Anderson, Charles R.  "Hemingway's Other Style." In Monteiro,
        George, ed.  Critical Essays on Ernest Hemingway's A Farewell
        to Arms.  New York: G.K. Hall & Co., 1994: 109-116.

        Anderson wrote about Hemingway's style in Modern Language Notes (76 [May 1961]: 434-442).  Hemingway's usual style "is hard and bare, secular and insistently non-literary."  But in certain crucial passages, his style becomes lyrical, "warmly human, richly allusive, and at least suggestive of spiritual values" (109).  One lyrical passage is the dream sequence in Chapter 28, as the novel begins to turn from the war to the love story.  This passage unites several strands that have been introduced earlier in the novel.  For instance, Frederic's love for Catherine is at its most mature so far during their goodbye in the Milan hotel.  Anderson picks up on the lines quoted from Marvel about the onrush of time and points out that Donna Gerstenberger has just put that quotation into the context of T. S. Eliot's The Wasteland ("The Waste Land in A Farewell to Arms," MLN 76 [1961]: 24-25).  The changed tone at the front and the winter rains also help set the context of Lt. Henry's dream as he falls asleep in an ambulance after they have picked up the two virgins during the retreat from Caparetto.  Frederic dreams of Catherine trying to sleep during her pregnancy, refers to the Western wind, knows "the big rain" is falling, dreams of Catherine falling on him like the rain, and offers Catherine cold water and hope for imminent dawn.

The dream passage gives Lt. Henry a rest from war, unites him "in spirit" with Catherine, breaks from the usual war talk, and operates symbolically as in a poem.

The 16th-Century anonymous poem "The Lover in Winter Plaineth for the Spring" characterizes the longing of separated lovers, but Lt. Henry's longing is mixed with his discontent for the war (he has already likened the "sacrifice" to the "Chicago stockyards") and the desire played at by the ambulance drivers and the two virgin girls.  The reference to sleeping is made with an echo of the child's prayer "Now I lay me down to sleep," which contains the shuddering threat of death, "If I should die before I wake," which actually foreshadows his worry about Catherine: "What if she should die?" (112).  Though Hemingway gets a bit Freudian when Henry is thinking of Catherine in bed, but continues in poignancy as he recalls the rain in Milan when he left Catherine, which prefigures the rain falling when she dies (113).  The "big rain" is associated with the war's destruction, while the "small rain" is merely inconvenient.  Anderson points out that the two main passages when it isn't raining occur in the priest's description of life in the Abruzzi and the couple's stay in the chalet above Montreux [where they come closest to living the ideal love described by the priest, which involves sacrificing for each other].  The western wind comes with the early spring, replacing the northern wind of winter and its harsh rains. 

Lt. Henry's climactic wish to be back in Catherine's arms rings with passion, but it also starts with invoking Christ, ambiguously "between prayer and profanity."  The dream has progressed from desire to a more loving concern for Catherine in her discomfort.  In a medieval symbolism, Christ was thought to rain down on the earth, bringing the green growth of spring.  Hemingway has Catherine falling as the rain upon him.  "She is the one he worships" (114).  The line "Blow her again to me" echoes a lullaby written by Alfred Tennyson called "The Princess," in which the speaker longs for her lover to return.  [This returning, of course, is what her fiancé could not do, since he was killed in the Somme.] 

This passage and desire for home with Catherine are echoed during Lt. Henry's ride in the gondola car with the rifles after he has escaped execution by diving into the river, making his separate peace. 

So in terms of style, Hemingway's prose remain popular not just for being "impudent" and nihilistic but also at times for having "tender spots of sensibility carefully nurtured in a dehumanized world" (116).

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