Old Man at the Bridge

“An old man with steel rimmed spectacles and very dusty clothes sat by the side of the road.”

The narrator mentions the old man’s metal spectacles and his clothing twice. The imagery sets him apart from the rest of the soldiers and peasants crossing the bridge, as the narrator observes that the man is not a shepherd or a herder.

“The was a pontoon bridge across the river and carts, trucks, and men, women and children were crossing it.”

This sentence helps depict the chaos of an evacuation, rooting the scene in what the soldier observes. Its structure is almost that of a list, which sustains an objective tone regarding the displacement of a number of people of all ages and the rapidity with which they cross the bridge.”

“The mule-drawn carts staggered up the steep bank from the bridge with soldiers helping push against the spokes of the wheels.”

Hemingway’s prose is characteristically minimalist, which highlights the importance of each image presented. Mentioning soldiers anchors the scene in the context of the war. Their efforts to assist the struggling refugees make the narrator’s inactivity more obvious by contrast when he doesn’t help the old man.