Ernest Hemingway Healing Of Nature

1320 Words3 Pages

Wesley Huang
Instructor: Caroline Burke
WRT 102 Sec. 46
01 May 2014
Healing of Nature:
“Big Two-Hearted River,” by Ernest Hemingway
Ernest Hemingway once said “I am trying to make, 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.” I believe this quote can be interpreted as the writer attempts to put all the passionate thought his pure and full of descriptive words to make the reader reveals a true world from the character’s eyes and fully immerse themselves into the sense, rather than words that are complicated and meaningless. This can be showed through an analysis of a passage “Big Two-Hearted River” by Hemingway through the use of telling detail, facts as Prof. Hammond mentions in his book Thoughtful Writing, which not only gives the reader the ability to see a clearer image of comparisons between destruction from war and nature’s beauty but also how Nick healing of nature from battlefield.
The main idea of “Big Two-Hearted River” is about Nick Adams, the main character, who returns home as solider coming back from the war. House and hillside are burnt out and abandoned. Everything has changed and looked different in a veteran’s eyes. He goes down the hill and walks along the river trying to find a good place to set up the camp. Although he feels lonely and misses his friends Hopkins and life in the army sometime, he is also enjoying getting back his freedom as a normal man.
The theme of change is showed in the opening of the story when Nick returns his hometown from war and walks along the rail road. Seeing this burned over country and seeking the beauty from nature, as Hemingway wrote on page 1 of “Big Two-Hearted River” “There was...

... middle of paper ...

...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.

Open Document