The "Rotten" matter in A Farewell to arms: an eco-gothic reading

Abstract

This article uncovers the gothic tropes manifest in the “rotten” food, human bodies, landscapes, and rain in Ernest Hemingway’s A Farewell to Arms through an eco-gothic perspective. It demonstrates how the rotten food, the disjointed bodies, the broken landscapes, and the gothic rain can be viewed in the novel as counter-narratives against the narratives of war, the military, and modern medicine. The first part of this article suggests interpreting war as a form of cannibalism by exploring the representations of rotten food and the connection between eating and killing. Next, the author focuses on how the body is fragmented both metaphorically and literally by the discourse of war, the military, and medical science. The third part uncovers the non-anthropocentric consciousness embedded within the protagonist’s narrative, followed by the gothicizing and romanticization of nature in the fourth section. Here, the protagonist’s linking of the human body to the natural landscape, the descriptions of the gothic rain, and the romanticized snow—all these, as the author argues, can be interpreted as a collective resistance against industrial, anthropocentric warfare.

Keywords:

eco-gothic, non-anthropocentrism, rotten food, deformed bodies, gothic rain, broken landscape, eco-resistance, anthropocentric warfare