A Farewell to Arms Essay Many novels use contrast images of the land or surroundings to contribute to the central meaning of the work. In Ernest Hemingway’s A Farewell to Arms the foil images of Italy and Switzerland help shape the theme of the book which is the cruelty of war and what it does to people. The descriptions of the two countries, Italy and Switzerland, are greatly different and represent two types of places. On one hand, Italy is a site of cruelty and death. Here is where all of the war and fighting takes place throughout the novel. The front and plains in Italy are described to be where all the death and disast