Hemingway's 'Big Two-Hearted River And Burroughs'

Hemingway wrote landscapes the way Burroughs wrote nature, underlined with love, a spiritual depth, and exactitude. “from almost any stream in a trout country the true angler could take trout…whatever bait you used…there was one thing you must always put upon your hook, namely, your heart: when you bait your hook with your heart, the fish will always bite” (Burroughs 59). The fishing narratives of both Hemingway and Burroughs, are embedded with precision and praise of the natural world, and love of the art of fishing as they both wear their heart on their hook. Hemingway closely parallels Burroughs in many of his fishing narratives, and there is a particularly intimate connection between Hemingway’s “Big Two-Hearted River” and Burroughs “Bed …show more content…
The burned countryside, bridge, and train tracks are all products of the modern world. Nick after suffering from the war is content to be watching the trout. Nick watches the stream, with its “clear, brown water, colored from the pebbly bottom”, looking down from the bridge (CSS #). He watches for a long time, as Nick has not seen a trout stream since the war. Nick observes a kingfisher fly up stream, as a large trout jumps out of the water (CSS 163-4). Hemingway recalls this scene as one of the most significant of his early writing, more than thirty years after writing “Big Two-Hearted River” (Shakespeare 44-5). Nick, tied to the trout emotionally.“Nicks heart tightened as the trout moved. He felt all the old feeling…he was happy” (CSS 164). The Big Two-Hearted, current is strong, running deep and fast through the river, the trout must “keep themselves steady” (CSS 163). Nick, must “keep steady” in the world that he returned to post-war. The trout have a drastic effect on Nick. In “Now I Lay Me” the trout keep him sane in the night, as he needed to keep himself awake “sometimes I would fish four or five different streams in a night” (CSS 277). Both Nick and Burroughs, are able momentarily forget trauma and disaster, while they are mesmerized by their respective streams. Hemingway repeats the word “happy” but not until after Nick watches the …show more content…
The double time frame of “Now I Lay Me”, allows a future Nick to tell of how he spent his sleepless nights at war. “I myself did not want to go to sleep because… ever since I had been blown up at night…if I ever shut my eyes in the dark and let myself go, my soul would go out of my body” (CSS 276). Nick’s fishing scenerios in “Now I Lay Me” parallel both John Burroughs and his own journey in “Big Two-Hearted River.” Nick “went to them on the train and sometimes walked for miles” (CSS 277). Burroughs also “would make a trip to a stream a couple of miles distant” (Burroughs 58). [Nick] walked along the road that paralleled the railway track…it could not be more than a mile away but he kept on toward the north to hit the river as far upstream as he could go in one days walking” (CSS 164-5). The Nick the story is happening to ruminates his mind, fishing in streams, attempting to remember all his memories, and praying for everyone he knows, to stay awake for fear his soul would leave his body The Nick telling the story may be practicing the same technique, because he is only “fairly sure” his soul will not leave him (Sempreora 22). Nick is afraid that if sleeps and loses control of his mind and thoughts, he will lose his soul as well (Sempreora