Big Two-Hearted River

“The river was there. It swirled against the log spiles of the bridge. Nick looked down into the clear, brown water, colored from the pebbly bottom, and 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.”

When Nick first looks at the river, he notices how the fish hold themselves steady in the water. Nick is transfixed by the way they can maintain their position against the current, suggesting that he has a psychological need to hold steady amid change.

“[A] big trout shot upstream in a long angle, only his shadow marking the angle, then lost his shadow as he came through the surface of the water, caught the sun, and then, as he went back into the stream under the surface, his shadow seemed to float down the stream with the current, unresisting, to his post under the bridge where he tightened facing up into the current.

Nick’s heart tightened as the trout moved. He felt all the old feeling.”

After watching the trout hold steady in the current, Nick sees one dart upstream quickly. When Nick sees the big fish shoot upstream, he reacts strongly, but the narrator does not explain why and does not name or define the “old feeling.” This is an example of Hemingway’s “iceberg theory” of narrative. By leaving key information unstated, the story takes on a significance greater than is visible on the surface.

“He had his leather rod-case in his hand and leaning forward to keep weight of the pack high on his shoulders he walked along the road that paralleled the railway track, leaving the burned town behind in the heat, and then turned off around a hill with a high, fire-scarred hill on either side onto a road that went back into the country. He walked along the road feeling the ache from the pull of the heavy pack. The road climbed steadily. It was hard work walking up-hill. His muscles ached and the day was hot, but Nick felt happy. He felt he had left everything behind, the need for thinking, the need to write, other needs. It was all back of him.”

Stylistically, Hemingway uses longer sentences here than in other places in the story, which gives a feeling of plodding and weight to this passage, evoking the weight of the pack and the strain of carrying it. Even though Nick experiences muscle aches from hiking and the heaviness of his pack, he feels happy because he has “left everything behind,” suggesting a deep need to escape his painful memories.

“From the time he had gotten down off the train and the baggage man had thrown his pack out of the open car door things had been different. Seney was burned, the country was burned over and changed, but it did not matter. It could not all be burned. He knew that.”

This passage emphasizes the changes that have occurred since Nick last came to Seney. There is a note of optimism, however, because Nick knows it cannot all be burned. Nick is aware of the physical damage to the area but looks toward the undamaged parts he will yet discover. This likely resonates with the fact that his own psyche is impacted, but he hopes to recover.

“The grasshopper was black. As he had walked along the road, climbing, he had started many grasshoppers from the dust. They were all black. They were not the big grasshoppers with yellow and black or red and black wings whirring out from their black wing sheathing as they fly up. These were just ordinary hoppers, but all a sooty black in color […] [H]e realized that they had all turned black from living in the in burned-over land. He realized that the fire must have come the year before, but the grasshoppers were all black now. He wondered how long they would stay that way.”

The fact that the burned-over landscape has left the grasshoppers black parallels how the war has left Nick with emotional scars. Nick’s realization that the grasshoppers were still black even though the fire must have been the year before causes him to wonder how long they will stay black, suggesting that he also wonders how long the psychological effects of the war will stay with him.

“Carefully he reached his hand down and took hold of the hopper by the wings. He turned him up, all his legs walking in the air, and looked at his jointed belly. Yes, it was black too, iridescent where the back and head were dusty.

‘Go on, hopper,’ Nick said, speaking out loud for the first time. ‘Fly away somewhere.’”

These are the first words spoken by Nick, and they are significant. In telling the grasshopper to fly away, he is giving it freedom but also suggesting he desires freedom of his own. The grasshoppers’ flight also suggests ascension above earthly cares.

“Inside the tent the light came through the brown canvas. It smelled pleasantly of canvas. Already there was something mysterious and homelike. Nick was happy as he crawled inside the tent. 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 was very tired. That was done. He had made his camp. He was settled. Nothing could touch him. It was a good place to camp. He was there, in the good place. He was in his home where he had made it.”

After setting up his tent, Nick reflects on how home-like this space is and how it makes him happy. The sentence “He had not been unhappy all day” suggests that unhappiness is, at least lately, his baseline emotional state. The statement that “nothing could touch him” is surprising, given that he is in a canvas tent and not a fortified building. This paradox emphasizes that safety is something Nick must create for himself, as he seeks protection from internal rather than external threats.

“They said good-by and all felt bad. It broke up the trip. They never saw Hopkins again. That was a long time ago on the Black River.

Nick drank the coffee, the coffee according to Hopkins. The coffee was bitter. Nick laughed. It made a good ending to the story. His mind was starting to work. He knew he could choke it because he was tired enough. He spilled the coffee out of the pot and shook the grounds loose into the fire. He lit a cigarette and went inside the tent. He took off his shoes and trousers, sitting on the blankets, rolled the shoes up inside the trousers for a pillow and got in between the blankets.”

In these two paragraphs, Nick is reminiscing about his friend Hopkins whom he never saw again. What happened to Hopkins is left unstated, and this exemplifies Hemingway’s iceberg technique, which omits plot and character details to leave room for interpretation. Nick achieves closure on his relationship with Hopkins, whom he never saw again after their camping trip on the Black River, by drinking coffee the way Hopkins had made it. This points to the coffee is literally and metaphorically bitter because though it evokes fond memories, it reminds him of another person who is gone. The verb “choke” also implies sad or complicated memories that Nick forces himself to endure.

“Out through the front of the tent he watched the glow of the fire when the night wind blew on it. It was a quiet night. The swamp was perfectly quiet. Nick stretched under the blanket comfortably. A mosquito hummed close to his ear. Nick sat up and lit a match. The mosquito was on the canvas, over his head. Nick moved the match quickly up to it. The mosquito made a satisfactory hiss in the flame. The match went out. Nick lay down again under the blankets. He turned on his side and shut his eyes. He was sleepy. He felt sleep coming. He curled up under the blanket and went to sleep.”

This paragraph moves from the glow of the fire to the match snuffing out the mosquito, suggesting a connection between how fire both nurtures (e.g., by providing warmth and cooking his food) and also destroys (e.g., the town of Seney and the mosquito).

“He had wet his hand before he touched the trout, so he would not disturb the delicate mucus that covered him. If a trout was touched with a dry hand, a white fungus attacked the unprotected spot. Years before when he had fished crowded streams, with fly fishermen ahead of him and behind him, Nick had again and again come on dead trout furry with white fungus, drilled against a rock, or floating belly up in some pool. Nick did not like to fish with other men on the river. Unless they were of your party, they spoiled it.”

This passage sets Nick apart from other fishers. He has the wisdom to wet his hands before touching the trout. However, emphasizing that he does not like fishing around other men suggests Nick prefers solitude and familiarity to companionship and novelty.

“His mouth dry, his heart down, Nick reeled in. He had never seen so big a trout. There was a heaviness, a power not to be held, and then the bulk of him, as he jumped […]

Nick’s hand was shaky. He reeled in slowly. The thrill had been too much. He felt, vaguely, a little sick, as though it would be better to sit down.

The leader had broken where the hook was tied to it. Nick […] thought of the trout somewhere on the bottom, holding himself steady over the gravel, far down below the light, under the logs, with the hook in his jaw. […] The hook would imbed itself in his jaw. He’d bet the trout was angry. Anything that size would be angry. […] By God, he was a big one. By God, he was the biggest one I ever heard of.”

When Nick catches the first big fish, he is emotionally overcome to the point where he must sit down. Nick then imagines the trout on the bottom of the river and even imagines the trout is angry: “Anything that size would be angry,” Nick thinks. Nick’s own physical and emotional state is similar to the trout’s: He got away from the war, but has been left with a metaphorical hook in his mouth.

“Ahead the river narrowed and went into a swamp. The river became smooth and deep and the swamp looked solid with cedar trees, their trunks close together, their branches solid. It would not be possible to walk through a swamp like that. The branches grew so low. You would have to keep almost level with the ground to move at all. You could not crash through the branches.

He wished he had brought something to read. He felt like reading. He did not feel like going on into the swamp.”

The swamp is a dangerous place that Nick is afraid of. It represents Nick’s unconscious, where he has sealed away all the traumatic memories of war. However, the fact that Nick feels like reading, an activity he was glad to have left behind in part one, is a sign of mental rejuvenation.

“Nick did not want to go in there now. He felt a reaction against deep wading with the water deepening up under his armpits, to hook big trout in places impossible to land them. In the swamp the banks were bare, the big cedars came together overhead, the sun did not come through, except in patches; in the fast deep water, in the half light, the fishing would be tragic. In the swamp fishing was a tragic adventure. Nick did not want it. He did not want to go down the stream any farther today.”

This passage emphasizes not only the danger of the swamp but the difficulty of fishing there. He refers to the fishing there as “tragic,” an odd word choice for a difficult place to fish. This suggests that the swamp signifies more than simply a difficult fishing spot.