In Hemingway’s short story “Big Two-Hearted River,” he subtly discusses the topic of mental illness and parallels it alongside nature, as Nick Adams returns from war and comes to terms with PTSD, or shell shock. Nature, specifically water, grounds Nick and gives him a sense of stability. As he struggles, he uses tactile, hands-on experiences to keep him afloat. For Nick, the water is seen simultaneously as a place of hope and a place of fear. His state of mind is reflected in his excitement towards the river contrasted with his anxiety towards the swamp. Nick’s love of fishing, again represents his need for balance and control. The act of fishing in the river ultimately is peaceful and calm for Nick, but even it was a bit too much at times. …show more content…
In the unfortunate situation of Nick Adams, this idyllic return was shattered in the first few sentences, where Hemingway describes the burnt and decimated town. To cope with this shock in the wake of the war, Nick turns to simplicity and order. Therefore, there are countless examples in the story of Nick turning to repetitive, definitive tasks. He painstakingly flattens the ground where he plans to camp, making sure there are no bumps or deformities. For war veterans like Nick Adams, it can be comforting to take control where one can find it. He finds a satisfactory, “good” place to camp, after a long walk searching for just the right place. (Hemingway 185) Once he is satisfied, he carefully packs his bags and hangs his supplies out of harm’s way. It is clear that experiences such as these help Nick to focus on the present. “He had not been unhappy all day. This was different though. Now things were done. There had been this to do. Now it was done. It had been a hard trip. He had been very tired. That was done. He had made his camp. He was settled. Nothing could touch him.” (Hemingway 185) Accomplishing simple tasks were a seemingly small victory, but helped to make the unsettling things seem more familiar. Alternatively, when one is searching for any sense of control loses grip, it can throw them completely off balance. Whether it’s from the overexcitement of almost …show more content…
More specifically, the way Nick views the fish and their life within the water symbolizes his longing for steadiness. He mentions the strength of the fish time and time again. Nick “watched the trout keeping themselves steady in the current with wavering fins. As he watched them they changed their positions by quick angles, only to hold steady in the fast water again. Nick watched them a long time.” (Hemingway 177) One can infer that he is almost envious of the fish. Drawing a parallel to his own life, he thinks of the river as “too fast.” (Hemingway 182) The fish have the ability, despite the rushing and ever-changing water around them, to stay stable and adapt to whatever is going on around them. Nick, however, struggles with this in his own life. “Nick’s heart tightened as the trout moved. He felt all the old feeling.” (Hemingway 178) Consequently, the confidence of the trout makes him uneasy, and brings to light his own faults and inadequacies. However, when studying life, we can’t focus on the lows without acknowledging the happier points. Nick finds solace and peace in fishing and the river itself. Rather than be in the company of other humans, he wants to be alone with the fish. Unlike other men on the river, he has a healthy respect for the trout, and is careful not to cause unnecessary harm or imbalance to nature. Just being around the river causes a dramatic shift in Nick’s
The short story “Virgo” in Jess Walter’s book We Live in Water is set in modern times which gives it a familiarity for the audience. For something that maybe unfamiliar is that he creates the protagonist to have a psychological problem. The author uses mental illness as an important part in his story, because the story is about the protagonists failing psychological health. This was caused from his parent’s lack of knowledge about mental disorders and his school’s fault for not educating him or his parents about mental illnesses. The protagonist has issues with his social skills, which are caused by the lack of treatment that he has never received from his schools and parents, then as a result attempts to commit suicide at the end of the story.
Without the uncertainty of other men’s words and actions, Nick is once again able to gain further internal stability. Stewart, however, attributes a different reason for Nick’s preference for solitude, suggesting that “his mindfulness sets him apart from the careless fishermen who ‘spoil it’ for those who truly love the activity.” This conclusion is certainly valid, for Nick’s expression of dislike follows a memory of the irresponsible fishing practices that resulted in trout dying from white fungus. Nevertheless, Nick states that he is not bothered by the company of like-minded fishermen. If his primary concern was indeed the conscientiousness of his fishing companions, as opposed to their unpredictable nature, it is less likely that he would have made the decision to travel alone.
While Nick enjoys the parties and a sense of nostalgia, he becomes aware of his conflicting hatred and sets up control over his arousing temptations. Nick first meets his rancor at Tom Buchanan’s party in New York. Nick looks out at the black streets and sees himself “within and without, simultaneously enchanted and repelled by the inexhaustible variety of life”(35). Nick is in limbo; he cannot tilt his metronome. Limbo, like a broken metronome, worries us, and we may think that life is absent of any rhythm. A shower of emotions floods us: anxiety, curiosity, indecisiveness; however, we forget that all we have to do is fix our problem. The state of be...
Hemingway often depicts nature as a pastoral paradise within the novel, and the fishing trip serves as his epitome of such, entirely free from the corruptions of city life and women. Doing away with modern modes of transportation, they walk many miles gladly to reach the Irati River. While fishing, Jake and Bill are able to communicate freely with each other, unbound by the social confines of American and European society. The men also enjoy the camaraderie of English Veteran, Harris. This is quite different from the competitive relationships that can develop between men in the presence of women. Bill is able to express his fondness for Jake openly without it “mean[ing] [he] was a faggot,” (VIII), and Jake has no qualms over his fish being smaller than Bill’s, in what could be interpreted as an admission of lesser sexual virility.
Despite the numerous somber critiques throughout Hemingway’s text, there is ultimately a positive sensation in this story as a broken man endeavors to heal himself by returning home to nature to find and do what he loves. The vivid detail throughout the text can signify more than the sentence itself. Some of Nick’s actions appear to be normal, but have more meaning when analyzed. Lewis Weeks addresses an issue in Nick’s tent assembling technique, which is described thoroughly: With the ax, slit off a bright slab of pine from one of the stumps and split it into pegs for the tent. He wanted them long and solid to hold in the ground.
After the event with the fish Nick was tired from the rush and the happiness. Nick moved on to catch two other fish and cleans them to eat later. “Nick cleaned them, slitting them from the vent to the tip of the jaw. All the insides and the gills and tongue came out in one piece. They were both males; long gray-white strips of milt, smooth and clean. All the insides clean and compact, coming out all together. Nick tossed the offal ashore for the minks to find.” (Hemingway 1925) Throughout the cleaning Nick motions come out in different ways. When he cleaning the fish he realizes that his thoughts of unhappiness and being cleaned as well and as the days go on so will Nick and his motions with it.
...e, before I get through, a picture of the whole world-or as much of it as I have seen. Boiling it down always, rather than spreading it out thin” is well explaining in his passage “Big Two-Hearted River”. He is trying to let the reader not only see a whole true world about destruction from war in both mental and physical way by his pure writing, telling details and fact but also feel the power of Nature’s healing. The theme of change first appears in the passage when he first returns his homeland from war. The main theme healing of nature is shown throughout the passage. Nick is seeking for the beauty of nature and desires to fit himself in once again in order to recover his hardened heart and unpleasant memories from war. Later on the theme of freedom is revealed when Nick regains his freedom and self-confidence as a normal man. Nature is his salvation of the soul.
Mental illnesses are one of the most frightening medical conditions to fall upon someone, as there are not any ways of curing such things and end up changing who the effect one is as a person. Due to how devastating mental illnesses are, it not only affects the person directly but also all those around them in various ways. Miriam Toews’ shows how mental illness effect people differently in her novel The Flying Troutman, a story about a family stricken by a members mental illness and their journey of coping with it. She displays this idea through the four characters of Hattie, Min, Thebes, and Logan Troutman as they go through their daily routines and interactions with one another.
Hemingway's novel contains a morale for everyone that had or will suffer from either a physical wound, like Jake, or from an emotional wound such as Brett that nothing is ever unchangeable. The title strengthens this idea of changeability and evolution, if you believe in yourself and in what surrounds you, such as your passions, your friends, you can overcome every wound, even the one so personal and so horrible that you can not even mention it. Like Jake's impotence because after the Fiesta, the sun always rises.
Hemingway uses details of natural and manufactured settings to foreshadow Nick and Marjorie's breakup by setting most of the story around water. For Hemingway, water foreshadows something bad that is going to happen. In the beginning when they first are on the boat, the story says that they suddenly drop from "sandy shallows to twelve feet of dark water." This foreshadows their breakup because the water goes straight down into dark water which shows that their relationship is going from something easy and good straight into something dark that will end badly. The manufactured setting of the ruined mill foreshadows their breakup as well because Marjorie views the ruins as a "castle," which shows that she viewed their relationship as a fairy
Hemingway uses details of natural and manufactured setting to foreshadow Nick and Marjorie's break up and to emphasize their differences. Hemingway uses water to foreshadow the ugly events that unfold later in the story. Nick and Marjorie coast along the shore line but then the bed of the lake "suddenly" drops off from shallow water to twelve feet of "dark" water. This means something bad is going to happen and soon. Hemingway describes the ruins of Hortons Bay but they are perceived differently between Nick and Marjorie. Nick sees the town for what it is, a ghost town with ruins. Marjorie sees a "castle". This shows that Nick and Marjorie view their relationship very differently. Marjorie sees a fairytale happy ending where her and Nick get
Hemingway states, “After the hot day, the dew had come quickly and heavily. The river made no sound. It was too fast and smooth” (1204). Nick goes to the river to find a quiet, serene place. He knows it will always be there and that he can always count on it. In the Disney movie, Pocahontas, the Indian princess sings a song about rivers, how they are always changing and flowing, and that you never know what’s around the river bend. This suggests change, but Nick does not look at it that way. All he knows is he can always come back to the same river, even when his world around him is falling apart. Water in general is natural, and is known for spiritual healing and great simplicity. Nick loves how he can rely on something like a river for mental and spiritual support, something he hasn’t had since his return. Nick also uses the river as a guide. He knows where he is in correlation to the river, which helps him find his way. This is a huge step for Nick, because he can’t rely on much of anything, but the river gives him that peace and sense of
Throughout the entirety of the story Hemingway hints at the fact that Nick has been away from home for a while; “Nick looked at the burned-over stretch of hillside, where he had expected to find the scattered houses of the town…” (Hemingway #). Hemingway also implies that things aren’t now what they once were to Nick: “It was a long time since Nick had looked into a stream and seen trout” (Hemingway #).
In Ernest Hemingway’s A Farewell to Arms, rain is a constant symbol of approaching disaster. It serves as a forewarning of bad things to soon come like physical pain, emotional struggles, and death. The symbol of the rain also sets the gloomy mood of the novel, giving an insight of the direction the war is going and the way the people are feeling. Its analogy towards death and its influence on the Hemingway hero, Lieutenant Frederic Henry, to accentuate the characteristics of the leading role. In the long run, it connects all of the many tragedies in the novel. It reiterates the message of the heartbreaking effects of war and death that goes hand-in-hand with it. From the beginning of the novel, the reader is told of a permanent rain that is death itself, the menace that emerges throughout the entire novel.
In “Indian Camp” by Ernest Hemingway, there is a woman who needs to give birth to an infant. With difficulties, the infant is born, but the father could not handle the pressure, a fact which leads to the Indian father taking his own life. Ultimately, the suicide of the Indian father in Hemingway’s short story “Indian Camp” compels the reader to examine what made the Indian father get so depressed that he commits suicide and how it affected Nick’s life.