Old Man at the Bridge Character Analysis

Old Man at the Bridge by Ernest Hemingway: Character Analysis

** For a detailed line by line explanation video of the story, click on the following link: https://youtu.be/r7mbQf9T1gE

Characters

The old man and the narrator are the only characters in the story.

  The old man

The nameless old man is seventy-six years old and hails from San Carlos. His clothes are dusty, and he wears steel-rimmed spectacles.

The old man is exhausted after having walked twelve kilometres.

The old man is selfless and seems least concerned about his own life. He is more concerned about his animals. Despite the horrors of war, he does not lose his humanity. He continues to fret over the animals that he left behind very reluctantly. In fact, he is the last person to leave his town.

The old man seems to be helpless and trapped by his fate. He does not make any extra effort to reach a safer place. He, thus, represents the countless people who are caught in the crossfire through no fault of their own.

The narrator

The soldier is the narrator of the story. He sees the old man sitting near the bridge and engages the man in conversation.

The soldier comes across as a considerate person. He takes interest in what the old man tells him and does not lose patience even when the old man keeps repeating himself. He even tries to comfort the old man by saying that his animals would make it out alive.

The soldier is anxious about the old man's safety and urges him twice to try to walk to a safer place.

Like the old man, the soldier loses hope and accepts that there was nothing much he could do for the old man. He realises that the old man will most probably die at the bridge.