TON DUC THANG UNIVERSITY

FACULTY OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES

Ernest Hemingway
(1899 - 1961)
IN ANOTHER COUNTRY
Cont.
Designed by Nguyen Minh Triet

11/15/2023 1
BRIEF SUMMARY
• 1899 - 1961, Illinois,
• Served as a journalist in World War I
• Renowned for novels like The Sun
Also Rises, A Farewell to Arms, For
Whom the Bell Tolls, and The Old
Man and the Sea
• 1954: won the Nobel Prize.
• Committed suicide on July 2, 1961,
in Ketchum, Idaho.
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 STORY BACKGROUND

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 1. What is the setting of the story?
2. Who is the narrator? POV?
3. How many characters are there?
Who are they?
DISCUSSION 4. Interpret ironies found in details
of medals, machines, and
QUESTIONS wounds.
5. Why did character I get isolated
from the three boys but stick
with the boy with broken nose?
6. How is the Major different from
three wounded men?
 IRONY (CONTRAST BETWEEN APPEARANCE
AND REALITY)
MEDALS:
APPEARANCE: Medals represent the
recognition/acknowledgement of tremendous/concerted
efforts to achieve some feat.
REALITY: “I” received the medal due to his Americanness.
 IRONY (CONTRAST BETWEEN APPEARANCE
AND REALITY)
Machines:
APPEARANCE: modern technology + recovery/healing
REALITY: characters = not believe in the machines because
their physical wounds = not healed + doctor => show
photographs ( first users) => “the machines=cure”
=> Government=> focus on physical injury but ignore mental
trauma
=> Emotional wound => to condemn the atrocity of the war
 IRONY (CONTRAST BETWEEN APPEARANCE
AND REALITY)
Wounds:
Appearance: Major (hand) and “I”(leg)=> physically injured
=> easy; soldiers deserved respect from citizens.
Reality: the wound/injury hindered their pursuit of dream or
hobby; soldiers was disdained by citizens (“Cova Café =
para.G “the people hated us”).
 Question 5: “I” + boy with “broken nose” vs.
three boys
Differences: (“I” vs. three boys)
1. American vs. Italian=> isolation
2. Hawks => heroism
3. Amount of their effort in achieving the medals => jealousy +
discrimination
Similarities: “I” vs. boy w.BN:
1. Boy w.BN (old family/wealthy) => nose = identity => no
medal (wounded after an hour in the front)
2. “I” = received medal BUT it was just due to his
Americanness, not his sacrifice.
 Question 5: Major vs. three boys
Differences:
1. Major = older than the three boys
2. Experience: Major = great fencer => set him apart from the
boys.
3. Attitude towards bravery => not believe in bravery (despite
receiving a lot of medals)
4. Major: Attitude towards “I”: changed attitude/angry
(marriage)=> later apologized => virtue (n)/dignity (n) =>
virtuous/dignified (a)
5. Three boys : changed attitude and manner toward “I” =>
medal.
Irony in medals

1. Medals = achievement >< mishap

2. Medals = bravery >< Major not believe in the bravery
3. Medals = union >< discrimination (at first three boys were
polite , after character confessed why he got the medal
(he’s an American) => three boys changed their
attitudes/manners
4. Medals = fairness >< character I got the medal for his
identity (Americanness)
 Irony in machines
Machines mean to treat the leg but they fail to perform their main
function.
Irony in machines
1. Machines mean to treat the leg but they fail to perform their main
function.
2. Doctor showed the photo of “Before and After” of the patient who
recovered his injury thanks to the physical therapy of the machines. In
reality, the machines were first used.
3. Machines = hope => recuperation >< soldiers show their
indifference/frustration upon seeing the machines
Irony in the wounds
Character I : footballer => knee injured

Fencer => hand withered

Boy with no nose from a noble family => lost his nose

The wounds deprive them of what makes who they are and their
passion/enthusiasm or their life motivation.
Aftermath of war => reveal anti-war attitude of the author
The Setting
- What is the setting of the story In Another Country?
→ At a hospital In the city of Milan, Italy
→ during World War I

“In the fall the war was always there”

“In the fall of Milan”
The Narrator
• Point of View?
→ First person narration
• Who is the narrator?
→UNNAMED
- The protagonist
- A character Hemingway
made to represent himself
List of characters
- The narrator: UNNAMED
- The narrator: a football player before the war. The
narrator is unnamed, who has been wounded in the
knee. He sits in a row of machines that exercise his leg
with a middle-aged Italian officer who was once a fencing
champion but who now has a withered hand
 Despite the List of characters
The major: once
encouragement
“a great fencer”,
of his doctor,
in Italy; but now
the Italian has
has a withered
no confidence in
hand;
the machines.

However, he
came to the
hospital very Young wife had
regularly. Never just died.
boast of his
medal.
List of characters

The boy with a broken nose:

The doctor: try to convince the
wear a black silk handkerchief
machines can transform an
across his face; went to the
injury and restore function;
front and was wounded within
show before-and-after pictures
an hour; went to South America
➔ dignity & human condition
after having the face rebuilt
 List of characters
Three young men with medals: who had planned to be
a lawyer, painter, and soldier before the war,
respectively.

All three, like unnamed character, have won medals from

the Italian government for their service during the war.

The aspiring lawyer, in fact, has three, and is admired for

it. They were like “hunting-hawks”
 List of characters
• How is the Major different from three wounded men?
→The major has been awarded medals and yet never
mentions them
→The three young men were hunting hawks
-> proud of their medals awarded for their bravery
→Disciplined: sticking to go to the hospital for physical
therapy and forcing the unnamed character to conform
to the grammatical rules in speaking Italian.
 Ironies
• The soldiers have wounds in the very parts of the body that make who
they are:
- Unnamed narrator: a football player got knee injury
- The major: once a fencer, got withered arm
→Even though they can recover, they are unable to pursue their interest -
> Life is meaningless for them
→ reveal the author’s anti-war attitude
• The medals:
- Supposed to be awarded for bravery -> should be something to hold the
soldiers together that makes them “friends against outsiders”
- The medals: causes for injustice and discrimination
 theme, - plot (stages of a plot), - setting,
- points of view (four types), - conflict
REVIEW FOR THE (types of conflict), - character: types of
FINAL TEST characters, - plot devices: flashback,
flash-forward, interpolated narrative,
- Elements of a story foreshadowing
- Eveline: Plot summary, the setting, character
analysis, her internal struggle, what makes
Eveline desire for an escape, what keeps Eveline
from running away…
- In Another Country: Plot summary, the setting,
the theme, list of characters…