Under the Ridge

I found “Under the Ridge” to be intriguing even though it was a depressing subject.  After reading the story, I needed to look up a little background information to see what Hemingway was writing about and found out that he was writing about the Spanish Civil War.  I thought it was really interesting that no one in the story had names, but figured that Hemingway had his reasons for doing so.  I knew that it wasn’t merely by accident or laziness.  All of the characters are instead referred to by rank or where they are from for identification.  This made me think about war and how it is not really the individual names that stand out because they are fighting as a whole for their country or cause.  You hear about who wins and loses but not about the names or stories of the individuals on each side. 

            I was really curious about the Extremaduran who seemed to hate everyone and everything except for those on his side.  At first, I was thinking that he was just extremely negative and tired of fighting.  After a while, though his attitudes made a lot more sense.  In war, it doesn’t help to be sympathetic to the other side or to be friendly towards anyone who is not on your side.  They are supposed to view their enemies as just that, the enemy, someone who they hate and are completely against.  If they stopped to think about each of the individual soldiers on the other side and allowed themselves to feel sympathy for those they were fighting against, it would be that much more difficult.  All of the emotional strain and trauma that soldiers endure during war would be much more difficult if they were attached to these individuals and against killing them.  I’m assuming that it is much easier to do what they have to do in war if they are convinced they hate them and detach themselves from it. 

            We learned that Hemingway had somewhat of a fascination with war and felt inferior because he couldn’t fight in one.  He eventually became an ambulance driver and was able to contribute but I have a feeling that Hemingway still felt a little less masculine because he couldn’t fight.  In the story the soldiers talk a lot about their thirst, yet refuse the water that would help their thirst and drink the red wine instead.  Taking the red wine as an image for blood you can see the thirst for blood that Hemingway sees involved in war.  He seems to think that all men have the desire for destruction and the desire to fight and kill.  This ties in with Hemingway’s other short stories with the themes of manhood linked with guns and hunting and his own life where not being able to fight in a war was extremely upsetting and emasculating.  Even though it was a story that I found kind of depressing and didn’t get much enjoyment out of I thought it was very interesting because it is not something most people stop to think about, but probably should.  Everything that those who fight wars go through is extremely difficult and does not seem to be something that is necessary to find fulfillment or complete masculinity. Overall, this is another example of a story in which Hemingway shows his slightly skewed view of masculinity and human nature in general.