Essay about A Mans Struggle to Heal Himself in Big...

A Mans Struggle to Heal Himself in Big Two-Hearted River Ernest Hemingways Big Two-Hearted River* is such a rich text that it has probably received more literary critical attention than many novels of several times its length. Hemingways ardent use of intricate detail and his intentional, calculated use of short, simple sentences help to make River a treasure chest of critical ideas and possible interpretations. Historically, much of the criticism of River has examined the dark underlying themes of the story, such as the alleged omission of some preceding, devastating event and Nicks wounded spiritual and mental state. These sentences, such as There was no town, nothing but the rails and the burned-over country, are†¦show more content†¦Through this type of reading, we are able to see the great contrast that exists, especially for Nick, between the river with its fast moving current and the dark swamp, a representation of whatever wound from which Nick is trying to heal. Lewis E. Weeks offers another view, similar to Twitchells, of River. Weeks points out some problems with Nicks pitching of the tent which, not surprisingly, is described in a manner such as not to leave the reader in want of details: With the ax [Nick] slit off a bright slab of pine... and split it into pegs for the tent. He wanted them long and solid to hold in the ground... . He pegged the sides out taught and drove the pegs deep, hitting them down into the ground with the flat side of the ax until the rope loops were buried and the canvas was drum tight. (214) From this scene, we cannot dispute Nicks intentionally pitching the tent so that it was drum tight. Weeks explains: [T]he problem from the point of view of the outdoorsman is the tightness with which the tent is pegged down. Canvas shrinks from both dew and rain; and usually notched or hooked pegs are driven into the ground in line with the tension so that they will pull out as the tent shrinks... always the tent is pitched with some looseness to allow for changes in humidity. (433) The question now becomes why Hemingway, an avid outdoorsman, would allow such inconsistencies to surface in River.Show MoreRelatedPoetry by William King, Martyn Lowery, Andrew Marvell, Liz Lochhead, John Cooper Clarke and Elizabeth Jennings10576 Words   |  43 Pagesrhymed meditation. The most obvious poetic technique that these poems have in common is their use of imagery. Love and Sex ============ Surprisingly, perhaps, the most sexually explicit poems in this collection are the two older ones: The Beggar Woman and To His Coy Mistress. Of the modern poems, none of them deal with the sexual side of a relationship. Three poems, however, deal with the full spectrum of sexual involvement in relationships. To His CoyRead MoreLangston Hughes Research Paper25309 Words   |  102 Pageswith him, and a fountain clerk in St. Louis refused to serve him a soft drink. He dealt with these slights the way he would his entire life: He turned away quietly. But Langston decided that instead of running away from the color line and hating himself for being black, like his father had, he would write about the real-life experiences of black people. He was determined to write stories about Negroes, so true that people in faraway lands would read them. James Langston Hughes was born in JoplinRead MoreIgbo Dictionary129408 Words   |  518 Pagesmanuscript was partly typed without alteration into a Word processor, originally an Apple-based system. This was transferred to an IBM system quite recently, but without any conversion of the character codes. It seems that two different systems of coding diacritics were used and more than two IPA phonetic fonts. Furthermore, for some reason, the typing of the grammar sketch which precedes the manuscript is incomplete. In order to make the manuscript available, I have therefore joined together the fragments