Speaker: The speaker is an American author and journalist, Ernest Hemingway, who is a famous man in the literature world. He was able to cover the events of this war because he was in Madrid, the Spanish capital.
Occasion: The occasion is the Spanish Civil War going on in Spain, to be specific, the Guadalajara front. April 14, 1937 is when Hemingway is dispatched to Spain for the North American Newspaper Alliance. Hemingway was to deliver details of what was happening in common people's lives by staying at the Hotel Florida. Audience: The audience could be those who wanted to know what really happened at the war. Some journalists don't report information like Hemingway had done in this situation. Since he was actually staying in the capital, he was able to document the true findings during the war. This would have been important to anyone who wants to know the truth. Purpose: The purpose of this text may be to be truth about war and how it is a “strange new kind of war where you learn just as much as you are to believe.” This means that there are a variety of stories in war, such as Raven and Cunningham, but once you choose what you want to believe, you may not see the importance. Subject: The subject is to be the war and what occurs in it. In the story, Hemingway had to describe everything he went through and noticed as someone that is staying in the area to show the true meaning of everything. This was his whole trip with a bunch of journalists, to describe his visit during war. |
Diction: “tacrong, capong, craang, and rong” was to show how loud the gun shots were during this time.
“roaring burst of high explosive shell” to emphasize on the clear, loud commotion of the war in perspective of bystanders. "acrid” and “smashed” were to deepen the mood and how dangerous it was at the time. Imagery: Hemingway described an incident of a gas leak from a broken main by saying it is a “heap of rubble, looking like a heat mirage in the cold morning.” This illustrates how the war affected the town and left the area in fragments of cement or dirt. He also mentioned “in a bathrobe and bedroom slippers, you hurry down the marble stairs and almost into a middle-aged woman, wounded in the abdomen” to give a sense of what was happening during the war. He makes it feel like everything is rushed because you would be in house clothes and not properly dressed when something bad already happened next to you. Adding those descriptions let us feel how it must’ve been during this war. Details: Hemingway starts the story with describing what is currently happening in the war. He is telling the story as it would be if we were there and what we would hear or see. Then it progressed to the feelings of the folks that lived in the area. This was shown by people talking about how they felt about the place being torn apart. After that, the story was geared towards the soldiers that took a toll in the war. Hemingway used a soldier, Raven, and gave him a gruesome accident that almost doesn’t look like it was from the war. This is what caused Hemingway to not believe that Raven was in the war. But in the end, even if the story doesn’t fit, the person telling it may be telling the truth. However, if you don’t believe the story, then you will never know the importance of it. Language: (figurative language) Hemingway used the synonyms such as “impersonally” and “mechanically” to show the characteristics of Raven as he was drawing blood. The synonyms were to show that the connotation of Raven’s actions were unlike anyone else’s. The overall attitude that Hemingway had during this war was that it was eventful, fast-paced, and Syntax: In this story, Hemingway used a variety of length in his sentence structure. If there was a long and exaggerated sentence, there would be a follow up with a short one. Most of the time when Hemingway is using long sentences, it is to exaggerate the point that he is trying to get across. In the line, “Then, walking along the road, with his left arm in an airplane splint, walking with the gamecock walk of the professional British soldier that neither ten years of militant party work nor the projecting metal wings of the splint could destroy, I met Raven's commanding officer, Jock Cunningham, who had three fresh rifle wounds through his upper left arm (I looked at them, one was septic) and another rifle bullet under his shoulder blade that had entered his left chest, passed through, and lodged there,” he continued to add information in the same sentence to prolong the purpose of the sentence. But in his concise sentences, they were there to make a point clear. As his longer sentences were very informative, the readers do need something to understand. |