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) tge old man was around tge 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- drwan 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 .
Sorry i don't know the last one :(
1.The old sitting beside the road is in a weary condition as he has already walked twelve kilometers and too tired to move further. Moreover his clothes are dusty and his face has turned Grey and was wearing steel rimmed spectacles.
2.In the beginning of the story the author describes the pontoon Bridge across the river and the carts, trucks, men's, women's and children were crossing it. And there was an old man sitting beside the road on the bridge who wore steel rimmed spectacles and very dusky clothes and he was too tired to walk further.
3.The narrator's duty was to cross the bridge, explore the bridge head beyond and find out to what point the enemy had advanced.
4.The old man had to leave his home which is in San Carlos because there was heavy firing from the enemy forced which made him do so. The old man was the last to leave because he was taking care of his animals.
5.The Spanish civil war forms the background to the story and Hemingway depicts that how in times of war man acts inhumanly to his own race. War causes and death and destruction, and this is highlighted through the condition of the old man who can be seen as the symbol of civilian victims of war. The old man gives meaning to his life by taking care of his animals, but the war takes away everything from him. He sits alone by the side of the road; he is as helpless as his goats; he cannot escape and is too old and tired to save himself.