War SceneA Farewell to Arms is one of the great American novels written by Ernest Hemingway concerning his own experiences serving in the Italian campaigns during the First World War. It opens with a description of troops loaded with artillery marching slowly through the rains of late summer and autumn. One of these men was an American named Frederic Henry, a volunteer ambulance driver. Henry is currently in the Italian army, on the Italian front during the First World War. This novel gives brilliant descriptions of the senseless savagery and violent perplexity of the conflict: the scene of the retreat of the Italian army remains one of the most intense evocations of war in American literature. .In the first part of the book begins in the Alps around the border between Italy and present-day Slovenia. Britain, France and Russia allied against the Austro-Hungarian Empire and Germany, Italy is responsible for preventing Austro-Hungarian forces from aiding the Germans on the Western Front of the war and the Russia in the east. “Volume 1 traces Frederick's descent into the horrors of war. In volume 2, his fate radically improves once he is taken to Milan, where he consummates his affair with Catherine. But volume 3 sends Frédéric back to the front, where everything is worse than before. In volume 4 and at the beginning of volume 5, Milan's happiness emerges again, as Frédéric and Catherine flee to Switzerland. Flowering (page 28). The Italian-Austrian Henry served on the border during the First World War. Henry returns from winter leave in early spring. His roommate, Rinaldi, is in love with Catherine and he convinces Henry to visit the hospital with him and Henry finds himself attracted to Catherine. Henry and Catherine briefly begin a romantic relationship... middle of paper ...... the book is clear and heartbreaking, such refuge is always temporary. Quoted word Hemingway, Ernest. A farewell to arms. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1957Bloom, Harold. A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway. New York: Chelsea House Publishers, 1987. Gellens, Jay, ed. Twentieth-Century Interpretations of “A Farewell to Arms”: A Collection of Critical Essays. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1970. Charles Scribner's Sons. A Farewell to Arms NewYork, renewal Copy to the right Ernest Hemingway 1957Monteiro, George, ed. Critical essays on Ernest Hemingway's A Farewell to Arms. New York: GK Hall & Co., 1994.Dr. Eric Hibbison, Professor of English and President-in-Chief of the Virginia Community College System 2001. Available online at: http://vccslitonline.cc.va.us/afta/