When reading through Hemingway’s “Big Two-Hearted River,” it is is written with themes and metaphors which contribute to the overall meaning of the short story. These include nature/escape and grasshoppers/survival.
At the beginning of the story, we see Nick fishing. Fishing allowed Nick to leave his thoughts of war. He is trying to escape his old memories and fishing allows him to do this. Nick describes how happy he was to be fishing again and how it made him happy. This suggests that it allows him to escape those old thoughts and traumatic moments of war. This also relates to the river. Here, the river is similar to the significance of fishing. Nick is able to forget about the traumatic events in his past and lose himself in nature; specifically the river.
The grasshoppers come about on page 982 and are significant to the theme of survival. In this scene, Nick is overlooking a village burned by a fire. Here, he sees that the grasshoppers have survived. They are black which signifies darkness or death. They have been affected by what has gone on, yet have not been destroyed. This is similar to how Nick has been affected by the war and has haunting memories, but has not let the memories of war completely wipe him out. In this sense, we also see that Nick has respect for living things which is based on going through devastating events, such as war.
As a reader can see by examining the short story, “Big Two-Hearted River,” the themes of nature/escape and grasshoppers/survival play an important role in understanding the meaning of the story.
No comments:
Post a Comment