In Another Country Is a Story of Ironies

Explain in what ways “In Another Country” is a story of ironies.

In the story In Another Country, one of Hemingway’s greatest themes is the implausibility of war, focusing on the fate of the soldiers in the aftermath of war, when they experience the tragedies and futility of their lives. In fact, the story offers a rethinking of war-related concepts and values such as bravery, heroism, patriotism, camaraderie, etc. and a tool used to convey contrasting or unconventional views is irony. For example, irony lies in the fact that the soldiers have wounds in the very parts of the body that make what they are, the medals may be meaningless and do not have true value, and the Cova girls are considered the most patriotic people of all. Those ironies seem to reveal the author’s anti-war attitude.

First, the characters ironically receive wounds in the parts of the body that make them what they are. A noble man now becomes a noseless figure, a footballer has a damaged knee, and a fencer a shriveled hand. It seems as if the war has deliberately chosen to rob them of the things that give their lives meanings and essence. In short, they are not their selves any more. To make the ironies more tragic, the boy who lost his nose had his face rebuilt, but ‘they could never get the nose exactly right,’ and the major – the fencing champion – has no confidence in the treatment. Although ‘to lose is human’, a soldier cannot avoid having to ‘place himself in a position to lose’. The soldiers’ losses cannot be recovered and are a painful blow to their bravery.

The medals are also images of irony. Though supposed to be awards for deeds of bravery and thus something that hold the soldiers together, that make them ‘friends against outsiders’, the medals have become causes for injustice and discrimination. In fact, the American soldier received his medals just because he is American, without doing anything to get them. Knowing this, the others’ soldiers changed their attitude