The End of Something is basically a story that is about the end of a realationship. The relationship between Nick and Marge is obviously stuggling in Nick's opinion whereas Marge seems to think everything is alright. The problem in this story has to do with Nick. He is very picky about Marge. He claims that she "knows everything". At one point in the story Nick gets upset because she knew it was going to be a full moon that night. Later on that night they sit down and Nick claims "it isn't fun anymore". She ends up walking away and the end of their relationship is done with.
    The Three-Day Blow is basically a metaphor. Nick and his friend Bill go to this cabin where they drink, talk, and act like normal guys basically. Their convetersation gets more interesting when Bill brings up the subject of Marge. He claims that Nick "was wise". This suggests that Bill kind of pressured him into it possibly. The Three-Day Blow is like Marge and Nicks love. It was simple at first but then it just blew away it was done with so quickly. Kind of like a "What Happened" reaction. It was so quick it doens't seemed like it happened.
    The Big-Two Hearted River is about Nick who is out in the wild by himself. The river is two hearted because it has the calm and shallow part and then it also has the swampy part. He basically connects with nature in this story because it brought up memories from his past about Hopkins. Each setting though had a specific meaning to his life. The story as a whole symbolizes his life.

Questions:

1.  What else do you think Hemmingway may be saying through the setting in this story?  I think Hemmingway uses the setting to symbolize his life. The Big-Two Hearted River is sort of like his life. The story discusses the good parts about the river, the shallow and calm part. Then there is the swamp part which I think symbolizes the shady areas in his life. All the different settings in the story are like a piece of his life.

2.  Why does he use the contrasting setting of the burned out area with the lush, green setting? I think he uses this to show how things can change so quickly. Nick’s life may have had issues in his life (ex. Marge) of how things change. I think it just shows how life transforms.

3.  What does Nick's traveling through the burned out area to the lush green area symbolize? I think that symbolizes him moving on from bad parts in his life. He is going through this burned out area and he analyzes everything just like a person would do in a bad experience. Obviously life gets better when he reaches the lush green area. He also analyzes this as well. This symbolizes the transforming of a bad experience to a good one.

4.  What does the swamp area symbolize?  The swamp area symbolizes the places in his life that may have been hard or the places he has struggled with. The story says once he gets in the water so far he stops and that he decides he will go back another time into the swamp. I don’t think these “bad places” necessarily mean that he can’t reflect on them because obviously you have to go through certain things and learn from them. So this swamp is the “Make mistakes and learn from them” kind of place.

5.  When does Nick, if ever, plan to go to the swamp? He states that he wasn’t ready then because he gets so far into the water and doesn’t progress any further into the swamp. He said someday he eventually might. Sometimes in life you don’t like to do down that dark path and just move forward, but like I mentioned before you need to reflect on mistakes to learn from them.

Ernest Hemmingway is definelty into using setting. He makes many unsaid statements using his settings. His style is simple and basically down to the point but his setting technique can make a reader think. I really don't like him all that well but he does describe setting a lot better than I ever could. I think, like most people, would like to see more dialouge. The End of Something was probably the best out of these three just because it seemed like there was more dialouge which definlty kept me more entertained than the others.

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