Wu Ting
How would you interpret this phrase of the last sentence? How would you interpret this phrase ‘the soldier pass up and down past a freight-car outside’ in the last sentence? How would you interpret the word ‘outside’? Where do you think the freight-car was’? Thanks. It’s from A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway (Chapter 12). Afterward I thought I could not stand the thirst and in the yards outside of Verona I called to a soldier who was walking up and down beside the train and he got me a drink of water. I woke Georgetti, the other boy who was drunk, and offered him some water. He said to pour it on his shoulder and went back to sleep. The soldier would not take the penny I offered him and brought me a pulpy orange. I sucked on that and spit out the pith and watched the soldier pass up and down past a freight-car outside and after a while the train gave a jerk and started.Or does it mean the soldier was outside of the freight-car? And how would you interpret ‘pass up and down past a freight-car’? Does it mean the soldier walked up and down along the freight-car?I think it makes sense that the soldier was walking up and down outside the freight-cat because it is the freight-cats of a train that need protection. What do you think?
May 21, 2016 2:53 PM
Answers · 9
1
Hi Gordon. The 'outside' here is used from the perspective of the writer, who is presumably inside the train. So, the soldier is just walking up and down outside, past another freight car. Hope this helps!
May 21, 2016
1
Hugh is most likely correct. We'd need more context in order to know where the speaker is, though. You might have that context, since you're reading the book. It doesn't particularly matter, though. It just means that the soldier is somewhere away from the speaker. And yes, he's patrolling along the length of the freight car.
May 21, 2016
Thank you.
May 23, 2016
The soldier is patrolling up and down the trains. The freight part of the train is outside as most train cars are stored that way.
May 22, 2016
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