Write the critical appreciation of Old man at the bridge story
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The critical appreciation of story OLD MAN AT THE BRIDGE ... “Old Man at the Bridge” was inspired. by Hemingway's travels as a war correspondent during. the Spanish Civil War in the 1930s. In fact, the story was originally composed as a news dispatch from the Amposta Bridge over the Ebro River on Easter Sunday in 1938 as the Fascists were set to overrun the region.
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Critical Appreciation - Old Man At The Bridge
Wars and battles are always detrimental for any civilization and are the reasons of doom of many civilizations. Apparently there is a winner and a losing party in a war; but the common man is the ultimate loser as they lose the most whichever party wins a battle. In the story "The Old Man at the Bridge," war is not represented or narrated as such apart from the information that Fascists artillery forces are approaching and the people of the town of San Carlos are asked to vacate the town and go to a safer place. All the people of San Carlos are moving towards Barcelona and other places so as to save their lives. As we enter the story, we see people, trucks and carts are crossing the bridge to go to a safer place. The way people are taking hardship to reach a safer place shows that they are bearing extreme hardship due to the war. In such a circumstance, the narrator perceives an old man sitting near the bridge for a long time.
The narrator's curiosity makes him go and converse with him to know about his whereabouts and to urge him to go to a safer place. We come to know that he is a seventy six years man who has been looking after his animals in the town of San Carlos. His animals consisted of one cat and two goats as well as four pairs of pigeons. The order to vacate the city made him leave these animals at San Carlos and made him walk for twelve kilometres to reach the bridge. The tired old man says that he was the last one to leave the town and after walking so much he does not have any more energy left to carry on any further. But as the narrator converses with him more, we come to know that it is not the physical tiredness, but it is the emotional condition of the old man which is making him not being able to move on any further. He is extremely sad and worried about leaving the animals and birds at his native place. He has left the cage of the pigeons open so that they can fly away and knows that probably the cat will be able to look after itself, but is very worried about the goats.
We have to understand here that these animals are his family and he has left his family back at his native place to save his own life and now he is being pricked by his conscience and his love and concern for these animals. Whoever wins the war will represent the war in a glorious light and will talk about heroism involved in winning the war; but no one will talk or remember about the suffering of this old man and his loss of family. The common people like this old man are the worst victims of the war and their sufferings are often not the subject of discussions whenever a war is talked about. Ernest Hemmingway finds this disturbing and therefore through the portrayal of the suffering of the old man tries to present the uglier side of war which usually is not talked about.
The story is not only about the war, but also about one's love for one's family and one's love and pride for one's own native place.
The multifarious themes of the story make it an interesting reading. Moreover one has to keep in mind that the primary characteristic of a short story is its brevity or conciseness. The story is short and within that short span, Hemmingway is able to present the inner turmoil and suffering of the old man through his conversations with the narrator in brilliant fashion. The dialogues in the story also make the story interesting to read as the dialogues make us get the information in first person which provides more credibility to the story rather than it being narrated in the story.