mood for a rugged war atmosphere, Hemingway sets the beginning of Henry's complicated war escapades in the autumn, and he creates a picture dreary enough to let the reader feel his main character's pain. Yet, the writer goes beyond the first sentence and takes the reader further down the bitter terrain of Gorizia. As Henry passes naked "mulberry trees," brown fields, and "wet dead leaves on the road," he notes that "many more houses had been hit (Hemingway 163). The image of the "wet dead leaves on the road" could very well be a symbol of the path that Henry must follow towards the true decline of his happiness and youth (Hemingway 163). The signs of autumn, including the brown terrain and the naked trees, provide a vivid portrait of the dreary nature of Henry's military service. The farther that he progresses through the war and life, the more Henry becomes exposed to the bitterness of life. The wounds inflicted upon he homes are symbols of destruction and the mayhem of war that is to come. The When discussing the autumn conditions in Gorizia, Hemingway doesn't just do it to delight the reader's thirst for seasonal imagery. He sets the beginning of the passage in autumn to foreshadow the bitter events to come ahead. The houses that have been damaged, as a result of the war, are clear signs of the hard times ahead, and the bleak nature of autumn foreshadows the tiring war experiences Henry will have to face as well as the decline of his happiness in his far future with Catherine.