A Way You'll Never Be & Big Two-Hearted River

May 31, 2012
[Ernest Hemingway’s A Way You’ll Never Be & The Big Two-Hearted River]
11b4 111150 Ho InHee

     As a girl living in this generation, war seems to be far away. I've seen several civil wars going on in mid eastern countries, but that's all. I've heard some real life experiences of Korean War from my grandparents, but that's still a secondhand story for me. But one thing I know is that people who'd actually experienced a war have an "unforgettable memory" of the war and tend to pour it out in some way, by telling it to other people or by writing it.

     Earnest Hemingway, in my opinion, goes to the latter. Overall, Hemingway shows how the protagonist Nick Adams adjusts to his life after war and to what extent he overcomes. Truly, this story, taking the setting of when it was written, flashes on power of humans to face such difficulties. In fact, Hemingway volunteered in WW1 as a Red Cross ambulance driver, and by running around the battlefield, he witnessed thousands of dying lives. Likewise, Hemingway took some part in a war. In fact, the story A Way You’ll Never Be is directly inspired from his wartime period. Hemingway once was reminded of a “hell of a nice girl going crazy from day to day”. This girl is reflected to Nick Adams in A Way You’ll Never Be. Nick is featured as a sufferer of a severe war trauma. He constantly gets tormented by his dreams. On the other hand, The Big Two-Hearted River, another Hemingway’s novella with a protagonist Nick Adams, features Nick’s return to normality. Nick hunts, fishes, and makes his own living.

     The Big Two-Hearted River was much more colorful than A Way You’ll Never Be. There were a lot of positive state descriptions such as ‘Nick was happy as he crawled inside the tent. He had not been unhappy all day.’, ‘He was there, in the good place.’, and ‘They were better than fresh apricots.’ Descriptions like ‘good’ and ‘fresh’ appears often in The Big Two-Hearted River. Contrastingly, in A Way You’ll Never Be, usage of word gets conspicuously different. In parts like ‘His pistol made Nick nervous.’, ‘He was very disappointed that he felt this way and more disappointe, ven, that it was so obvious to Captain Paravicini.’, ‘That was what frightened about that. Never about the front’, and ‘Our own dead, or what he thought of, still as our own dead, were surprisingly few, Nick noticed’, we can sense words with notably negative images such as ‘disappoint’, ‘frightened’, and ‘dead’.

     Opposed to what I’ve expected, A Way You’ll Never Be was written after The Big Two-Hearted River. The former was written in 1925 whereas the latter was written in 1933. There must be a turning point where Hemingway had his complete change in the midset. Apparently, 1920 was in some sense vibrant. And 1930 was a world-wide depression. As world’s economy collapsed, other parts of society followingly collapsed. Nazism and Pacism got into their stride. But, narrowing the scopes, there could be some domestic reasons of Hemingway. In 1927 Hemingway was requested a divorce and wrote a collection of short stories ‘Men without Women’ the same year. Was his switch of thoughts (of human nature) a consequence of general air of entire society or of his private hardships? Or was it of a combination of complex reasons?






It was hard to find the real version of A Way You’ll Never Be online!! :`(




{Comments}
SoYeon Min: It is very interesting that you connected what Hemingway actually saw in WW1 with how the protagonist behaves :) It is also fantastic that you started your writing with your honest view on war (that you don't really know what it actually is like), unlike me (I never came up with this idea of writing something personal in my writing). While I learned that I should include more stuff about Hemingway's life and experiences in my own writing, I think you could try to connect Hemingway's life with his stories more specifically. Instead of just mentioning that he volunteered as a red cross member, you coud, for example, say "Because of his personal experience as a red cross volunteer during WW1, he was knowledgeable on medical services in wars, and reflected these experiences in the aprt wehre Nick does something". In fact, in both stories, Nick did not engage in anything medical, but I think your essay would be fantastic if you could develop more like above :)

Hyunseok Lee: Great creativity that you came up with specified outline LOL! Fine introduction and I saw the passion that you spent on your outline. I cannot wait to see your finalized essay.

Marriage & Love

May 9, 2012

[Willa Cather’s A Garden Lodge]

11b4 111150 Ho InHee

America's 1920s reminds me of two different images. The first one is a free, vigorous atmosphere followed by (rather successful) World War 1. Thousands of men returned from battlefield to their hometowns. Huge companies employed millions of people. The nation was under booming economy. Contrarily, the second image is more unsettled, profligate, and shady. Labor strikes took place everywhere. The nation grew more exclusive with the second KKK and quota act. A group of Western women called ‘flappers’ appeared with indecent dressings and flouted social and sexual norms. Prohibition banned any liquors containing alcohol. Overpowered desire was expressed in inappropriate ways such as gangsters. So, how could families back then be similar to those nowadays?

There are three main grounds of marriage; financial state, labor, and romance.

Back in feudalistic society, people dominantly expected to get financial benefits from marriage. Parents of a man strongly willed their son to marry a rich lady, so that their family could get financially supported. They also expected a mutual complementary in laboring for their family. While men were out farming, hunting, fishing, lumbering, and sometimes guarding earls, women oftentimes stayed in their house, reproduced their breeds, took care of their children, and did household works. Apart, man and woman couldn’t live a stable life, but together, they could. It’s only recently that people started to take consideration of love in marriage. They make dramas and movies about romantic love overcoming all the difficulties. Cinderella is no more a fairy tale. People dream of a runaway flight with their lover. Then, how about in 1920s? As briefly mentioned above, American society was somewhat stiff. The nation was very exclusive. They opposed all immigrants. Job was strictly available to white men dominantly. Women were back in houses taking care of children again. Blacks’ opportunity for workplace drastically dropped from WW1. Even more, there were clashes of interests of different groups continuously. Was ‘marriage’ to be a relationship of lovers? Fathers were all at work, and mothers were all back at home. These ‘Victorian women’ appeared, breaking sexual norms. Surely all these phenomena could bring slight of love, as love was an abstract and uncertain thing. The nation had just gone through a huge world-wide war; nobody could assure that there wouldn’t be any war the day after. What people needed back then was certainty and stability.

Caroline, the protagonist in [The Garden Lodge], has her own family story. Her father was a music teacher full of ‘vindictiveness’ and ‘puerile self-commiseration’. Her mom simply idolized Caroline’s father. Her brother, after drawing newspaper sketches for years, shot. Affected by this typical (as for then) childhood, Caroline grows hatred toward uncertain existence and absurdity. But she faces the reality. There are two men; one staying in her garden lodge, Raymond, and her husband, asking to tear the garden lodge down for a summer house, Howard. Conflicting between two, she finally sets her mind to follow her husband.

For me, Caroline’s family story and marriage all seems peculiar and uncommon. But considering the time period the story was written, Caroline’s marriage with a forty-year old business man wasn’t too extraordinary. Nowadays it is rational to consider emotion, or love, as the number one factor in the marriage, but back then, material benefit and stable future could also be one. Caroline’s decision, there, could be seen as ‘overcoming’ her situation. Throw what marriage could have meant back then, and consider what the relation ‘marriage’ can possibility mean in any cases. It could be a relationship between two lovers, it could be a relationship for breeding, or it could be a simple legal contract. As we’ve seen in thousands of other stories how one’s decision can lead him/her to destruction (as one example, The Cut Glass Bowl by F. Scott Fitzgerald), we sometimes need to resolutely throw away the absurdity. Frankly, how can anyone assure that Caroline’s feeling toward Raymond is not a simple longing for departure from her reality? Is her uncertain feeling toward Ray worth taking risk of her life? Caroline could attain both economic stability and social normalcy by choosing Howard, what could have she done better?








{Comments}

Yoonju Chung: I definitely agree on your point that although it is rational to marry with a person he/she loves nowadays, back then material benefit and stable future are worth considering as well (but i guess these factors are considered pretty significantly as well these days). Caroline's decision to follow her husband instead of Raymond was maybe the best resolution she could have done during the period after WW1, influenza, Great depression, and Russian revolution. All these terrible events loosened the ties of family like what you mentioned. It would be better if you had connected your ideas with background information in that time period in your 3rd paragraph and this essay gives me a lot to think! Especially the last sentence!

Jeong YunJo: he checked grammar issues! and that the story was published in 1905 but the post WW1 period is after 1939 (which wiki tells me that the book was actually published in 1920, after WW1)