Short story analysis of “The old man at the bridge” by Ernest Hemmingway
It’s Easter Sunday, and in the middle of a military action, a cavalry scout spots an old man at a bridge where people are crossing to escape a war zone. The scout converses the old man, but soon realizes that the man isn’t going to move and probably won’t make it.
The bridge is made out of pontoons and is a temporary bridge set up by the army, in order to evacuate as many people as possible. The bridge crosses the Ebro river, and it takes place during the Spanish civil war, in other words between 1936-1939.
My first impression of the environment, is a sad and godforsaken place, where lots of scared people are in a hurry to get out of the warzone as quickly as possible. Actually they really have no other choice, because their hometown …show more content…
The first person narrator tells the story through thorough description, dialogue and comments about the old man. The narrator drags the old man out of the faceless and voiceless crowd, and makes the reader see the old man through description. The conversation between the old man at the bridge and the cavalry scout allows the old man to have a voice instead of just being another voiceless victim of the war. The old man is not a person, but the voice of all the innocent victims of the war.
The short story The Old Man at the Bridge takes a small ordinary story, and by the “art” of storytelling turns it into a powerful, and sad story about the tragedy of the war. The old man is not a person but a symbol of all those innocent people that died during that war. The author Ernest Hemmingway whish so send the message, that wars like these are pointless and kills so many innocent “goats”. The war traumatizes, and confuse people enough to give up hope. The old man was so disorientated that he couldn’t move.
The title in my mind, means the bridge between life and death, and the old man are just in the
It’s Easter Sunday, and in the middle of a military action, a cavalry scout spots an old man at a bridge where people are crossing to escape a war zone. The scout converses the old man, but soon realizes that the man isn’t going to move and probably won’t make it.
The bridge is made out of pontoons and is a temporary bridge set up by the army, in order to evacuate as many people as possible. The bridge crosses the Ebro river, and it takes place during the Spanish civil war, in other words between 1936-1939.
My first impression of the environment, is a sad and godforsaken place, where lots of scared people are in a hurry to get out of the warzone as quickly as possible. Actually they really have no other choice, because their hometown …show more content…
The first person narrator tells the story through thorough description, dialogue and comments about the old man. The narrator drags the old man out of the faceless and voiceless crowd, and makes the reader see the old man through description. The conversation between the old man at the bridge and the cavalry scout allows the old man to have a voice instead of just being another voiceless victim of the war. The old man is not a person, but the voice of all the innocent victims of the war.
The short story The Old Man at the Bridge takes a small ordinary story, and by the “art” of storytelling turns it into a powerful, and sad story about the tragedy of the war. The old man is not a person but a symbol of all those innocent people that died during that war. The author Ernest Hemmingway whish so send the message, that wars like these are pointless and kills so many innocent “goats”. The war traumatizes, and confuse people enough to give up hope. The old man was so disorientated that he couldn’t move.
The title in my mind, means the bridge between life and death, and the old man are just in the