Hemingway, Ernest. "In Another Country".
Summary
- set in a Milan hospital at the time of WW I
- the first person narrator describes the situation shared by him and his fellow-patients
- the crippled patients daily attend the hospital to do exercises on machines which are intended to make their arms and legs useful again
- their approach to the procedure is polite and interested, but none of them believes in getting well again
- all the crippled get the same medals
- as officers and Americans, the narrator and his fellows are disliked in the city
- the narrator presents his notion that a man, if he is to lose everything, must not place himself in the position to lose that (e.g. to marry after the war)
- then he confesses he has just lost his wife
Analysis
- the painful reality of the war and its long-lasting consequences
- the difficulty of being a man and the terrible effects of the war also on masculinity
- the motif of loss (of one's arm or leg, of one's wife, etc.)
Basics
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Author
Hemingway, Ernest. (1899 - 1961). -
Full Title
"In Another Country". -
First Published
In: Scribner's Magazine. NY: 1927. -
Form
Short story.
Works Cited
Hemingway, Ernest. "In Another Country". (1927). In: The Collected Stories. London: The Random House, 1995.