Old Man at the Bridge was inspired by Hemingways travels as a war

correspondent during the Spanish Civil War in the 1930s.

The narrator is at a bridge, watching refugees flee before the advance
of the Fascist army in Italy. An old man has stopped to rest next to the
bridge. The narrator directs the man to continue in order to avoid the
approaching military force. The old man explains that he has left his
home village, where he was retired and was looking after animals. At
the age of seventy-six, the man has nowhere to go and no one to turn
to, and he has given up on escaping from the army.

"Old Man at the Bridge" Analysis

The old man represents all the innocent casualties of war. He has no
involvement in the war and supports neither side. His quiet life is
upturned and most likely ended by the military actions of others...

in this short story Ernest Hemingway uses a lot of metaphors and

symbols. One of the symbols is the bridge, which represents
uncertainty and dangers. Those are the feelings most of the people
have during wartime. In contrast to this stands the fact that the story
takes place on Easter Sunday, a holiday that stands for hope and the
faith in God. The feelings of the refugees probably stand in the same
contrast. On the one hand they feel very frightened and worried, but
on the other hand they do not want to lose hope. The animals also
stand for different qualities. The pigeons, for example, represent
peace and harmony and the fact that they fly away, away from the
war, maybe is a reference to the refugees who flee from the war to a
safer place. The cat, being a symbol of independence, does not need
anybody to survive, but the goat is often used as a sacrificial animal
and this probably represents the old man and his situation. Like a
goat which is sacrificed, the old man's fate is sealed.

There is one symbol of hope in the story. At the beginning of the

narrators conversation with the old man, the birds the old man

was looking after were referred to as pigeons, but by the end

of the story, they become doves, symbols of peace in wartime.
The narrator makes this switch as he asks, Did you leave the
dove cage unlocked? It is unclear whether this is a slip of the
tongue, because the narrator is clearly distracted by the
impending arrival of the enemy, or if Hemingway is attempting
to give the image of the birds flying away an even more positive
tint by referring to them as symbols of peace.Narrative POV
A first person narrator who tells the story through careful description,
reportage of dialogue and insightful commentary about the old man.
The narrator makes the reader see the old man. His engagement with
him suddenly brings the old man into focus, he emerges out of the
faceless, voiceless crowd. The Narrator's consciousness of the
approaching enemy "contact" is used to create the dramatic tension
between the immobility of the old man and the coming destruction as
he constantly observes the movement of carts across the bridge while
talking. The narrator's conversation allows the old man to have a
voice. As he speaks to the scout, we along with the scout, gradually
understand his plight and what the war has done to him. The voiceless
victims speak through the old man.

Plot
In the middle of a military action, an army scout encounters an old
man at a bridge where people are crossing to escape the war zone. The
scout engages the old man in conversation and by the end of it, he
realizes the old man is not going to move and will probably die at the
bridge.

Setting
The place is a war zone at a pontoon bridge across the Ebro river
during the Spanish Civil War. The time is Easter Sunday 1938.

Characters
The central character is the 76 yr. old man, a war refugee who has
been uprooted and displaced by the war. The old man is "without
politics," who was only taking care of his animals, but who has had
his world destroyed. He is disoriented, confused and disconnected. He

has retreated into his isolated world in which he can only cling to his
obsessive thoughts about his animals, and is too tired to go any
further. He will die at the bridge--another nameless innocent victim of
war.
The Scout is the narrator who creates the story of the old man at the
bridge. Through his telling of the story, he gradually articulates who
the old man is and what he represents. The Scout at the beginning is
the impersonal narrator who sees the old man and decides to engage
him in conversation. By asking the old man questions about himself,
the Scout gradually understands the situation of the old man. At the
beginning he thinks the old man is just resting so he encourages him
to move on. In the course of his conversation he realizes the old man
is disoriented, displaced and that he will not be able to move on, but
that he will likely die at the bridge. The scout who begins as a
detached observer comes to the painful realization that "there was
nothing to do about him." And he ends with the bitterly ironic
observation about Easter Sunday and the old man's luck, which is no
luck. The old man will soon cross that final bridge.

Symbols
o The 3 symbolic animals, which have a long history of
conveying symbolic meaning.
The cat--9 lives--the survivor.
Pigeons, which become doves in the second mentioning.
Birds can fly away from the war; doves--associated with
peace, which in this context is ironic. The doves will fly
away.
The goats--the animals who can't escape. Sacrificial
animals. Scape goats who are innocent victims.
In the course of the story, the old man is associated with
his goats. The others can take care of themselves. "But
the others(the goats). It's better not to think about the
others." The old man is a goat figure--unable to escape,
an innocent victim of the civil war.
o Easter Sunday. Ironic contrast. The day of the celebration of the
resurrection will be the day another innocent victim is crucified.
o The 4 repetitions of the old man's words: "I was taking care of
animals." His last repetitions: "I was only taking care of
animals," "I was only taking care of animals" becomes the

eloquent symbolic expression of all those voiceless innocent

men, women and children who are the victims of wars they
neither support nor understand. Without politics, only living in
their everyday world-- taking care of animals--which is
destroyed by forces beyond their ability to comprehend.
o The title: "Old man at the Bridge"--that final Bridge between
life and death. Why not old man in the ditch or on the roadside?
Theme
Old Man at the Bridge demonstrates the power of narrative art. It
takes a small, ordinary detail in a situation and by the art of storytelling transforms it into a powerful story about the tragedy of war.
The old man becomes a symbol of the countless civilian victims of
war-- those "without politics." The old man is going to die at the
bridge--displaced, disoriented, alone. He's not a cat, nor a dove, but a
goat--who was "only taking care of animals."