Sam Flomenhoft Assignment 1

"They sit in the bright cafe, dicussing Hemingway and how this war will change them." Ludvigson's allusion to Hemingway is important to understand the meaning of the conversation. Hemingway is an iconic author who wrote many novels from the 1920s to the 1950s. He had many political stances, even one - you guessed it - on war.
In general Hemingway, who served in the army during WWI, thought war was a bad thing. This may have been because he was left injured by his time in the military, but that is contrary to the point. He thought the aftermath of war was too great a pice to pay for almost no reward. Due to this illusion and our knowledge of Hemingway's stance on war, we understand that "how this war will change them" is not a change for the better, and connects to the poem's theme which reveals how people had become accustomed to the general unease during WWII and other issues of the time period (such as the American Dream issue).