When Nick says ‘There’s going to be a moon tonight’. I feel Nick is changing the subject and does not want to get too into the previous one because then Marjorie will find out how he feels and will be upset and I feel Nick feels that is too soon to reveal this information. I feel Marjorie knows he is changing the subject and doesn’t want him too. I think Marjorie knows she was getting to the point where Nick was about to disclose the information what was on his mind and then he got scared and stopped. I think Marjorie knew this and that is why she wanted to return to the subject because she was getting somewhere with him.
I think when Marjorie says ‘ I know it’. She was hinting she knows what is wrong with him - what he wants to tell her. Although she says ‘I know it’ happily, I think she is happy because she thinks Nick is being romantic because he is talking about the night sky and that is considered to be romantic these days. She may also be happy because he started the conversation and that he took control. Marjorie feels that she has been very much in charge of this relationship and the fact that he is now taking control. She feels happy because this is a side of Nick she has never seen before and she likes him taking the dominant role of the couple.
Marjorie may also be happy because she feels that everything is okay; that she is fishing – a hobby she loves to do – ‘She loves to fish’; that she is with a man she loves and that he is being romantic. She could be saying ‘I know it’ sarcastically. I think this is because she realises that he has been in a ‘funny’ mood with her all day, therefore she is going to do the same. I think Nick may be feeling that she is getting ‘cocky’ and this winds up Nick. I think he may be feeling angry because she does not get what he is trying to tell her about how he wants the relationship to end.
When Nick says ‘You know everything’, I think he is trying to pick a fight. He wants a fight to happen because it is easier to tell her that he doesn’t want to be with her anymore. It is easier because then he has no guilt over them being in a fight and that it was a spur of the moment thing. I think Marjorie feels hostile and that she is provoked into this fight. Hostile because he is picking on the faults of Marjorie for no reason of her own, and she is provoked because he is picking on her. She is bound to respond to he criticisms because I doubt anyone is that secure with themselves to be able to just ignore a bad criticism about themselves which they didn’t instigate.
When Marjorie says ‘Oh Nick, please cut it out! Please, please don’t be that way’, I think she feels that she knows what is coming up. She doesn’t want him to say he wants to break up with her because she doesn’t feel that way – she doesn’t want to break up with him. Nick knows that it is getting to her so it is urging him to say more because this is his chance to finally tell Marjorie how he feels.
When Marjorie says ‘Go on and say it’, I think she takes the dominant role here. She demands to know the truth and she is determined to get it. This is Nicks chance to tell her now more than ever because she is demanding the truth out of him. I think Marjorie is worried because she thinks she knows what he is going to tell her and Nick is anxious to tell her.
When Nick says ‘It isn’t fun anymore, it isn’t fun anymore, not any of it’, he is talking about the relationship, but I think he is saying it about her. He says ‘it’, because if he says ‘you’, then it is directly towards her and would hurt her very much. Nick doesn’t want to cause anymore pain than needed, so he is very careful about his choice of words at this point. I think Marjorie is vulnerable because the man she loves is trying to break up with her. I think Marjorie will be upset for the same reasons.
When Marjorie replys to him saying ‘isn’t love any fun?’, I think her tone is not recognisable because she couldn’t be angry or upset, or have any feelings. It doesn’t state what feelings so I don’t know her exact emotion at this time.
‘No’ – Nick wants this conversation over with quickly – whether it is to spare Marjorie’s feelings or to spare his own. I think he is feeling pretty guilty because he thinks he has upset her. I think Marjorie is stumped by his short answer, and I think she thinks ‘well, there is no point in trying to figure out what went wrong when Nick won’t discuss it’.
When Marjorie says ‘ I’m going to take the boat. You can walk back around the point.’, I think Marjorie wants to get revenge: ‘if he splits up with me, I will take the boat and he can find his own way home.’ Once again she is taking the dominant role. She wants him to react to her. She wants him to say something like ‘lets talk about it’. I think Nick feels that he has got away with the emotional baggage that she could have put on him. She could have been crying, angry, or violent towards him, but she wasn’t. So I think Nick is relieved by this.
‘All right, I’ll push the boat off for you’. Nick doesn’t seem that bothered that Marjorie is going to leave. He could be guilty because he is showing no emotion. I think Marjorie is gutted. She wanted him to react differently. To react in a way that showed he was sorry, or ‘lets work it out’. Instead he just says ‘I’ll push the boat off for you’, like he wants to get rid of her.
‘You don’t need to’. When Marjorie says this she is annoyed, upset and has given up. I think she is annoyed because she didn’t get the reaction from Nick she wanted. I think she is upset because she knows that there is nothing she can do to prevent the relationship from falling apart and I think she has given up because she knows that he is showing no body language to indicate that he regrets saying ‘it isn’t fun anymore’, and that he regrets wanting to end the relationship.
But she keeps her dignity. She just goes, with no fight, no crying and no bad feelings. She turns down his offer which could give the advantage towards her because he broke up with her and now she doesn’t want his love. Its like he rejected her in continuing the relationship and she rejected his offer to help her on her way.
I think Bill shows an interest in fishing, concern for Marjorie, and concern for Nick. I think he shows an interest in fishing because he goes over to the fishing rods – ‘Bill selected a sandwich from the lunch basket and walked over to have a look at the rods.’ He must like fishing because he went over the check the rods. He could have done this because he had an interest in them. If he didn’t, I don’t think he would have gone over to them. He is concerned about Marjorie because he asks ‘did she go all right’. I think Bill may feel a bit guilty because he knew that they were going to break up today, but did nothing to prevent the hurt she could feel. He could have warned her, but it appears that Bill is Nicks friend, therefore he would keep his feelings about the matter to himself, and not get involved. He obviously cares for Nick because he is there when his friend is splitting up with his long-term girlfriend. He knew in advance because he asks ‘if she went all right?’ These are words from a man who knew the situation, so Nick must have discussed this with him. He cares for Nick because he asks how he feels – ‘how do you feel?’ Bill is concerned about Nicks emotions and therefore he must be concerned for him. I think Bill is just a good friend who is understanding about the situation, and that he is there for Nick no matter what the outcome is.
WORDS AT WORK
Hemmingway uses short sentences in his stories. An example of this is in lines 97 to 98: ‘He was afraid to look at Marjorie. Then he looked at her. She sat there with her back toward him. He looked at her back.’ I think he uses short sentences to create tension. The tension being created here is when Nick ends the relationship and tells her that it’s over. The author uses this method to show the emotion and the situation they are both in: ‘he was afraid to look at Marjorie’. The writer puts across Nicks emotion here. The main word that shows this is ‘afraid’. This is a powerful emotive word to show his emotion. ‘Then he looked at her’ – this sentence shows sudden movement of the character. ‘She sat there with her back toward him’. This shows that Marjorie has no emotion to what he just told her. Again the sentence ‘he looked at her back’ shows sudden movement by the character. The whole structure of this paragraph is to build up tension between the characters to show the reader their thoughts, feelings and emotions directly, without them saying or hinting what they were feeling. I also noticed repetition in this paragraph. The word ‘looked’ is mentioned twice. This tells the reader that there was eye contact between Nick and Marjorie .
Nick wanted to see Marjorie’s reaction. This gives the impression to the reader that Nick was feeling guilty. I think this is because he had just told a woman who loved him that he wanted to break up with her. From what I know in society, when you tell a partner you want to break up with them, you expect an emotional response. Any emotion, but from what the author is saying, she had no emotion. Because she had no emotion, Nick felt guilty and confused. Guilty because she may be upset but confused because she shows no emotion. Therefore he doesn’t know what she feels about the situation.
I think when Hemmingway was asked ‘to use vigorous English, not forgetting to strive for smoothness’, this meant for him to use descriptive words and to make sure the reader understood and imagined the setting or scene he was putting across. An example of this is in the first paragraph of the story. It goes into a lot of detail about the scenery, making it easy to imagine what the setting was like. ‘The schooner moved out of the bay towards the open lake, carrying the two great saws, and all the rollers, wheels, belts, and iron, piled on a hull-deep load of lumber.’ This example I have picked out goes into a lot of detail, and makes it easy for us to imagine the setting from this sentence. I can imagine a big boat carrying lots of equipment down the lake. The fact that I get this from that big descriptive sentence is good, because I can visually picture myself being there and I can understand and get to grips with the story which helps me know more about the background the characters lived in. I also helps me to understand the reasoning of the confusion of Nicks decision.
When Hemmingway is asked to be positive, not negative, in his stories, I think this was intended because when he was a writer he wrote in the late 1950’s, which is some time after the wars, and I think that he was asked to write positively so people would read his stories and articles. I don’t think that the public would read negative things because in this era, negative things would have been all around them, and people would want to forget the horrific events that happened during the war. Therefore when they bought newspapers they would want to read positive things and not be reminded of the wars, and have the horror and dismay brought back to them, and generally upsetting the public.
An example of Hemmingway writing positively is when he writes about the reaction of Marjorie in lines 96 – 106. Instead of her being angry, upset, and very emotional at having found out that Nick wants to end the relationship, she just takes grip of the situation with pride and dignity, and accepts what she had just heard, and leaves without any emotion. Hemmingway could have written that she appeared angry and was violent towards Nick, but the fact that he wrote about Marjorie having no emotion is great from my point of view. When I read or see about relationships breaking up, in nearly all of my findings I discover that the female figure is terribly distraught and upset and basically appears degraded. It is stereotypical that the woman has no dignity or control, and that she is an emotional wreck. I like the way Hemmingway has put the woman in control because this changes peoples views about women. Now women are not weak or emotional wrecks all the time. Just because a man has ended a relationship does not mean that the woman cannot survive. I think Hemmingway has put the stereotypical woman right by telling the public that not all women are pushovers.
I think Hemmingway often uses repetition in the story because it makes it more memorable to the reader. I think he wants the reader to really get the point of what he is trying to put across in the story, through the emotions and actions of his characters. By repeating what they do at a certain part of the story, it shows how he wants the readers to take notice, whether it is a vital part of who or what the character is feeling or what he is trying to say in the story. It is like a hidden message.
THEMES AND IDEAS
When asked ‘What’s the matter, Nick?’, I think that he wants to break up with Marjorie straight away, but is scared and worried. I think he is scared because he doesn’t know what Marjorie’s reaction will be. He doesn’t know if she will be angry or violent – that’s why he is scared. I think he could be worried because she could be really upset and he will feel guilty because he made her really upset.
Marjorie didn’t understand this because he doesn’t tell her what the matter is. All she knows is that something is on her boyfriends mind and he looks troubled. She wants to know what’s on his mind because she cares for him and wants him to be able to tell her anything because she can trust him and wants him to be able to trust her.
The story is about a moment when a relationship becomes redundant like the lumber mill. I know this because in the first parapgraph the mill was part of Hortons Bay. It was lively and noisy. ‘No one who lived in it was out of the sound of the big saws in the mill by the lake.’ I know Marjorie and Nick owned the mill because ten years later, when reminding themselves of it, Marjorie describes it as ‘our old ruin’. The mill no longer lives because of something that happened. You could also say it was redundant because it no longer stands. Nick and Marjorie owned that mill and were there when the mill was no longer up and running. Even after 10 years, they have been together after its existence, but as the reader discovers, Nick wants to end the relationship with Marjorie towards the end of the story. So like the mill, their relationship will no longer exist. So the story is about a moment when the relationship becomes redundant like the lumber mill, because they both don’t exist any more.
I think the story suggests that men or women are happy to let relationships change and wither. I think this is because Nick and Marjorie let the old mill die. When looking back on the mill, the couple accept that the mill is no more, and that they are all right with the outcome. I know this because although Marjorie thinks of it as ‘our old ruin’, there is no disappointment that the mill is no longer running. They are quite happy for the mill not to be running anymore, and they have accepted that it is a change in their lives. The same applies to their relationship. When Marjorie finds out the news that Nick is wanting the relationship to end, she is confused because she asks ‘isn’t love fun anymore?’. She accepts that this isn’t going to change. She doesn’t cry and isn’t angry. She just accepts this and moves on with her life. However Nick is more distraught than her, because he shows some emotion – ‘lying his face on the blanket’. He accepts that he has ended the relationship and that if he had worries about it there is nothing he could do.
I think the thing that is the end could apply to the mill, but more importantly the relationship. It is more the relationship between Marjorie and Nick, than the mill, because the mill is described only briefly at the start of the story and used as a metaphor for the readers once thinking about the story after having read it. I think the thing is Nick and Marjories relationship because the whole story is based on those two, the times they had, pulling together and of them breaking up at the end of the story. The only thing that is ending in the story is their relationship, therefore it must be that which Hemmingway is referring to.
FORM AND STRUCTURE.
I would say that the old mill is a part of the story in a great way. 27 out of 118 lines describe the mill and what the mill is to the couple. This is well over a quarter of the story. I think Hemmingway wanted the reader to make the mill one of the main points of the story because it means a lot and has a lot to do with it. I think Hemmingway wanted a quarter of the story to be based on the mill because it is a metaphor for the relationship between Marjorie and Nick, and that the whole story is based on that relationship. Therefore Hemmingway thought that this was a key point for the reader to understand what the story is about.
There is only a line or two about the trawling and fishing from the shore because I don’t think that this was a main part of the story. If it was, then I think Hemmingway would have made this point by having more lines about it. The end of the relationship is about 23 lines out of 118, which is again about a quarter of the story. Hemmingway wanted this as a big part because this was in fact the point of the story. He made this a big part because he wanted the reader to have this remain in their mind because this was the point of the story being created. Nick and Marjories relationship ending.
I think Hemmingway chose to structure the story in this way because it shows the start of the relationship, the life of the relationship and the end of the relationship. Hemmingway has fully explained and given detailed analysis and information about the couple to show the reader how and why the relationship had come to a halt. However he has briefly explained this, but not explained why. I think he has done this so that the reader can come to their own conclusion as to the ending of the relationship and can have their own suggestions and theory as to why it ended and how. He has presented all the information needed and left the conclusion up to the reader. I think this is excellent because there are many different views and theories that can come from this story, giving it a different twist to everyone which is why I think this story is for everyone’s pleasure.