Ch. 30: "The hay smelled good and lying in a barn in the hay took away all the years in between. We had lain in hay and talked and shot sparrows with an air-rifle when they perched in the triangle cut high up in the wall of the barn. The barn was gone now and one year they had cut the hemlock woods and there were only stumps, dried tree-tops, branches and fire-weed where the woods had been. You could not go back." pg. 216
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This passage shows how pointless the war is and how much you miss something when it's gone. Hemingway wants to make sure that the reader understands how strongly soldiers and civilians felt about the war. This is a real eye opener to what life was like during the war. It also shows that Frederic has not only lost his close friend, but also the simple joyous feeling of being in the hay at a barn. The line"You could not go back" expresses the emotions felt in Frederic in the barn. He understands that he must accept the war's changes and move on in life.
This passage breaks away from the problems of World War I concerning Henry and Catherine’s relationship. It goes into a deeper meaning that has always existed within a veteran soldier. It concerns the ability to come back to civilization from the horrors of war. This flashback from smelling the hay sends him to a time when he was enjoying life. The barn was destroyed by war. Weeds and stumps are all that is left behind. The last thought that “You could not go back” gives me a chill and is related to the veterans life. You cannot come perfectly back from war.
Fredric is describing a barn that he stayed in before the war had begun and how peaceful it was; even the smell of hay was soothing and comforting. As the author describes there are only stumps and dried tree-tops. This passage shows how everything in war is destroyed and killed such as something as simple as nostalgic memories of hay to now a barren land with only stumps. The destruction of war is even more prevalent to Fredric because of witnessing the death of his best friend Aymo. Hemingway writes, "you could not go back" which I think is implying that you can never go back to the mental state of prewar life. Also Fredric feels he will never be truly safe again because he has no refuge physically as in a barn or emotionally with a best friend.
This passage illustrates to us readers how much you can miss something when it is gone. When Hemingway uses the phrase “you could not go back” it is showing us that it is hard to go back to the way life was before the war. This also shows us how many soldiers felt during the war. They all would have memories and they would all hope that one day life would go back to they way it was before. This passage also reveals the disappointment people felt as the war dragged on. Many people didn’t think the war would last as long as it did. Hemingway is also showing us the reality of war by explaining the positive and negative things about the barn.
It's pretty obvious that Hemingway dislikes war.In this passage he talks about how peaceful and relaxing a barn was and now that the war has. When you go to war it's not just a barn it's your whole life that changes.
Henry is ready for the war to be over. Even the simplest thing, in this case the smell of hay, can bring him back to his pleasant life before the war. He is quickly brought back to reality when he states that the barn is now gone and only stumps and an unhealthy forest stand in its place. Hemingway uses the simple sentence "You could not go back." to express a deep topic. Here he is referring to life before war. I agree with Austin Menard's comment that his whole life changes. The war was a tragedy that changed him forever. He would never be able to be the man he was before he experienced war. It changed more than the setting or circumstances around him. It changed him as a person.
This passage provides the reader with the author's standpoint on the war. Hemingway obviously hates the war. The simple smell of hay brings back memories of when there was no war and he was at peace with himself. War is destruction, and Frederic can not stand it. War also changes people. Once you have been in the war, it is guaranteed you will come back a changed person. I admire soldiers in some peculiar way. I admire the fact that they go through with what they do. This passage also shows, what Robey stated, how much you miss something when it's gone. The war takes one away from himself. The picture of the barn relates to Frederic's tranquil being while staying there. He is taken back years before the war and is at peace for some time. It is clear here that Frederic longs more than anything for the war to be over, and that is what I believe was Hemingway's intent.
This passage shows how fragile memory is. Even the simple smell of hay reminded Henry of his past. Before the war, he played soldier in a barn with an air-rifle. Now, years later, he is in the same situation except now he really is a soldier and he uses a gun to kill in order to survive. This passage shows how two similar situations can seem so alike but be so very different. He is no longer playing silly childish games. Also, he will never be the same after the war. He can never have that innocence that he once had because he's seen death and what war does to people.
This passage talks about one of the main problems with wars. During the war little things may remind of parts of your life that you enjoyed and wish to go back too and have it the way it was. Frederic is imagining a better time in his life in which he enjoyed it. After a war though you can never be the same. You will always carry the sights and memories with you and the things that carried you through a war may become reminders of the war that your free from now. So in the end there is never a way to truly return to the way things were which is scary.
Smelling the hay and flashing back to this memory is comforting for Frederic, but now this memory is forever changed because of the war. In a couple of years if he were to smell hay and flash back he would probably remember sitting in the hay loft taking shelter during the war. I really like how Hemingway describes the memory in detail and then bluntly says, “You could not go back.” There is no need to explain that line. Those five words clearly explain themselves—after someone is affected by a war, nothing will ever be the same.
Hemingway is using this situation to describe the forward nature of time. There is no stopping its progress and therefore the best should be made of each moment lived, for all one can do is recall each moment and never relive it. In doing so he is also telling of how the war is detrimental to the lives of everyone involved, for it takes time off of the hands of each person and fills it with death and violence. These peaceful memories do, however, prove a comfort during the harsh times of war, and Henry’s memories prove a moment of comfort before the reality of the time he is now living in shatter it. It is one of the truths everyone involved in the war must face, that whatever old lives they had will change and nobody involved will leave unscathed. Thus is the harsh nature of war.
I think that this passage describes how war can strip people of their lives before the war. During war, almost no one is unaffected by destruction or death. Although Frederic still kept his memories of the barn, he is unable to ever go back and relive those days in the barn when they were happier and more at ease. War destroyed Frederic’s peace of mind, and, like Austin said, he can’t return to the mental state of prewar life. Frederic cannot bring his friend back to life or return the barn to its original peaceful state.
Pride Snow
War is a terrible, gruesome thing; there is simply no way around that fact. It is a constant grind on the battlefield, not just to keep doing your job to the best of your ability to help your country, but to stay alive day in and day out. Sometime the only way soldiers can escape the pain that life on the fronts gives them is by remembering how it used to be, before the violence. In this case it was remembering life back on the barn, the smell of hay, lying in it, and relaxing. In one year so much had changed. It wasn’t just the physical differences that shook him, but the fact that since seeing all of the death and violence around him during the war, his state of mind is completely different.
War has no mercy on anyone or anything. It could be the most beautiful town one day and a town of destruction the next. War does discriminate at all. Hemingway is describing the peaceful barn he enjoyed to go to before the war. He remembers the little things like the smell of it and the exact places he liked to sit at. Now, he returns to reality and realizes there is nothing left but a few stumps. When he says "you could not go back" he means physically and mentally. Physically, the barn will never be the same even if they rebuild it. It will never have the same smell or the same feeling it did before the war. Mentally, Frederic and many other men will never be able to put their pieces of life before war back together perfectly. They have seen and experienced too much for their life's to be the same peaceful way it was before.
*not
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