Ernest Hemingway Big Two-Hearted River Analysis

There are many types of literature to read, some interesting and other tedious; most short stories readers find dull, but they do give several types of life lessons through literary devices. “The Man Who Could Work Miracles” by H.G. Wells and “On the Rainy River” by Kate Chopin are two key examples that use frequent literary devices in their fiction stories. “On the Rainy River” tells of an 18-year-old-boy, who is fixing to be drafted off to fight in Vietnam. Tim starts having thoughts of fleeing from the states and crossing the Canadian border that way he did not have to go into battle. Eventually, he decides to run off to Canada where he found a place to stay for his time being right below the border; Tim stayed with an old man by the name

Hemingway develops the fictional character Nick Adams, a protagonist in a collection of his short stories, who parallels him and his own life experiences. Many stories in the Nick Adams collection demonstrates an initiation or new experience that matures Nick, pushing him closer to adulthood. Critic Arthur Waldorn believes that the Nick Adams stories illustrate “the terror of learning to live with the terrible.” Hemingway utilizes motifs, dialogue, and the setting in “Three Shots,” “The Battler,” and “The Three-Day Blow” to justify Waldorn’s perspective of learning to live with the terrible reality of the nada, violence, and heartbreak.

In search of autonomy, one must fight for survival and rule of one’s mind. This is evident in the case of Nick Adams. Throughout the story A Way You’ll Never Be Nick struggles to regain control of and to rediscover his identity. Through Hemingway’s use of flashback, free indirect discourse, stream of consciousness and other figures of speech, he explores the ideas of self-governance and identity as well as the effects of not having either.

The author uses Nick Carraway as the narrator of the story to describe the thoughts and feeling of Nick about everything he experiences for the purpose of contrasting his actions to his ideals.This stand, however controversial it may seem, is in total coherence with the whole story. Even though Nick constantly judges the actions of those around him, he chooses to involve himself with those he so greatly despise. For some people he may appear to be greatly tolerant, however he crosses the line between

A vital part to Nick’s growth was his time in the war. While this is only shown through short vignettes, they convey a powerful story about the events that transpired and how they changed Nick so greatly. Some stories aren't shown to be about Nick, but can be presumed to show what the war did to those who fought in it. One story is about a war chef and his French comrade who got drunk before they reach the front (Hemingway 13). The front was a hellish place where many horrors were endured. In the heat of battle, men like Nick revert to prayer and religion as an act of desperation. Even though a promise was made to spread the word, Nick was ashamed for falling apart and chose to break the promise (Hemingway 67). This could be related

Throughout A River Runs Through It, Norman Maclean emphasizes the relationship between nature, art, and faith. The concise, simple sentence with which he chooses to open his story captures the essence of all one hundred pages: in his family, 'there was no clear line between religion and fly fishing' (1). Reverend Maclean believes that both fly fishing and spiritual belief are 'exact arts,' if such a term can exist without paradox. The Reverend holds the firm conviction that 'all good things ' trout as well as eternal salvation ' come by grace and grace comes by art and art does not come easy' (4). This belief system obviously espouses a view of the world as meticulous and well-ordered:

Nick is a World War I veteran who, as many veterans, suffers from emotional trauma that his experiences from the war left him with. Multiple scenes throughout the story, Big Two Hearted River, relates to Nick, the main character’s, journey toward recovery. Nick describes his surroundings in way that parallels to his own experiences and current voyage in respect to his revival.. He takes a calming adventure saturated with calming natural paths over hills, through woodland, and along a river to find peace with himself and to return to his prewar state of mind.

"Indian Camp" in In Our Time, depicts Nick Adams a small boy, exposed to death for the first time. This story does not describe desperation nor does it include alcohol; rather, it demonstrates the promise held in the possibilities of life in Nick's final thoughts: "In the early morning on the lake sitting in the stern of the boat with his father rowing, he felt quite sure that he would never die" (Hemingway 95). Despite the events he witnesses in the camp, Nick's future seems boundless, as well as endless. Potential has no limits, and the pressures of fulfilling potential are, as yet, unknown to him. This first story in Hemingway's first published collection serves as a fitting point of departure for the descriptions of desperation that follow; Nick is free from the weight of potential, and judging by his enjoyment of the idyllic setting that surrounds him, it seems that he looks forward to the promise of life.

The world of Ernest Hemingway’s “Big Two-Hearted River” exists through the mostly unemotional eyes of the character Nick. Stemming from his reactions and the suppression of some of his feelings, the reader gets a sense of how Nick is living in a temporary escape from society and his troubles in life. Despite the disaster that befell the town of Seney, this tale remains one of an optimistic ideal because of the various themes of survival and the continuation of life. Although Seney itself is a wasteland, the pine plain and the campsite could easily be seen as an Eden, lush with life and ripe with the survival of nature.

The next day for Nick went fishing Hemingway continues to describe Nick's groundwork for fishing before he goes into the river. Once Nick had gone into the water Hemingway described the feelings that Nick felt “He stepped into the stream. It was a shock. His trousers clung tight to his legs. His shoes felt the gravel. The water was a rising cold shock. Rushing, the current sucked against his legs.” (Hemingway 1925)

Nick’s struggle to find his masculine self takes the form of a journey. This journey involves both an actual move from his hometown in Midwestern U.S.A. to New York City, and a symbolic move from the margin, which is the feminine realm, toward the center. The fact that Nick sees his motherland as the margin is signaled by his description of the West as “the ragged edge of the universe” (9)1 and “that vast obscurity beyond the city” (171) .

     In Hemingway’s collection of short stories, In Our Time, we follow a character by the name of Nick Adams. We are introduced to Nick in “Indian Camp” as a young boy, and follow him to adulthood in both Parts I and II of “Big Two-Hearted River”. Through this we see Nick develop and learn about some major facts of life. Nick is a character who changes through the effects of war on many different levels. Although Hemingway hardly mentions the war, he uses the stories to express different effects and emotions caused by the war.

It is clear that Nick’s journey represents the modernist search for individuality in the midst of a broken society. While alone by the water, Nick witnesses a trout. Although it is just a simple trout, the way in which it moves provides a strong sense of meaning: A big trout shot upstream in a long angle, only his shadow marking the angle, then lost his shadow as he came through the surface of the water, caught the sun, and then, as he went back into the stream under the surface, his shadow seemed to float down the stream with the current, unresisting, to his post under the bridge where he tightened facing up into the current. (“Big Two-Hearted River: Part I” 1202)

“Big Two Hearted River”, a semi-autobiographical short story by Ernest Hemingway, is a story about the main character, Nick, returning to Big Two Hearted River in order to recover from his inner wounds. Nick Adams goes on a journey alone in nature for a therapeutic purpose as he suffers from PTSD. However, Hemingway purposely avoided any direct discussion regarding to Nick’s mental wounds. The absence of the discussion is contributed by Hemingway’s writing style, the Iceberg principle. Hemingway focuses explicitly on what occurs on the surface without mentioning actual theme. This indicates that the theme of self-healing cannot be uncovered by simply looking at the text itself. In order to comprehend the actual theme of the story, the character development of Nick must be examined. This is possible since Nick Adams is a recurring character of Hemingway’s stories. The two preceding stories of “Big Two Hearted River”, “Now I lay me” and “A Way you’ll Never Be”, directly discusses Nick’s suffering from shell-shock and how he comforts himself by returning to Big Two Hearted river in his mind. The two short stories will be analyzed and connected to “Big Two Hearted River” in the essay first. This will provide a strong understanding of Nick’s psyche and the reason behind his return to nature. Then, “Big Two Hearted River” the short story itself will be carefully analyzed.

Throughout life, the people that you may encounter and form relationships with will be the ones that shape who you are and ultimately influence your decisions, actions and personality. In “The Battler” by Ernest Hemingway, Nick Adams, a young man of roughly twenty years of age encounters an older gentleman named Ad Francis, a once-famous boxer who claims to have gone “crazy” after his life as a fighter. Ad is accompanied by his best friend Bugs, a black man who accompanies him on his travels throughout the country and helps keep Ad in-check. At one point, Bugs offers Nick and Ad some ham and eggs that he had just cooked on the fire, and asks for nick to cut the bread with his knife. At the sight of the blade Ad demands that Nick hand over the knife. In order to keep Nick out of any danger that might arise from a conflict with Ad, Bugs whacks Ad in the back of the head with a frying pan, rendering him immobile and unconscious, keeping Nick out of harms way.