Critical Appreciation of the Story Old Man at the Bridge
Introduction
Ernest Hemingway’s economical short story ‘Old Man at the Bridge’ first appeared in Ken Magazine (Volume 1, Number 4, May 19,1938) prior to its later publication in the book The Column and the First Forty-Nine Stories, also published in 1938. The Fifth Column is Hemingway’s only full-length play and also includes all of his previously published short stories.
At just two pages in length, ‘The Old Man at the Brdige’ is one of Hemingway’s shortest tales. It is based upon as Easter Sunday stopover at the Ebro River during his coverage of the Spanish Civil War in April 1938. Although employed by the North American Newspaper Association, Hemingway apparently decided to submit it to Ken Magazine as a short story instead of using it as a news article.
Plot of the Story
The opening paragraph presents a piece of description. It is drawn as seen by a passer-by, looking from the road. The narrator of the story is not introduced in this paragraph. It is later that the reader understands that it is the narrator, and officer who describes what he sees. The scene is pictured with precision and such photographic accuracy that the reader is almost ready to believe that he is among the refugees crossing the pontoon bridge. This impression is achieved by the details of the depicted scene, given step by step with a remarkable sense of knowledgeability, so characteristic of Ernest Hemingway.
The first sentence introduces an old man with steel-rimmed glasses and very dusty clothes sitting by the side of the road. Then we see a pontoon bridge across the river and carts, trucks, men, women and children crossing it. But the old man was sitting there without moving. He was too tired to go any farther. The mentioning of the old man’s clothes discloses the implication that the old man covered a lot of kilometres and was very tired, but this idea is expressed in the closing sentence of the first paragraph.
The second paragraph contains information concerning the officer’s business to find out to what point the enemy had advanced with the same concluding part ‘and the old man sat there’. It sounds as it were an exposition placed in the middle of the story. The officer was watching the bridge and wondering how long now it would be before they would see the enemy and listening all the while for the first noises that would signal that ever mysterious event called contact.
The atmosphere of this paragraph is that of nervousness, strain and tension and its concluding part, taken out of the context, does not sound as if it were part and parcel of the story. But the impression does not last long. It is this part that is necessary and important. The reader’s attention is again drawn to the old man sitting by the side of the road because the pattern of predictability, the reader has been conditioned to expect (the further description of the officer’s thoughts), is defeated and more prominence is given to the old man who is not fit to go any further. The officer’s feeling of strain and tension turns into feeling of worry for the old man.
Then comes the continuation of the conversation between the officer and the old man from which we learn that the old man is seventy six years old. He is without politics. He has no family. He was looking after his animals and he had to leave them because of the artillery. The only good luck for him is that ‘the cat will be all right, cats can look after themselves’. But he worries about the goats and the pigeons. The officer is the man feeling deeply and sincerely and he is painfully bewildered at the trifling character of the old man’s worries.
The incongruity between the officer’s nervous strain because of the advancing enemy and the coming battle and the seemingly trifling character of the old man’s worries is further enchanced by the following detail: I asked watching the far end of the bridge where a few last carts were hurrying down the slope of the bank. The officer tries hard to persuade the oldman to standup and continue his way. He is aware of the coming danger. The old man thanks him and says that he knows noone in the direction the trucks go.
The next part contains the climax of the story. The officer keeps telling the old man to leave the place watching the far end of the bank where now ‘there were no carts’. The officer’s feeling of worry is increasing, he urges the old man to stand up and resume his way. ‘The old man got to his feet, swayed from side to side and sat down backwards in the sand.’
The reiteration of the sentence ‘I was taking care of animals’ first addressed to the officer in his attempt to share his worries with somebody and then ‘I was only taking care of animals’ addressed to noone, sharpens the feeling of pain, the feeling of doom. The word ‘only’ sounds pathetic and stirs feelings of pity and sadness in the reader. On the other hand, it underlines the old man’s bewilderment because ‘taking care of animals’ is the most peaceful of all people’s occupations.
Characterization
The story features only two characters, the narrator and the old man. Both of them are key to the narrative and its message. They are flat characters; they do not change as a result of the action. The unnamed narrator is an active character in the short story. Because the text was inspired by Hemingway’s real life experience in Spain as a war correspondent, we can assume the narrator is a fictional persona of the author. All that the text reveals about the narrator’s outer characterization is that his job was to cross the bridge, explore the bridgehead beyond and find out to what point the enemy had advanced. It implies that he was a scout (an individual sent first to investigate a territory). The narrator’s inner characterization is constructed through dialogue, actions and the way he depicts the events.
The old man is the second character in the story, who is presented from the narrator’s perspective. According to his outer characterization, he comes from a town called San Carlos. He is seventy-six years old. He had no family and he used to take care of animals. His physical portrait is conveyed on several occasions and helps suggest the idea of helplessness : ‘An old man with steel-rimmed spectacles and very dusty clothes sat by side of the road.
‘ …. I looked at his black dusty clothes and his gray dusty face and his steel rimmed spectacles………..’
The old man’s inner characterization is conveyed through dialogue and his actions. The fact that the man walked twelve kilometres from his town and got tired and decided to stop at the bridge suggest not only physical but also phychological exhaustion. He is a man who had to leave his town and who realised he has no where to go. This idea is further emphasised by his reluctance to go Barcelona.
Setting of the Story
The story ‘The Old Man at the Bridge’ is set against the backdrop of the Spanish Civil War, as indicated by the reference to Ebro (a river in Spain), to Fascists and to Barcelona. The events take place over a couple of hours, during Easter Sunday which is ironical, because instead of celebrating the resurrection of Christ, the people are preparing for war. The physical setting is the bridge over the river and its surroundings. The narrator conveys a gloomy atmosphere by constant references to dust and to colours like grey and black : “very dusty clothes’, ‘ankle deep dust’, ‘black dusty clothes and his gray dusty face’, ‘a gray overcast day1. The physical setting is depicted in several instances and it helps the author to convey feelings like anxiety, pessimism, confusion and helplessness.
The social setting illustrates aspects related to society in times of war, namely the Spanish society during the Civil War. The Spanish Civil War took place from 1936 to 1939. The fight was between Republicans and Nationalists. The Republicans were oriented towards the left, including the extreme left, while the Nationalists were oriented towards the right and the extreme right.
Narrative Technique
A first person narrator tells the story through careful description, reportage of dialogue and insight commentary about the old man. The narrator makes the reader see the old man. His engagement with his suddenly brings the old man into focus. He emerges out of the faceless, voiceless crowd. The narrator’s consciousness of the approaching enemy ‘contact’ is used to create the dramatic tension between the immobility of the old man and the coming destruction as he constantly observes the movement of carts across the bridge while talking. The narrator’s conversation allows the old man to have a voice. As he speaks to the scout, we along with the scout, gradually understand his plight and what the war has done to him. The voiceless victims speak through the old man.
The Use of Symbols and Imagery
The story takes place on a bridge. This setting symbolises an obstacle to overcome, in this case the border between life and death. If the old man could manage to get over the bridge, he might have a chance of survival. There are several other symbols in the story, such as the animals. The cat symbolises the survivors, as cats are associated with the thought of having nine fives and generally being independent creatures. The pigeons symbolise the ones that are able to flee the war.
The fact that the pigeons are later being called doves may give the old man a minor hope, as doves are a symbol of peace, and could therefore symbolise the hope of peace during wartime, or may be petty hope the Fascists are not going to hurt him. It could also symbolise his death, where he may obtain peace at last. The goat however, is a sacrificial animal which symbolises the death of the old man and the numerous other innocent victims of war. The story takes place on an Easter Sunday, which was the day of resurrection for Jesus. In this story it symbolises the changes in society that happens at war unravels; the hope from both parties of the war that their victory will lead to a resurrection of a better society. The four repetitions of the old man’s words : ‘I was taking care of animals’.
His last repetitions : ‘I was only taking care of animals’, ‘I was only taking care of animals’ becomes the eloquent symbolic expression of all those voiceless innocent men, women and children who are the victims of wars they neither support nor understand. Without politics, only living in their everyday world—taking care of animals-which is destroyed by forces beyond their ability to comprehend.
The dominant image in the story is of the dust. The old man wears clothes that are dusty, presumably from the dry soil in this land. The terrian reminds the narrator of Africa and we are told it is ankle deep in dust. The dust symbolises the dry despair of the situation. It is also an image of death. Ironically, the day is Easter Sunday, but there is no sign of resurrection, only a sense of‘ashes to ashes and dust to dust’, for the old man seems resigned to return to the earth from where he came. Both the old man and the narrator share a sense of blank despair over a situation they are helpless to change.
Irony in the Story
Ironical situation of the day is very evident when it is mentioned in the story that it was Easter Sunday (when Jesus rose from the dead on the third day after he was crucified). Easter is usually considered to be a time of rebirth and renewal whereas for the old man and his animals it is a time of inevitable death with the approaching enemy artillery forces.
Conflict in the Story
This is the type of the story in which the conflict is not between the principal character but between much larger forces whose struggle affects the lives of the little people unavoidably involved. On the one side of the great conflict is the army of the Loyalists. They are fighting to preserve the legally elected Spanish government. On the other side is the army of the Fascists under the leadership of Generalissimo Franscisco Franco, who eventually won the rebellion because they were supported by the Fascist government of Germany and Italy. The little people, such as the weary old man at the bridge, are forced to scramble to keep from getting crushed between the opposing juggernauts.
The old man symbolises the Spanish people in general. He is not concerned about the greater issues involved in the conflict. He is not capable of understanding them. He is only concerned about a few animals-a cat, two goats and eight pigeons-which he had to leave behind. The narrator presents this slice-of-life as a picture of the face of war. The advancing Fascist army might be said to symbolise the great conflict which seems to be threatening much of the entire world.
Repetition in the Story
Repetion is used on several occasions and it helps illustrate aspects about the two characters. The old man repeats four times that he used to care of animals:
‘I was taking care of animals’ he explained.
‘I stayed, you see, taking care of animals, I was the last one to leave the town of Sans Carlos. ’
‘I was taking care of animals’, he said dully but no longer to me.
‘I was only taking care of animals. ’
Language of the Story
The language used by Ernest Hemingway in the story ‘The Old Man at the Bridge’ is very simple and informative. The author does not use complex descriptions or narrative passages. Instead, he relies on dialogue to convey deeper, symbolical meanings. The choice of words is related to war, as the action takes place during the Spanish Civil War, but also to life in the countryside, as the old man comes from a rural town. To convey a gloomy atmosphere and the idea that war destroys everything, the author uses multiple references to dust and the colour grey ‘very dusty clothes’, ‘ankle deep dust’, ‘black dusty clothes and his gray dusty face’, ‘a gray overcast day.
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