Commenting on the Text “Old Man at the Bridge” (E. Hemingway)

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Commenting on the text “Old Man at the Bridge” (E. Hemingway) The story “Old Man at the Bridge” was written by Ernest Hemingway and first published in 1938. The events are set at the bridge of the Ebro River on an Ester Sunday during the Spanish Civil War in April 1938. In this very place and time, among the movement of vehicles and civilians fleeing across the bridge from an enemy attack the narrator notices a solitary old man sitting at the edge of the structure. Upon questioning him, the narrator, a military man determines that the old man has just walked twelve kilometers from his home village of San Carlos, but now he has to stay where he is so as he is too tired to go any further. He is the last man to leave the village and the old man’s duty is to take care of the animals left behind: a cat, two goats and eight pigeons. He takes his obligation seriously, even more serious than taking care of himself. Sadly he explains that he was forced to leave them. The old man wonders how the animals will take care of themselves. The narrator suggests crossing the bridge and catching a track toward Barcelona, but the man rejects. He knows no one there and he is unable to go father. The narrator decides that “there was nothing to do about him” and leaves the old man. The enemy will cross the bridge soon and death appears imminent for this old man. The theme of the following fiction is war and its impact on people’s lives moreover one can see one more theme in the story described – person’s loneliness, helplessness and despair, so as the war spares nothing on its way and destroys what one is used to love and takes care of. The setting of the story is aimed to evoke the necessary atmosphere, appropriate to the intention of it. Surrounding picture is given in contrast to what is inside the man, all the fuss and rush of those who are on the bridge is contrasted to the state of

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