“In Another Country” is foremost an unconventional look at masculinity during World War I. Under the mask of pleasant male nonchalance, lie feelings of disconnectedness and detachment suffered by wounded war veterans far from home. On the surface, it appears that these veterans are casually bumming around Italy while receiving physical therapy treatments. By piecing together subtle remarks made by the narrator though, one can see that these men struggle to keep their best foot forward in front of their contemporaries while desperately seeking to hide their weaknesses, resulting in superficial relationships.
Circumstantial friendships begin to reveal themselves from the beginning, when Hemingway introduces the reader to the “we” in the story, he writes, “we met every afternoon and were all very polite and interested in what was the matter…”(266). Though Hemingway’s language is rather clear and descriptive, one cannot escape the cold and formal atmosphere of this group when the narrator describes their interactions as “polite.”
The feeling of disconnect is crystallized for the reader when the author confronts it directly, referring to the tall boy in the group:
He had lived a very long time with death and was a little
detached. We were all a little detached, and there was
nothing that held us together except that we met every afternoon
at the hospital (269).
The narrator admits that the thread holding them together is their simultaneous therapy treatments. While they “walked back together to the Café Cova” frequently, their camaraderie soon fades (268).
The narrator is ashamed at fearing combat, saying in one of the only emotional admissions in the story, “I was very much afraid to die” (270). He attempts to hide his fear from his friends, but when his acquaintances realize that he received his medals for his American status, rather than valor in battle, their “friendship” quickly dissipates. Hemingway writes:
After that their manner changed a little toward me, although
I was their friend against outsiders. I was a friend, but I
was never really one of them after they had read the citations,
because it had been different with them and they had done
very different things to get their medals (270).
Soon after, he admits that, “they, the three, knew better and so we drifted apart” (270). His time spent walking with the others is quickly replaced by time spent with a boy that he feels is on his level, and therefore would not be able to judge him. The bedrock of their friendship is fear, as the narrator subtly reveals, “he could never be accepted either, and I liked him because I thought perhaps he would not have turned out to be a hawk either” (270).
At what could be considered the emotional climax of the story, the major, who “did not believe in bravery,” begins to cry after disclosing that his wife has just died (272). While crying might be considered utterly revealing of a person’s emotions, Hemingway practically eliminates this notion by the use of active language. He writes,
And then crying, his head up looking at nothing, carrying
himself straight and soldierly, with tears on both cheeks and
biting his lips, he walked past the machines and out the door (272,
Italics added).
The control and activity that the major displays, is more evident than his emotional state, which draws attention to the overcompensation of physical activity and lack of emotional description, even attempts at emotional description (crying) are turned into physical activity.
Another of Hemingway’s short stories, “An Alpine Idyll,” conveys a similar disconnect although it deals with a considerably more shocking incident—the use of one’s dead spouse as a place to hang a lantern. The mood of disconnection is apparent from the beginning of the story when the narrator and his companion cross paths with a priest who does not return their “hellos.”
This particular story is filled with active language, so much so that detachment permeates the text due to the lack of emotional description. Hemingway’s matter-of-factness is felt in every line of the story, similar to this description of the peasant and sexton who have just buried the peasant’s wife:
They came into the drinking room. One was the bearded
peasant in the high boots. The other was the sexton. They
sat down at the table under the window. The girl came in
and stood by their table. The peasant did not seem to see her.
He sat with his hands on the table. He wore his old army
clothes. There were patches on the elbows (345).
When physical activity is not being described, Hemingway uses short dialogue between the characters to fill in the gaps. The reader then has the opportunity to interpret the story for him/herself because of the lack of emotional depth, swaying them one way or another; but this lack simultaneously emphasizes the extreme disconnect between the characters.
After the narrator discovers that the peasant hung a lantern from the mouth of his wife’s corpse, the only reaction that follows from the characters is one of mild interest. The single concern the narrator offers is the inquiry, “Do you think it’s true?” with no stated emotional inflection (348). His companion, John, does not understand the dialect spoken by the storyteller, and is therefore indifferent, repeatedly asking, “How about eating?” (349). The disconnected feeling displayed by the characters only emphasizes the feelings of detachment for the reader.
“A Canary for One,” is no exception in terms of a Hemingway piece which replaces emotional detail with activity. Taking center stage in this short story is the American lady who shares a train compartment with a man and his wife. The majority of dialogue in this story is given to the American lady, while the wife shares in the conversation partly, and the husband acts mainly as an unconcerned observer.
A similar technique to that in “An Alpine Idyll” is utilized by Hemingway in “A Canary for One.” Again he places the most emotion-filled detail at the end of the story. The last line of the story holds much weight when the narrator refers to his wife and himself, “We were returning to Paris to set up separate residences” (342). The feeling of disconnect becomes more apparent to the reader at this point, although there are signs of it throughout the story. For instance, the man and wife do not utter a single word to each other while on the train—they talk to the American lady, or utter phrases meant to be heard by everyone. The narrator constantly refers to “my wife” without giving a name to her, further distancing the reader from the characters.
It becomes clear that the American lady serves as a busy distraction, from what might be considered emotional ruin: Divorce. Hemingway overcompensates yet again for the lack of emotional detail with an excess of physical description, as seen in his account of the Rue Saint Honore:
Before the present vendeuse, named Therese, there had been another vendeuse, named Amelie. Altogether there had been these two in the twenty years. It had always been the same couturier. Prices, however, had gone up. The exchange, though equalized that. They had her daughter’s measurements now too. She was grown up and there was not much chance of their changing now (340).
With such detail regarding the Paris couturier, it is inevitable that the feeling of detachment will surface when the same detail is not provided regarding the couple’s separation—agreeably of more emotional significance.
Similar to “In Another Country,” “Fifty Grand” contains clear statements regarding the characters’ detachment and disconnectedness, but are overridden by activity. On the surface, the story follows the training of a boxer, Jack, a few days from a major fight until momentarily after he loses it, all from the prospective of his trainer, Doyle. Underlying this plot, feelings of disconnect and isolation emerge. Rather than being allowed an insight to the emotional trajectory of the characters (particularly Jack) over this time span though, Hemingway only allows a retelling of events through curt dialogue and active language.
During one of the crucial scenes in the story, where Jack is left alone with his manager, John, and his wise boys, Hemingway slips in a bit of emotional description, but book-ends it with physical detail:
Jack doesn’t say anything. He just sits there on the bed.
He ain’t with the others. He’s all by himself. He was
wearing an old blue jersey and pants and had on boxing
shoes. He needed a shave. Steinfelt and Morgan were
dressers. John was quite a dresser too. Jack sat there
looking Irish and tough (309).
The line, “He ain’t with the others. He’s all by himself,” is rather existentialist, connoting a mood of disconnect—not at all in line with Hemingway’s usual terse, descriptive writing. This language might lead the reader to infer on the seriousness of the omitted scene between Jack and his manager. While these few lines convey an emotional depth, they are quickly dismissed by the narrator who moves on to more superficial content, such as Jack’s clothing and the clothing of all the other characters.
The matter-of-fact style emerges again in the story when Hemingway writes:
We had supper. Jack didn’t say anything all during the
meal except, ‘Will you pass me this?’ or ‘Will you pass
me that?’ The two health-farm patients ate at the same
table. They were pretty nice fellow (310).
The casualness in which Doyle moves from observing the emotional state of Jack to the disposition of the health farm patients, reinforces the sentiment of disconnect and indifference in which the story is being related to the reader.
“Fifty Grand,” more than the previously mentioned stories, resorts to description of action as a means of revealing a character. The fight scene unravels in a fashion similar to this paragraph:
The referee grabbed Jack and pushed him toward his
corner. John jumps into the ring. There was all this
yelling going on. The referee was talking to the judges
and then the announcer got into the ring with the megaphone
and says, ‘Walcott on a foul’ (325).
Because Hemingway employs this technique (active language), the last scene of the story (the fight scene) becomes almost a series of images which the reader must decipher in order to understand not only the details of the events, but the character motives as well.
The ultimate display of detachment and disconnectedness is through Hemingway’s use of languages other than English throughout his short stories. He writes primarily in English, but appears to write key phrases in other languages. In “In Another Country,” the narrator casually repeats what he refers to as a hateful cry from a local Italian, “A basso gli ufficiali!” (268). Hemingway fails to translate this for the reader. If one does not speak Italian, then it is expected that parts of the story will be unclear, perhaps resulting in an eventual indifference on the reader’s part.
There is also a bilingual aspect in “Alpine Idyll” that exceeds most of Hemingway’s other short stories. He uses different languages sporadically, again offering no translation. The narrator’s companion, John, does not understand most of what is said, and resigns to sleeping, emphasizing a feeling of disconnect.
Hemingway most obviously displays the post-World War I feeling of disconnect through his omission of emotional description and supply of physical, active language. But his emphasis on detachment is not only present in the content of his short stories, but is visible in his literary style as well. While his short stories are written in the first person, his narrators only oblige the reader with a minimum of information—the reader must piece together the story from the fragments that the author presents. He frequently omits the names of characters and simply refers to them as “my wife,” “American lady,” or “major,” reinforcing the narrator’s knowledge of the story as superior to the reader’s. He frequently slips in phrases written in languages other than English, with no translation offered. By essentially abandoning his reader in these ways, the author assures the isolation of not only his characters, but the readers themselves.
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