For Your Written Asignment

In Another Country by E.Hemingway

Full text of the story

Suggestions for analysis

1. Reproduce the exposition to the story. Comment on the emotional atmosphere it conveys. Point out the means that create that atmosphere.

2. How is war referred to in the first paragraph and elsewhere in the story?

3. Tell summarily what you have learned about the young men who came to the hospital for the machine treatment.

4. How do you understand the phrase "we...sat in the machines  that  were  to make so much  difference?"

5. Paraphrase and interpret the following: "... they had. done very different things to get their medals"; "I was never ashamed of the ribbons, though ...";

 "The three with the medals were like hunting-hawks, and I was not a hawk, although I might seem a hawk to those who had never hunted."

E. Hemingway, who avoids  straight-forward eva­luations, often resorts to periphrasis and understatement. Point out their occurrences in the above-quoted and other sentences of the text. Speak on their emotive quality.

6. Observe the occurrences of the words "cold" and "warm"; speak on the undercurrent of meaning they carry.

7. Comment on the meaning the word "detached" is imbued with in the story.

8. a) Why, do you think, did the major who had no confidence in the machine treatment come to the hospital very regularly?

b) Interpret the following: "The major who had been the great fencer, did not believe in bravery, and spent much time while we sat in the machines correcting my grammar."

c) Reproduce the dialogue between the major and the American when the two were sitting in the machines. What was it in the speech of the major that betrayed his nervousness and preoccupation? What turned out to be the cause of these? How is it made known to the reader?

d) Why, after what had happened to his wife, did the major come to the hospital again at the usual hour? What poetic detail shows that it was not the machine treatment the major came for? Pay attention to the phrase to make much difference. When was it first used and what is its implication in the present case? Observe the two occurrences of the phrase with­in the compositional framework of the story; speak on the meaningfulness of this compositional device.

9. Pay  attention  to  the  verbs  and adverbs/adjectives the author uses when he writes about the major. Comment on their quality.

10. Pick out words and expressions that denote physical injuries the characters have suffered. Comment on the emotive quality of those words. List the Italian words found in the story. Account for their use.

11. What moral message does the author convey through the image of the major.

12.  Interpret the title of the story, the interplay of the literal and the metaphorical in the phrase in another country. Write a short statement on the idea the author has conveyed in the story.