The Old Man and the Bridge.

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"The Old Man at the Bridge" by E. Hemingway. “The Old Man at the bridge” is a short story authored by Ernest Hemingway from his book-collection “The first forty-nine stories” (1938). The setting will be explained and the two main characters in the story too, and their quite an odd encounter, of which shall be looked further upon. Ways Hemingway portrays war in the text will also be taken up in the text and summarised in the conclusion. The story is set during the Spanish Civil War, in the African looking country of the "Ebro Delta". We are in a war zone 12km away from the now evacuated village of San Carlos. Nearly the whole story is set on a bridge over the Ebro river. The time being Easter Sunday, some year during the Spanish Civil War. It is a short story about a rather awkward meeting of two men, one an “old man with steel rimmed spectacles and very dusty clothes”, the other a scout. The scout sees the old man while he crosses the bridge looking to see how far the enemy had advanced. On his return, he finds the old man still sitting at the bridge, not moving. The carts and people that were there before had nearly vanished out of sight by now. The scout assumes the old man is too tired to go any farther. He starts some small talk with the old man, asking where he is from, to which the man replies “From San Carlos” and smiles. The fact that stating his native town’s name seemed to make him happy meant he was proud of the fact he came from there. The man explains he was the last person to leave the town of San Carlos, and that he was looking after the animals while over there. He repeats the fact that he was looking after animals and was forced to leave them multiple times. He may not have had control of his thoughts at the time, therefore repeating things multiple times. This could be because of the state his country was in, the fact

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