"Under the Ridge"

Failure. That is the message I got from this story. Every aspect of the story or story within the story ended in failure. The attacks failed, prisoners were killed, an attempt at freedom ended in death, a young boy's determination to be useful resulted in his cold-blooded murder. Professor Williams was right, this is a depressing war story. The first page gives a description of the camp and one of the first things mentioned are the stretchers and ambulances. Already the reader is exposed to death and injuries of war. Not a pleasant start. It is easy to see how Hemingway must have felt about wars.

I may be over analyzing it, but the tension and hatred between the soldiers of different nationalities seems to be conveying a message. The Extremaduran repeats several times that he hates foreigners and when asked to explain rattles off a long list of terrible things different countries have done to his family. It makes me wonder if different countries benefit from each other in any way. I mean, this story is about a war between several different countries. Why are they fighting? Can't they work together? Sure, one side has an "International Brigade" but there are tensions within it. The Extremaduran, for example. No one seems to like or trust the French officials. In the end the Extremaduran seems to respect the narrator personally, but he still leaves because he is North American.

It made me angry, frustrated, and uncomfortable to read that soldiers were killed for cowardice. Everyone will have a moment of weakness. There is not one soldier in a war who is not terrified at some point and wants to just run home. Who can blame the soldier for simply walking away when he saw the hopelessness and pointlessness of the situation? And who doesn't understand the fear the young boy Paco felt that made him injure himself? I can understand punishing them but killing them seems excessive especially if you are already in need of more troops.

The bottom line is war turns men into animals. Reading this story gave me the depressing feeling that there will never be peace. Countries will always hate each other and there will always be those individuals who are animalistic and seek confrontation.