Short Hemmingway Essay for writing class

Looking at this paragraph I think that Hemmingway is trying to show that Nature is a constant, but a constant that is variable in its very nature. Nature is permanence, but without an observer, it isn’t anything. Humans are the observer that gives the permanence a place in the universe. Without an observer there is nothing, the Zen paradox of ‘if a tree falls in a wood and there is no one to hear it, does it make a sound?’

Indeed, we have the impermanence of humans on a naturalistic time frame, with the lack of human built houses in the location he had expected them to be, but we have instead a sense of man changing nature to suit itself.

With the first fragment, we have

Nick looked at the burned-over stretch of hillside,

I’m afraid I haven’t read Hemmingway, so I don’t know in what context to put this, but there are only two main causes of burnt landscape. Land burning is either natural in origin or human induced. Slash and burn is an effective method of preparing land for poorer farmers, or it could have been caused by more violent destruction, a war or some kind of vandalism.

If it was man changing the landscape, possibly because of agriculture we have man’s impact on nature here as being impermanent because the land will soon be full of life again.

If it was a natural occurrence, such as a forest fire, we again have a kind of eternal impermanence. The land is destroyed, but will soon renew itself.

where he had expected to find the scattered houses of the town

We see again the shorter time impermanence of humans, where there should be houses there aren’t.

and then walked down the railroad track to the bridge over the river.

But here, continued in the very same sentence we have railroad tacks, human interference on the natural world. As the tracks would last many years, we see humanity’s lengthening of the time sense. From just the short life of a person, we then have the longer period of a house, then the even longer period that a railroad would survive.

The river was there.

Indeed it was, the river is always going ‘to be there’. Even if it isn’t. Somewhere there will always be a river, flowing on, no matter what humanity does. What is important is that there is someone there to see this river, at this time, giving that river at that second existence form the point of view of an observer.

It swirled against the log piles of the bridge.

Bridges made from logs, we take from nature to build entirely human structures. These structures are our link between man and nature. The short life of a person reaching into the future through their changes to the world about them. Living on after their death but not reaching the almost infinite lifespan of nature itself.

Nick looked down into the clear, brown water, colored from the pebbly bottom,

Nick as the observer, he sees the river as it is now. That river may dry up, change course, or continue to flow for all time. But without someone to see it, it doesn’t in fact exist. The clear but coloured water is giving us an idea that even seeing the river isn’t enough. Each person sees it differently, looking into a stream of time to see all the way back and all the way forward you get the sense that you can see everything, but it’s an illusion. The water is cloudy from what is happening at that very moment. We cannot look at nature without seeing it through a dark glass.

and watched the trout keeping themselves steady in the current with wavering fins.

As we see nature through this dark glass, we are moved by circumstance. As the fish work hard to keep their place, humanity too works hard to keep itself in the place it has reached. Again man is reaching towards the same kind of permanent impermanence of nature. Wanting to keep everything as it is, but with forces acting on it from natural or man made events which are nicely tied back to the burnt landscape. Nature changes, but those changes do not prevent it being permanent.

As he watched them they changed their positions by quick angles, only to hold steady in the fast water again.

Man fights hard to keep their position in nature, even to dominate it if they can, moving about with the currents of events. Nature gives us the lesson that to stay where you are and not be swept away by events takes a considerable amount of effort. This effort is reflected in the changes man makes to their environment. No effort of man can change the permanence of nature, but man can change the shape of things if they swim hard enough.

Nick watched them a long time.

Without an observer nothing exists. Nick, or in this case humanity has watched nature for thousands of years. Only after that length of observation can the permanence be appreciated. Without man to put everything into order, the only thing that exists is chaos.

So what I believe Hemmingway is trying to say here is that Man is trying to emulate nature in its permanence, building, striving, changing, working towards the same kind of time scale that nature works in. However, we only appreciate the apparent unchanging nature of nature by the very changes the man observes.

Man is a very temporary being, with only a short individual span of years, but man as a collective has had thousands of years to observe nature and to change it. Every impermanent work of man adds to their very permanence, whether it’s the bridge or the railroad, man’s effects live on in nature, but nature itself never changes.