Thoughts of War in Big Two Hearted River by Ernest Hemingway Essay

In "War," Nick Adams progresses from an innocent, invincible soldier to a traumatized, realistic human. Ernest Hemingway utilizes his minimalist approach to highlight the destructive consequences of war and display that no benefits come from violence. Nick departs for war as a confident soldier but learns very quickly about the reality of war because of his injury. Then, he feels the psychological effects of the war through his lack of rest. Finally, Nick leaves the war as a fortunate, hopeful man with much still to experience. The war gives Nick a realistic outlook on life and matures him through all the death and destruction.

It swirled against the log spiles of the bridge. Nick looked down into the clear, brown water, colored from the pebbly bottom and watched the trout keeping themselves steady in the current with wavering fins. As he watched them they changed their position by quick angles, only to hold steady in the fast water again. (Hemingway 177)

“Big Two-Hearted River” finds Nick in a place of depression, it seems, one where he has no choice but to go through the motions, focus one task at a time, and drift through his life. He goes place to place, task to task, focusing solely on

In the story Big Two Hearted River Hemmingway explains how coming back from the war is almost like a pause in your life. You have death inside you because you've experienced so many horrible things in war. Hemmingway uses his main character, Nick to show how he moved on from coming back from war. Nick came back home to a burnt town, and nothing but the wilderness.

The question now becomes why Hemingway, an avid outdoorsman, would allow such inconsistencies to surface in "River."

Through the transformation of his surroundings, Nick notices that everything is changed and even the animal/insects are different do to

As "Big Two-Hearted River" opens, Nick has recently returned home after the war. Troubled by his war experiences and having difficulty adjusting to normal life again, Nick does something that makes perfect sense: He returns to the familiar wilderness where he and his dad shared so many good times when Nick was young and innocent. He plans to fish for trout, but the real purpose of his trip is to find some solace and tranquility to help him heal from his war trauma. Today we would say he has PTSD; this fishing trip serves as his self-prescribed therapy. (Remember the whole "Lost Generation" concept?)

Without the prior knowledge of the effect of “Indian Camp” on Nick’s psyche, one could easily declare the events and his thoughts in “Big Two-Hearted River” as normal, per the passage of time and his assumed maturity. But, as certain imagery that evokes war in “Big Two-Hearted River” suggests, Nick also suppressed the events of Fossalta. The first scene in this story has him walking through the fire-destroyed town of Seney (Hemingway 209). He is carrying a pack and a fishing rod just as a soldier would wear a pack and carry a gun, and, as he was a soldier, it can be inferred that he saw similar scenes of destruction before (210). Phrases evoking war were also used by the narrator, such as when Nick left “the burned town behind in the heat,” as if the town was ‘in the heat’ of battle with gunfire (210). Likewise, the imagery of the blackened grasshoppers also evokes war. Nick “realize[s] that they had all turned black from living in the burned-over land,” (the same land that is similar to scenes of war) just as he was psychologically blackened by the war because of his injuries (212). He also “wondered how long they would stay that way,” implying his questioning of when he would recover and hope that he could (Hannum 107, Hemingway

War is not a beautiful scene; the effects cause temporary and permanent damage to people, land, and infrastructures. In the short story “Big Two-Hearted River: Part I and Part II,” Hemingway expresses some emotional impacts of war, through the eyes of the main character Nick (Perkins 163). The story begins with the World War I veteran being dropped off by train in the vastly destroyed city of Seney. As he walked around, familiar scenes of war surround him. Although some things are harder than others to overlook, he continues until he locates a decent camping area. Throughout his time alone, Nick gives the outside world the perception of happiness. Yet, deep within, the psychological destruction has already been done. The emotional effects are haunting him, and no matter how hard he may want to forget, the memories are prominent in his thoughts. During the camping trip, Nick had trying times of disappointment, loss of control, guilt, and sorrow. Similar to many war veterans, Nick is suffering from the emotional baggage of war; there may not be any physical signs on the outside, but there is plenty of damage to the inside.

“I could just drift, he thought, and sleep and put a bight of line around my toe to wake me. But today is eighty-five days and I should fish the day well” (41). Santiago, an old fishing champion, has not caught a fish in eighty-four days, but he is not ready to give up yet. Santiago encounters the biggest marlin he has ever seen, and he spends a vigorous three days fighting the fish. Santiago’s journey in The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway functions as a literary quest as he struggles to overcome patience, pride, and loneliness on his journey to self-discovery.

Throughout Hemingway’s stories the use of train tracks in “Big Two Hearted River,” ”A Canary For One,” and “Hills Like White Elephants.” have symbolized many things that have revealed and/or explained many things in his stories. The first case is in two,”Big Two Hearted River,” how it shows the leaving train and disappearing around the hill, shows how he hasn't moved on from his troubles and wants to stay from where he started while time is still continuing to go on. This quote,”THe train went on up the tracks out of sight, around one of the hills of burnt timber.” “There was no town, nothing but the rails and the the burned -over country.” This quote shows how he went back to where he is stuck mentally and physically showing that it is

Ernest Hemingway practices a method in his writing he coined as the “iceberg technique”, whereby only 30% is apparent, but the remaining meaning is found beneath the surface. Employing this technique, Hemingway’s Big Two Hearted River: Part II reads as a simple-minded story of a man on a fishing expedition, but the subtext found through Hemingway’s use of symbolism and metaphors creates a greater significance relating to the protagonist’s inner-struggle after the war. The concept of escapism is prominent in Nick’s actions throughout the short story, where he appears to not only physically remove himself from his past in the war, but attempts to emotionally disengage himself as well. Hemingway uses minute details to describe the protagonist’s

This river is clearly a source of guidance or direction for him, as shown by the statement that “He did not need to get his map out. He knew where he was from the position of the river” (Hemingway 163). This description of Nick's story brings up an important point. How exactly do the two men compare, and what does it mean for the “modern”

His lack of confidence provoked him to rely on his friend’s misleading advice to make choices. Nick faced death, dealt with complicated relationships, violence and suffrage at a young age. These emotional events molded him to an utterly wounded man internally, but a dictator externally. Some people say “You become the person that you surround yourself with”.

Shortly after, the boy recalls, “…remember how you went eighty-seven days without fish and then we caught big ones every day for three weeks.”(119) “In this way, Hemingway establishes two separate time spans of eighty-seven days that are important in the old man’s life.” (119)