In Another Country

Many of Hemingway’s stories have a single focus, but “In Another Country” has two: the glory of war, and the risk of marriage. Hemingway also explores issues of masculinity under the pressures of war. In particular, he shows how the military draws distinctions between the degrees of valor soldiers display while on the battlefield. Those who risk death and inflict death on others achieve more glory than those who serve less violently. The heroes shine, while others lack glory. This cruel code seems to be embedded deep within the men in the story.

As the story opens, six soldiers have left the war behind and find themselves in an almost otherworldly and peaceful environment where they are nurtured back to health. Details of luxuries and rewards are sprinkled throughout the descriptions: fine meats at a butcher shop, warm chestnuts on a bridge, a beautiful old hospital, camaraderie among the men, and young women waiting for them at the nightclub. Compared to the horrors of the trenches, they seem to be in heaven.

There is no hint that any of them have shirked their obligations or displayed any cowardice in war. They have all passed that test. Four of them won the same medal, and they wear the uniform of the same military, but there are differences among them, and they come to know that.

The American narrator has traveled from his country to help those fighting for their homeland. His medal thanks him for his service. He was possibly caught up in the enthusiasm of becoming involved in the struggle when he volunteered, and might not have been aware of the risks he was taking. Now he is wounded, but he may be able, his doctor says, to “play football again better than ever” (268). He still has hope for the future. He is captivated by the women he meets in the nightclub, and he admits that he hopes to marry. He has also learned that he will never be a battlefield hero in the highest sense because he is “not a hawk” (270). He might be thought a hero by some, but he knows he is not.

The other three officers with medals came to the war more deliberately. Although the narrator does not describe their actions in detail, it seems that they engaged more aggressively with the enemy, fighting to the death in hand-to-hand combat in the trenches. They may recover from their wounds, but they may also have to return to the war and risk death and injury again. Whatever they have already done may haunt them in the future, although they still plan to be a lawyer, a painter, and a career soldier respectively. They have made a greater commitment and paid a higher price than the narrator. They realize the difference between themselves and the narrator, and are more “detached” from him after they read his citation for the medal.

The fifth and youngest soldier did not win a medal but was simply unlucky enough to be injured as soon as he arrived at the front. He may never know whether he could have been a heroic “hawk,” but with his damaged face, his destiny seems to be as an exile in South America. That seems to be an unfortunate role for someone we are told is from an old Italian family. By missing the chance to be a hero, he fails to bring as much glory to his family as he believes he should.

Worst off by far is the senior officer. We are not told how he behaved on the battlefield—although a fencer might have been involved in close combat as a “hawk”—but he has paid a high price. Not only has he lost the use of his hand and the pride of his mastery of fencing, but he has also lost the love of his young wife, who has just died from pneumonia. This loss of his partner is delivered by the author as an unexpected blow at the end of the story—like a knockout punch—and it adds an unexpected second major issue to the story: the risk of marriage.

The major angrily declares that a man should avoid marriage. He believes the risk and pain of losing such a love is too much to bear. When he returns to the rehabilitation sessions, he has the black armband of loss sewn onto his sleeve. He can only sit in his machine and stare blankly out the window as the story ends.

After first appearing in Scribner’s Magazine, “In Another Country” was published again in a book-length collection entitled Men Without Women. Hemingway explained that the stories attempt to explore what happens to men who (often because of military service) are deprived of emotionally deep relationships with women. Since Hemingway was writing this story at the moment when his marriage to Hadley was ending, the major’s anger and despair can be seen to reflect the author’s feelings and experiences. Although Hemingway’s affair with Pauline was the immediate cause of the divorce, the loss of his marriage to Hadley grieved him deeply.

The passages about the major’s grief and regret were added late in Hemingway’s composition process and may reflect his effort to come to terms with the end of his first marriage. However, since Hemingway married a total of four times, the major’s denunciation of marriage was not something that Hemingway adopted.