Reflection on "In Another Country"

Reflection on In Another Country

Ernest Hemingway really shows the Modernism writing style in his short story In Another Country. The first element of Modernism that I noticed was that Hemingway did not give any explanation of how these soldiers got these wounds and why the narrator was even fighting in Italy at all. Even when the soldiers were talking about their medals that they were awarded, Hemmingway gave no more explanation other than that they were “hawks”. He also left out a resolution to the story; we are not told if the machines heal the soldiers’ bodies and injuries, or if any of them make it home. He was also very cynical about these soldiers’ situations, almost as if to say that the machines could not heal them and they would not fit into the new society after the war, like the way they did not fit in in Italy. He also takes a very cynical tone with the narrator’s future, when his friend starts yelling at him about how he should not marry because it will just be taken from him. Hemmingway also writes this story very realistically; showing how the soldiers do not believe the machines will heal them, or how the townspeople do not like the soldiers. This was probably due to the fact that Hemmingway was an ambulance driver during World War I. Hemmingway also used some symbols, like the machines. The machines could symbolize the new society, or technology, and how the injured soldiers will not be able to find a place in this new world of technology due to there injuries, if the machines can not heal them. The machines also symbolize the false hopes of the technology and the post-World War I world because of the way that the machines were not really doing much in the way of healing the wounded soldiers, and only giving them false hope that it would heal them.