“The End of Something” was written by Earnest Hemmingway.  It is about a young man named Nick Adams and his girl Marjory.  They go fishing together, just spend quality time with each other.  Towards the end of the short story, Nick tells Marjorie that their relationship just isn’t fun anymore and that he doesn’t think that it’s going anywhere.  She says nothing.  All she does is get in the boat and leave Nick (who is having second thoughts) alone to think about what he has done.

            In “The Three Day Blow,” Nick is still coping with losing Marjorie.  He goes to his friend, Bill’s house and proceeds to get drunk and talk about inane things such as baseball and books they’ve read.  The drunker he gets, the more the whole Marjorie thing bothers him.  Bill finally touches on the subject and Nick is able to express his opinion to a certain point.  We can see that Bill doesn’t want Nick to fall into marriage with Marjorie because men that are married get “a fat, married look.” So, Nick doesn’t say much, but it’s obvious that he is feeling the strain that he has placed upon himself.  Later, Nick thinks that he could always go into town on Saturday and see her.  This cheers him up, and, despite being drunk, the two men take down their guns and go hunting.

            “The Big Two-Hearted River” is all about Nick getting away from his main problem with Marjorie.  He goes camping by himself.  The setting in this story shows us things that the missing dialogue does not.  We gain the knowledge and symbolism just from reading how Hemmingway describes Nick’s surroundings.  For example, he leaves a burned, charred area for a deep, lush one.  This, to me, shows that he is leaving his problems behind (the burned area) for something different, different thoughts and feelings (the green area).  There isn’t much talking going on.  All Nick does is camp out by a river and go fishing.  He catches some trout and comes across a swamp.  This swamp also symbolizes something.  Nick’s biggest problem is the swamp.  He looks at it and figures that he won’t go in today, he’ll do it another time.  This shows that he isn’t ready to face his problems just yet. 

            The way that Earnest Hemmingway writes is very unique.  He uses little dialogue and doesn’t seem to get into his characters’ heads.  We only get a grasp on what is happening by paying attention to the symbolism presented by the setting and reading between the lines.

            Personally, I think that Hemmingway would be a magnificent writer if he’d use a little more dialogue and action in his stories.  You can’t always present a story by relying on the metaphors you’ve hidden here and there.  It gets tiring, always having to figure out what the author is trying to say when he doesn’t really even give you a clue.  Also, he writes like a child.  He doesn’t seem to have a wide vocabulary and after a while this gets rather annoying.  Things that don’t need to be explained are pounded into your skull using simple words that don’t make me feel as if he thinks he’s superior to me, that he needs to talk down to his readers.  All in all, I don’t care for Hemmingway’s writing technique one bit.