ICSE 2019 - Read the extract given below and answer the questions that follow:
It was my business to cross the bridge, explore the bridgeheads beyond and find
out to what point the enemy had advanced. I did this and returned over the
bridge. There were not so many carts now and very few people on foot, but the
old man was still there.
(Old Man at the Bridge- Ernest Hemingway)
(i) Describe the old man seated near the bridge. [3]
(ii) Describe the scene at the bridge at the beginning of the story. [3]
(iii) What was the narrator’s duty? [3]
(iv) Why did the old man have to leave his home?
Why was he the last one to leave town?
[3]
(v) How does Hemingway show us the effect of war on the lives of common
people through the story of the Old Man at the Bridge?
Answers
A) the old man was around the age of 76 . He wore grey dusty clothes and a steel rimmed spectacles .he looked very frail and week. He had walked a long distance and was too tired to walk.
B) carts , trucks , men and women and children were crossing the pontoon bridge . The mule- drawn carts wobbled up the steep bank from the bridge with soldiers helping push against the spokes of wheel. The trucks ground up and away heading out of it all and the peasants plodded along in ankle deep dust.
C)the narrator's duty was to explore the bridgehead to see where the enemy had approached and also to help people cross the bridge.
D)there could be exchange of arterially in San Carlos at any moment as it was in a state of war . All the residents were asked to escape the war zone . So , old man had to leave his house
He was very unwilling to leave his house and his animals . Hence , he was the last one to leave .