Hemingway's "A Way You'll Never Be": Chaos of the War

           The authenticity that Hemingway writes with when he depicts war always appeals to me and I was pulled in to “A Way You’ll Never Be” because of this. It is clear that Hemingway draws on his own experience in war as he writes about Nick Adams as an American in Italy during World War I. Hemingway even hints that Nick has been serving with the Italian army, just as Hemingway did himself, several times throughout the story. When Nick sees the remains of the battle in the town, we are told that what Nick “thought of, still, as our own dead, were surprisingly few,” meaning that he still thinks of himself as a part of the Italian army. We are given even more evidence of this later in the story when Major Paravicini refers to Nick as “Nicolo” and doesn’t recognize him in the American uniform. The story would be lacking something without the realistic quality that the parallels between Nick and Hemingway’s experiences bring out.

            Hemingway’s portrayal of the battle scene stood out to me because he managed to make the whole picture grotesque without actually describing anything in gruesome detail, but rather by stating facts. This feat seems to be indicative of Hemingway’s writing style as he keeps details to a minimum. The bodies Nick sees are described as “[lying] alone or in clumps in the grass” and all the materials that are strewn about seemed to show me the sense of chaos that Hemingway was trying to get across about the scene. The prayer books that he finds are juxtaposed with the machine guns and pictures of rape showing the disgusting nature of the war. Hemingway drives the grotesqueness of the scene home by saying that “the hot weather had swollen [the bodies] all alike regardless of nationality.” Not only did I get the repulsive picture of swollen bodies, I was also hit with the idea that the war is pointless because, in death, there is no distinction between one side and another.

            After reading “A Way You’ll Never Be,” it was clear that Nick was not only wounded by combat in the war but he was psychologically wounded as well and he cannot fully grasp who he is. He is disappointed that his wounds were “so obvious to Captain Paravicini” and he feels let down that he is not fully recovered from his wounds. Everything has become confusing to Nick. Even his identity seems to be challenged as an adjutant questions his nationality and ability to speak Italian. His train of thought seems to stray when he is talking to other people and he is frustrated by the Major’s attempts to have him rest and be attended to. Finally, his purpose in coming is deemed useless as no one really needs to see the American uniform and Major Paravicini tells Nick that he “won’t have him circulating around with no purpose.” The combination of events in this story seems to me to show Hemingway’s overall response to World War I. The chaos of the story and Nick’s uselessness coincide to give the idea that the war is pointless.