In Another Country

“In Another Country” takes place at a time when life was darkened by violence and war all around. The presence of women and traditionally feminine character traits is minimized throughout the story. Warmth and nurturing tendencies have been moved into the shadows. When they do appear, therefore, their effect is arresting.

When the narrator walks to rehabilitation sessions at the Main Hospital, he encounters a woman selling warm chestnuts on one of the bridges. He feels the food warming his skin through his pockets as he walks on through wintery streets. Later, as the group of officers walks toward Café Cova, they push themselves into an intimately tight group to avoid jostling others in the streets. And as they settle at tables in the nightclub, young women appear “patriotically” to join them. Then, at the end, the most important woman in the story appears—but only as a memory and source of grief. When romantic love and traditionally feminine warmth fully enter the story, they are a source of pain rather than comfort.

This theme reflects Hemingway’s experience. When the real Hemingway was recovering from his war wounds as a 19-year-old in a Milan hospital, he fell in love with his nurse, Agnes. They began a love affair and exchanged passionate letters when she was transferred to another hospital. When he returned to America, he assumed she would join him and they would be married. Before long, however, she wrote to break things off and married another man. Hemingway was devastated. While he did not take the major’s advice to never marry, Hemingway usually treats marriage as a source of suffering rather than fulfillment.

While Hemingway stresses the complementarity of traditional masculine and feminine virtues, he appears less optimistic about actual men and women. While men are supposed to be brave, they often lack the courage to be emotionally vulnerable with women. And while women are supposed to be nurturing, they often abandon devoted men without warning. His works portray few happy marriages, and even the happy ones (such as the major’s) bring grief. In Hemingway’s stories, war pushes men and women into separate spheres where each pines for the other. Yet, in retrospect, these men without women, and women without men, often find the times of separation to be the happiest of their lives.