The Need for Repetition: Hemingway's Sparse Landscape in A Farewell to Arms

In his novel A Farewell to Arms, Ernest Hemingway uses parataxis extensively. With this structure Hemingway avoids making causal connections in his narration; this is one of the most famous aspects of Hemingway's writing. But the unpredictability that the anti-causal nature of the narrative suggests, is counteracted by another, less apparent, narrative tool of Hemingway's. The unpredictability is counteracted by the extensive repetition that Hemingway employs in the novel, repetition that finally evinces a world …

…affirms that there are few options for other action above Italian rooftops. Hemingway thus creates a world in which repetition is destined to occur, not because of some larger cosmic scheme, but rather because in the simple world that Hemingway has created<a re-creation of the simple world that Hemingway saw around him<the few things that can possibly occur, have a high probability of recurring because there are so few of them.