WebX Post #4
• Find a passage that reflects the novel's concept
of Home, paying special attention to the positive associations shared by Home and mountain imagery in Farewell , and contrast that passage with one
informed by the novel's Not-Home concept and lowland imagery. Look not only at the setting and action of these passages, but also at which characters
are associated with particular locations, images, moods or activities, or events.
The line between “home” and “not-home” in Stephen Crane’s “A Farewell to Arms” are very distinct and equally critical in drawing conclusions
from this epic war novel. The idea of Home and Not-Home is primarily established and developed within the first chapter of the novel, in which the
narrator presents both poles of this idea. At the opening of the novel, Henry creates a “homey” atmosphere by linking words such as “lived”, “house”, and “village”
to the beauty of his surroundings. “In the late summer of that year, we lived in a house in a village that looked across the river and the plains to the mountains” (3).
Henry’s initial description of the setting resembles one that a young child would provide, ideally, a description that suggests innocent, sheltering, and security. Further
on in the novel, we see the apparent laid-back lifestyles of soldiers who are away from the front (at home): they spend time doing significant things, especially
courting women and seeking out brides, to take their minds off the impending disasters that surrounds them. For Henry, Catherine Barkley quickly becomes his
physical and emotional support, providing him with love, attention, and a drive to survive the war. These comforting images are just a few examples of “home”, but
these are drastically contrasted with images of “not-home”, images that are disturbing and maddening. In the opening of the novel, Henry eventually speaks of the
“not-home” atmosphere of Italy. “The vineyards were thin and bare-branched too and all the country wet and brown and dead with the autumn” (4). This presents
the alternate side of the home-front as one that is ominous and vile in its nature. This not-home imagery also sets up a very cruel irony as Henry describes Italy as
“the picturesque front”, yet as the novel progresses, myriads of men lose their lives on this so-called picturesque front. Ultimately, to Henry, “not-home” is anywhere
where Catherine is not, and by the end of the novel after her death, we realize that Henry is never “at home.”