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In Another Country

 

            In the short story Another Country, the author Ernest Hemmingway, seems to believe that wounds to the emotions are infinitively worse than wounds to the body, this can be easily proven from a simple light reading of the story. The first thing the reader recognizes is that the main character is in a hospital. This hospital consists of machines, which speed up and completely heal all wounds to the body. Hence making wounds to the body inconsequential, there is however no such machines to heal the mind. This fact is perhaps due to the author's belief that the mind cannot be healed by a mere machine and if the wound is extreme enough cannot be healed at all. This is supported by the ending of the short story where the major is greatly distressed, not, however, distressed by a physical wound but a wound to his mind, for his wife had just passed recently. .
             "In front of the machine the major used were three photographs of hands like his that were completely restored. I do not know where the doctor got them. I always understood we were the first to use machines. The photographs did not make much difference to the major because he only looked out of the window" (440).
             I believe the author ends the story in this fashion to point out that while one day the majors hand may heal, the death of his wife is so traumatic that no machine, or anything for that matter will ever heal the major's mind. In conclusion, wounds to the mind are much more harmful to a person than wounds to the body. For the breaking of a bone will heal. However a death to a family member will last forever. .
            


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