Expert: Josh Silverstein - 10/22/2006

Question
Pls analyze Irony (in various types) and comment about story "In another country" by E. Hemingway.

Thanks.

Answer
Hello,

In many of Hemingway's war stories, a certain character often feels alienation or isolation from himself or from a group. In this story, it is the unnamed narrator who is a stranger "in another country." While he recognizes that he and the other soldiers being treated in the hospital have the same medals, he knows that his wounds are the least serious and that he earned his medals more by being an American than any single act of bravery.

While a part of narrator wants to belong and be accepted into this heroic group of soldiers, he willfully admits that he is afraid to die and would not have performed the courageous acts the others had performed to obtain their medals. According to the narrator, the major, who is also being treated at the hospital, does not believe in bravery.

We sense in this story that the soldiers, particularly the major, are alive physically, but dead emotionally. The horrors of war have conditioned them to turn their feelings on and off like the machines that are being used to help them recuperate. The machines are mechanical, robotic, and programmed to assist in their rehabilitation. The soldiers and the major seem to be adapting the same mechanical, programmed routine to cope with their emotional and psychological wounds.

Some wounds, however, are just too painful. The major has lost his young wife to pneumonia. As he stares out the window surrounded by photographs on the wall, the "before and after" photos showing the miracle restorative powers of the machines, we realize that there are some wounds that can never heal.


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Sincerely,


Josh Silverstein
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