Medals Symbol Analysis

The narrator and three Italian officers his age have all received medals for their exploits during World War I, but the inflexible and misguided concept of bravery that the awards symbolize drives them apart. Although proud of his medal, the narrator says the related papers “really said, with the adjectives removed, that I had been given the medals because I was an American.” This drives a wedge between him and the Italian officers, who “had done very different things to get their medals.” The other officers feel superior to the narrator because their medals commemorate daring feats, while the narrator feels insecure for his lack of proven bravery; as such, they drift apart. The medals, then, represent a rigid notion of courage that separates the “hunting-hawks” from purportedly timid men who are fearful of death. What the medals don’t reflect, Hemingway shows, is that their wartime experiences of death plague all the young men; nor do the medals commemorate the soldiers’ valiant efforts to overcome those fears and heal their scars, both physical and psychological.