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.