Analysis Of The Book Big Two Hearted River - 1600 Words

According to Hemingway biographer James R. Mellon, Hemingway regarded Big Two-Hearted River as the climactic story in [his short story collection] In Our Time and the culminating episode in the Nick Adams adventures that he included in the book. That comment ought to spark the curiosity of readers of this story, for, on the surface, very little happens in the story. Seemingly, it goes nowhere. If, however, one has read Thoreau s Walden, it is relatively easy to see that Hemingway is portraying Nick Adams attempt to achieve a bonding with nature that Thoreau, in 1845, was seeking when he decided to live a simple, semi-solitary life at Walden Pond. In Walden, Thoreau says: I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately .†¦show more content†¦Ultimately, the traditional Christian symbols of fishing and water become symbolic of Nick s being rebaptized into life. However, even though two prominent Western world symbols have been mentioned thus far, this is not a story whose meaning relies on symbols. Instead, it is a realistic account of a fishing trip during which Nick regains control of his life. Two major, over-arching themes can be seen in each part: recovery in Part I and recollection in Part II. Nick s recovery begins here as Nick goes alone to a deserted area along the fictional Two-Hearted River (Michigan s Fox River) in the upper peninsula of northern Michigan, where he can see Lake Superior from a hilltop, where there was no town, nothing but the rails and the burned-over country. . . . It was all that was left of the town of Seney. The symbolism here is fairly obvious: Nick is leaving the burned, destroyed portions of his life behind, hoping and searching for renewal on the rich, green, and fertile river bank of the big Two-Hearted River. Nick, however, does not go immediately to the river; instead, he gets off the train and pauses on a bridge, watching trout that are far below him in the stream. It is important to note here that Nick is looking down onto the river and the trout, which