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    Old Man at The Bridge

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    Suvodip Etc
    The short story "Old Man at the Bridge" by Ernest Hemingway portrays the plight of refugees displaced by the Spanish Civil War. It describes an interaction between a nameless soldier and an exhausted old man who had walked 12 kilometers from his home of San Carlos and could not continue across the bridge to safety due to his fatigue. Though advised to flee the advancing enemy, the old man is more concerned for the safety of his abandoned animals than himself. The old man's inability to cross the bridge signifies the tragic sacrifices of innocent civilians impacted by war.

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    Old Man at The Bridge

    Uploaded by

    Suvodip Etc
    246 views3 pages
    The short story "Old Man at the Bridge" by Ernest Hemingway portrays the plight of refugees displaced by the Spanish Civil War. It describes an interaction between a nameless soldier and an exhausted old man who had walked 12 kilometers from his home of San Carlos and could not continue across the bridge to safety due to his fatigue. Though advised to flee the advancing enemy, the old man is more concerned for the safety of his abandoned animals than himself. The old man's inability to cross the bridge signifies the tragic sacrifices of innocent civilians impacted by war.

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    The short story "Old Man at the Bridge" by Ernest Hemingway portrays the plight of refugees displaced by the Spanish Civil War. It describes an interaction between a nameless soldier and an exhausted old man who had walked 12 kilometers from his home of San Carlos and could not continue across the bridge to safety due to his fatigue. Though advised to flee the advancing enemy, the old man is more concerned for the safety of his abandoned animals than himself. The old man's inability to cross the bridge signifies the tragic sacrifices of innocent civilians impacted by war.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pdf or txt
    246 views3 pages

    Old Man at The Bridge

    Uploaded by

    Suvodip Etc
    The short story "Old Man at the Bridge" by Ernest Hemingway portrays the plight of refugees displaced by the Spanish Civil War. It describes an interaction between a nameless soldier and an exhausted old man who had walked 12 kilometers from his home of San Carlos and could not continue across the bridge to safety due to his fatigue. Though advised to flee the advancing enemy, the old man is more concerned for the safety of his abandoned animals than himself. The old man's inability to cross the bridge signifies the tragic sacrifices of innocent civilians impacted by war.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pdf or txt
    of 3

    OLD MAN AT THE BRIDGE

    The short story Old Man at the Bridge by Ernest


    Hemingway wholly demonstrates the vicious
    repercussions of war on disinterested innocents. The short
    story, narrated by a nameless soldier, sensitively portrays
    the sorry plight of the refugees who are displaced by war.
    The action takes places at a pontoon bridge near the Ebro
    Delta on an Easter Sunday during the Spanish Civil War.
    All the refugees of that area were crossing the bridge to
    protect themselves from the impending attack by the
    enemy troops. The young soldier was on a mission to
    cross the bridge and find out how far the enemy had
    advanced.
    After the soldier had scanned the region for any sign of
    the enemy troops, he noticed an old man still sitting at the
    pontoon bridge. The seventy-six-year-old man wore black
    dusty clothes and his face was dusty grey. He wore steel-
    rimmed spectacles which suggested that he was neither a
    shepherd nor a herdsman. He appeared weak and
    exhausted. The soldier asked the old man where he came
    from. The old man replied that he was from Sans Carlos.
    He had already walked about 12 kilometres from his
    hometown, San Carlos, and was weary and exhausted.
    Therefore, even after the soldier had advised him to flee,
    the old man did not move.
    The officer asked the old man about his political loyalty
    and he replied that had no politics. In San Carlos, he
    owned two goats, a cat and some pigeons which he had to
    leave behind because of the artillery. His whole life
    revolved around his animals and his hometown. He was
    just taking care of his animals without harming anybody
    just like any other ordinary individual unconcerned with
    the ongoing war. When he was told to move to safety in
    view of the advancing enemy troops, he was worried
    about the safety of his animals and wanted to remain with
    them.
    The old man is more concerned for the safety of his
    animals than for his own safety. The animals stand for
    different qualities. The pigeons, for example, represent
    peace and harmony and the fact that they fly away, away
    from the war, maybe is a reference to the refugees who
    flee from the war to a safer place. The cat being a symbol
    of independence, does not need anybody to survive, but
    the goat is often used as a sacrificial animal and this
    probably represents the old man and his situation. Like a
    goat which is sacrificed, the old man’s fate is sealed. The
    old man’s obsession with the safety of his animals brings
    out Hemingway’s point that this mad war unnecessarily
    destroys even such useful human beings who help to
    sustain life. The narrator, the young soldier, advised the
    old man to cross the pontoon bridge to save himself from
    the impending assault of the advancing enemies.
    Although the old man got up and tried to move, he
    swayed and teetered. So, he sat down again in the dust as
    he was too tired to move. He finally resigned himself to
    his fate and the imminent doom.
    We, along with the young soldier, arrive at the painful
    realisation that the old man will not be able to move on
    and will probably die at the bridge. The irony is that like a
    goat which is sacrificed, the old man`s fate is sealed on an
    Easter Sunday, a day of hope and faith.
    Neither the old peasant nor the war is identified by name
    in the story, for the idea of the tragic sacrifices of
    uninvolved men in every war is universal. The old man
    epitomises the victims of war- men, women and children
    who had to leave their home and their normal life as
    victims of a war with which they have nothing to do.

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