The end of something

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The End of Something (original title: The End of Something ) is a short story by the American writer Ernest Hemingway , which first appeared in the anthology In Our Time in 1925 .

Hemingway tells of his alter ego Nick Adams , who breaks up with his girlfriend Marjorie in the text. The end of this human relationship is also symbolically reflected in the parallel decline of the sawmill in Hortons Bay.

action

The first section depicts the decline of the sawmill in Hortons Bay, which once dominated the place so that there was no place in town where the saws could not be heard. However, one day there were no more tree trunks and the machines were transported across the river. The narrator reports that everything has been removed that made the mill a mill and Hortons Bay a town .

Ten years later, Nick Adams, now around 16 or 17 years old, is fishing on the lake with his girlfriend Marjorie. No fish bite, even when trying to fish for trout with perch . They finally retreat to the campfire on the beach, but Nick resigns and explains only that everything is no longer fun. Nick accuses his girlfriend of always knowing everything, and when asked if love is no longer fun, he answers clearly with "no". Marjorie leaves the place by boat, while Nick is left alone and is visited by a friend named Bill, who apparently knew of Nick's separation intentions. Nick wants to be alone now, which is why Bill looks at the fishing rods.

analysis

The failure of the relationship and love between Nick and Marjorie is reflected in the decay of the once flourishing timber town of Hortons Bay and the decline of the sawmill, which ceased operations when there were no more tree trunks. When Marjorie perceives the ruins of the old sawmill as a ruined castle, Nick can no longer share this romantic fantasy with her and is silent. The end of the relationship also sounds symbolically in the sunset and the rising moon. Likewise, the fish that do not bite while fishing and Nick's insensibility during the entire excursion indicate an end of love. The use of the indefinite pronoun “something” remains ambiguous; it can be related to the end of the love relationship as well as the decline of the city or the end of a phase of life.

What is noticeable is the impersonal narrative attitude of the authorial narrator, who largely holds back ( reticent or non-intrusive narrator ), completely dispenses with narrative comments and only provides extremely limited information about the biography of the two ( "missing biografy" ) as well as the background and the causes for that possible relationship failure supplies.

When Marjories asked what was going on ( What's the matter, Nick? ) , Nick replied several times that he didn't know. It is no longer nice. Nothing at all. ( "I don't know. [...] It isn't fun any more. Not any of it." )

According to Hemingway's iceberg theory, the causes for the change in Nick's feelings are only suggested suggestively. Clues can be found in the striking repetition of the verbs "know" and "say". Nick knows everything about fishing and external nature and can also verbalize this, provided that the linguistic terms clearly correlate with external reality; however, he cannot put into words the world of inner experience and feelings. Marjorie, on the other hand, has not only learned to fish or row just as well as Nick, she also knows everything about the rhythm of the moon and can put her inner ideas into words. This is what bothers Nick: "You know everything."

The growing self-confidence and the increasing independence of Marjories, who, unlike before, is in no way inferior to him but is now superior to him in some ways, is difficult for Nick to endure, as it undermines his male authority. While in the past Nick was the one who played the dominant role in the relationship, which was also accepted by Marjorie, this has now fundamentally changed. Since he is unable to verbally express his feelings, he withdraws. The incomplete information about the biography and the background corresponds to the open ending of the story at the end; it is left to the reader's imagination whether the relationship between Nick and Marjorie has finally failed or whether it can develop further in the future on another basis. Only in the chronologically following story The Three-Day Blow (Eng. Title: Drei Tage Sturm ) does the end of the love relationship become apparent; However, Nick does not want to accept the finality of the separation and feels relief at the thought of being able to return to Marjorie at any time.

Origin and reception

Lake Charlevoix

Hemingway wrote The End of Something in March 1924; the short story was first published in his anthology In Our Time in 1925 . The small town of Hortons Bay was previously the setting for the short story Up in Michigan from 1921/22 (original title: Up in Michigan ). The writer F. Scott Fitzgerald , friend of Hemingway, called the story something fundamentally new . The entire anthology was very well received by critics and readers.

Autobiographical

Hemingway often spent weekends fishing and fishing in the small town of Horton Bay (spelling without - s ) on Lake Charlevoix in Michigan , where his childhood friend Wesley Dilworth came from. The name Marjorie is reminiscent of Marjorie Bumb, who Hemingway met in Dilworth's little restaurant on the lake. Hemingway's marriage to his first wife, Hadley Richardson, took place in September 1921 in the Methodist Church in Horton Bay.

Secondary literature

  • Detlef Gohrbandt: The End of Something . In: Detlef Gohrbandt: Ernest Hemingway - The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber and Other Stories · Model Interpretations , Klett Verlag, Stuttgart 1985, ISBN 3-12-577390-3 , pp. 23-31.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ See Carlos Baker: Hemingway - The Writer as Artist , Princeton University Press 4th ed. 1973, ISBN 0-691-01305-5 , p. 410.
  2. ^ Ernest Hemingway: The First Forty-Nine Stories , Arrow Books Limited, London 1993, p. 104.See also the German translation: Ernest Hemingway: Gesammelte Werke Volume 6, p. 136.
  3. ↑ See the information about the age in Detlef Gohrbandt: The End of Something , p. 27.
  4. ↑ See Detlef Gohrbandt: The End of Something , p. 24 f.
  5. ↑ See Detlef Gohrbandt: The End of Something, p. 27.
  6. ^ Ernest Hemingway: The First Forty-Nine Stories , Arrow Books Limited, London 1993, p. 104.
  7. ↑ See text, p. 103. See Detlef Gohrbandt: The End of Something, p. 28 f.
  8. ↑ See cf. Detlef Gohrbandt: The End of Something, p. 30 f.
  9. ↑ See Carlos Baker: Hemingway - The Writer as Artist , Princeton University Press 4th ed. 1973, ISBN 0-691-01305-5 , p. 136.
  10. ^ Smith, Paul. "The End of Something," A Reader's Guide to the Short Stories of Ernest Hemingway. Ed. James Nagel. Boston. GK Hall & Co, 1989, p. 50.
  11. ↑ See Detlef Gohrbandt: The End of Something , p. 23. See also in detail Carlos Baker: Ernest Hemingway: A Life Story, The Literary Guild , London 1969, pp. 24 f., 88–92 and 109 ff.