Goodbye to weapons

A Farewell to Arms is one of Ernest Hemingway's most prominent novels and the most expressive of his artistic and existential vision. Published in 1929, it stems from the author's personal experience as a wounded soldier. Through narrative craftsmanship and linguistic economy, it has become a universal text that re-questions the concepts of war, love, and heroism from within. The novel does not present a traditional hero or depict war as an epic; rather, it tears apart narratives of glory through the character of Frederic Henry, who gradually transforms from a participant in the killing machine into a defeated self whose only option is to cling to his love for Catherine Barclay as a last resort against collapse. However, Hemingway, using his famous "iceberg" technique, does not express his pain so much as let it seep through short sentences and terse dialogue, where silence acquires a meaning that transcends language. The novel is also a reflection of the philosophy of the "lost generation," as war turns into an absurd context that reveals the fragility of great values and confronts man with an existential emptiness that love does not fill, but rather exposes. There is no salvation in *A Farewell to Arms*, but rather a prolonged confrontation with collapse: the collapse of bodies, dreams, and certainty. In this sense, it is not a novel about war, but about what war leaves behind in the soul: the fragility of relationships, the flight of meaning, and a silence that brooks no interpretation.