Big Two Hearted River I and II

Sneha's Lesson Review:

Hello everyone!
So basically, here's some of the things that we discussed in class today;
So as you guys know, we read 'Big Two-Hearted River: Part I' and also'Part II'. A theme that is consistent in both stories is 'Fishing'. We can see this as there are long passages that just talk about the trout and the water. In 'Part I', Nick seems to keep track of where the river is even though he passed it a while back. We talked about how the journey that he's going on involves him leaving his past behind him, but the fact that 'The river was there' in Nick's and our vision, we get the impression that there's something that he can't let go of; a memory, perhaps. This phrase has been subtly placed by Hemingway as it's short and blunt, but it has been put between other, slightly longer phrases. This emphasises it's meaning as we are made to look back at it as the smooth pace is broken by the shortness of the sentence.
A little later on, we are told that 'Nick's heart tightened as the trout moved. He felt all the old feeling.' This is isolated from the other paragraphs which makes it stand out to the reader. It tells us that he has a strong connection with the fish, despite them being so deep in the water. He could also be talking about his past experiences of fishing with his dad. As Nick 'felt all the old feeling', we can deduce that he is presently quite weak and perhaps broken as well.
In addition, this story has parts of more description, which is unusual as Hemingway's writing is usually plain and laconic. An example of where we can see this is when Nick 'felt he had left everything behind, the need for thinking, the need to write, other needs.' However, we aren't told, in true Hemingway style the 'other needs', and so we are left to our own devices to work out what they might be.
In the vignette that follows, we see the consistent theme of death in the first few words; 'They hanged'. There's also a strange phrase that the priest says; 'Be a man, my son', which questions the man's masculinity through religion.

The second story seems to pick up the pace at the beginning due to the use of more descriptive words such as 'smooth' and 'excited'. There is also the use of more adverbs such as 'stiffly', 'rapidly', 'smoothly' and 'sharply', which could increase the pace, which is significant as the speed of the last story was very slow. The lively adverbs could also be representative of Nick's state of mind as he's happy and seems to be in a better place.
Furthermore, there are words in this story such as 'bent double', 'heavy', 'dangerous' and 'mechanical shriek' which all have connotations of war. It can also be linked to the poem 'Dulce et Decorum Est' by Wilfred Owen as the descriptions are very passionate and some words link directly to the poem.
Other words in the story could hint at sexual innuendos, for example, 'pumping' and' jerking', which tells us that Nick's fishing trip isn't just an ordinary fishing trip. This is confirmed when it says 'In the swamp fishing was a tragic adventure'.
At the end of this story, we are made to question what the swamp actually represents as it ends with 'There were plenty of days coming when he could fish the swamp.' Does it reflect a particular memory of his, a trench, perhaps due to the hints of him having been/being a soldier? I guess we are left to work this out for ourselves as well. The story finishes on a slightly confusing note, which seems normal to us at this point as Hemingway's writing can sometimes be hard to grasp.