Hi, my name is Bryce Calderwood

I read Ernest Hemingway's Big Two Hearted River

This book isn't a typical western, but it has very deep metaphors and meaning you have to search for much like the western short stories we read.

The story follows a man named Nick.

from the forward of the book Hemingway has written other stories about Nick and it seems in this book he has just gotten back from a war

The book starts off with Nick getting off a train to a town of Seney in the UP of Michigan where Nick has been before for previous fishing trips

The town is described as unrecognizable to Nick as its all burned and torn down only ruble left

This burned town represents how nicks views the town after coming back from the war

as he travels through the town he stops and looks into a river where he can see trout and nature working

As Hemingway writes about what Nick is seeing he almost makes the reader completly forget about the town

I think he did this to make the reader understand how the river heals Nicks mind and takes him away from the bad

the river symbolizes Nicks happy place

As Nick walks to get to the river he wants to fish he stops in the burned country side he sees a grasshopper that has adapted to be ash black to fit the landscape

"He wonders how long the grasshoppers would stay that way"

He wonders how long he will be impacted by his fire (the war)

The first time Nick speaks he tells the grasshopper to fly away somewhere

I think this is symbolizing Nick telling himself to get away from that burned mentality because after this encounter Nick is now in a beautiful forest closer to the river

When nick finds a place in the woods to rest and set up camp, he unloads his backpack which before in the burned land had been called heavy and was hurting nick

The weight of the backpack represents his struggles because now as he unpacks it as he is near the river (his happy place) it is described as looking light

The river is his happy place and he is able to releave the weight of his bag which is his struggles because of it

Go to canvas example in book

the only other instance where Nick talks, he says "I have a right to eat this kind of stuff if I'm willing to carry it." he is justifying his choice of carrying food because in the army he'd have to justify carrying that extra weight around.

Go to swamp talk in book

My first time reading through the book I viewed it as Nick fighting his depression and struggles and he didnt want to go futher down the river into the swamp because itd lead to deep depression and a dark place

as I was writing my notecards and going over my notes, I thought of it more as a metaphor for war and only some people are built for war the people that can go under the cedar branches and brave the swamp fishing

I want to read the book again because I'm still a little confused as to which it could be