In A Farewell to Arms, Ernest Hemingway uses the archetype of snowy weather to express safety. Throughout most works of literature, snow is used as a symbol of death and despair; everything in nature dies or disappears into hibernation during winter. Hemingway plays on the oxymoron that encompasses snow (it is hard and soft, wet and dry, solid and liquid), and uses that irony to shift the usual portrayal of snow and ice to one of safety and hope; creating Hemingway’s own oxymoron of snow in the process. This irony is present in the third chapter, page thirteen, when Frederic Henry converses with the Priest about his hometown of Abruzzi. It is the middle of World War I and the globe is in chaos. Henry is an American soldier enlisted in the Italian army who finds himself caught in the midst of a devastating war. Henry longs to escape this cruel, repetitive cycle where he wakes up each morning knowing “that that was all there was.” The snow-blanketed town of Abruzzi presents a potential safe haven for Henry because he has never been to a place where there are “hare-tracks in the snow and the peasants took off their hats and called you Lord and there was good hunting.” The fact that the peasants would refer to Henry as Lord, coupled with the coincidence that Abruzzi is the hometown of the Priest (a man of God), suggests that Hemingway is paralleling Abruzzi to Heaven. Of course, there is no safer place than Heaven so the comparison cements the town of Abruzzi and the white powder covering it as symbols of safety throughout the novel.
The safety of the snow, however, does not only pertain to Henry in this book. Also, in this particular paragraph, snow embodies a temporary relief for the Priest as well. During their conversation, while Henry is describing Abruzzi as a “place where the roads were frozen and hard as iron, where it was clear cold and dry and the snow was dry and powdery,” the Priest is experiencing a safe haven of his own. Differing very much from the other officers, Henry treats the Priest like an equal. He converses with the Priest in a casual, friendly manner. Their relationship stands in stark contrast to the relationship between the Priest and the other officers who do nothing but taunt the Priest. This dialogue regarding Abruzzi allows the Priest a few brief moments, free of embarrassment. As soon as they are done discussing, however, the Priest’s sanctuary ends and the other officers in the mess hall resume his humiliation by shouting, “’Priest not happy. Priest not happy without girls.’”
